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Tag: the lynx

  • Mercury aim to ride momentum vs. Lynx in pivotal Game 3

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    (Photo credit: Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images)

    The Phoenix Mercury have turned seizing home-court advantage into their postseason identity.

    The Mercury gained the upper hand in their WNBA semifinal series against the top-seed Minnesota Lynx with a Game 2 road victory Tuesday, and they will begin defense of their home floor in the third game of the best-of-five series Friday.

    The Mercury overcame a 20-point deficit in the final 16 minutes of regulation and scored the first six points of overtime while evening the series with an 89-83 victory.

    ‘This is a battle-tested team,’ Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts said of the Lynx. ‘We haven’t done anything yet. We needed to get one there (Minneapolis). We did our job.’The Lynx, who have won four league titles and lost in the finals last year, took Game 1 82-69 at home by outscoring the Mercury by 13 in the fourth quarter. Game 4 is in Phoenix on Sunday.

    ‘It’s a resilient team,’ Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said of her group. ‘It’s a team that responds. There are problem-solvers. Nobody said this stuff was going to be easy. It’s all part of the journey.

    ‘Now we have to beat a really good team at their place. That’s a tall order. We’ll do all we can to do it.’

    The Mercury took home court from defending champion New York in the second game of their first-round series and clinched it with a win in Game 3 at home.

    Lynx point guard Courtney Williams has 43 points, 16 assists and 15 rebounds in this series. Napheesa Collier, the runner-up in league MVP voting, has 42 points and 15 rebounds.

    Pressured by Alyssa Thomas, Collier missed a 16-footer at the buzzer after the Mercury’s Sami Whitcomb hit a 3-pointer with 4.3 seconds remaining to send Tuesday’s game into overtime.

    ‘This is what it’s all about,’ Thomas said. ‘You play the whole season for the playoffs and moments like these. I’ve been chasing a championship for a long time. I think this is our time.’

    Thomas, who spent her first 11 seasons with Connecticut, directs Tibbetts’ free-flowing offense from the foul-line extended. The Mercury went small in their comeback Tuesday.

    Thomas, third in MVP voting, led the league with a career-high 9.2 assists per game in the regular season. Williams was second at 6.2. Thomas has eight triple-doubles and is averaging 18.5 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds in the series.

    Phoenix’s Satou Sabally had 24 points, including five 3-pointers, and nine rebounds in Game 2.

    After making 3 of 23 threes in Game 1, the Mercury were 13 of 32 in the second game.

    When ‘Sa’ makes threes, she’s pretty good,’ Tibbetts said. ‘They have a decision to make, right? They are either going to take away the paint or take away threes. It’s really hard to do both.’

    –Field Level Media

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  • Lynx, striving to clinch top playoff seed, visit improving Sun

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    (Photo credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images)

    As they close in on clinching the top seed in the WNBA postseason, the Minnesota Lynx are slumping for the first time this season and doing so even with the return of Napheesa Collier from an ankle injury.

    The Lynx attempt to avoid consecutive losses for the second time this season as Collier plays her third game since returning Saturday night in a visit to the Connecticut Sun in Uncasville, Conn.

    The Lynx won six straight and 10 of 11 earlier this summer, a stretch that featured three wins over the New York Liberty. Starting with an 85-75 loss at New York on Aug. 19, Minnesota (30-8) is 2-3 in its past five games.

    Collier returned from missing seven games in Sunday’s 97-84 win over the Indiana Fever and scored 32 points. On Thursday, Collier shot 7-of-23 from the field and was held to 18 in a 93-79 home loss to the Seattle Storm, when the Lynx blew a 21-point lead by getting outscored 60-33 in the second half.

    ‘Play some defense, man,’ coach Cheryl Reeve said after Minnesota allowed 11 3s in the second half and a season-worst 16 overall. ‘Act like that, and (it) matters. We have not done that in a long time. And that was the focus. You play one quarter of defense, and that’s it.’

    The Lynx shot 44.1 percent Thursday as they took their largest margin of defeat this season, and it marked the fourth time in six games they shot 45 percent or lower.

    Connecticut (10-28) will finish with a losing record in a full season for the first time since 2016 but is playing better of late. The Sun dropped 10 straight June 8-July 6 and five straight Aug. 3-11 but since the second skid, they are 5-2 with the two losses coming by a combined eight points.

    The Sun are returning home after earning a 101-95 win over the Dallas Wings on Wednesday. Rookie Leila Lacan led the Sun in scoring for the third time in this improved stretch by scoring a career-high 22 points for the second straight game.

    Lacan started for the 10th in 11 games Thursday and reached double figures for the ninth time this year.

    ‘It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,’ veteran Tina Charles said of Connecticut’s recent improvement. ‘I think we’re definitely defining that. Everybody’s coming together.’

    –Field Level Media

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  • Explosive Lynx offense hands loss to injury-plagued Fever

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    (Photo credit: Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

    Jessica Shepard had a triple-double, Kayla McBride tied her season-high with 29 points and the visiting Minnesota Lynx rode a strong third quarter to a 95-90 victory over the Indiana Fever on Friday night.

    Shepard finished with season-highs of 22 points and 11 assists and added 11 rebounds, and Natisha Hiedeman scored 17 for the Lynx (29-7), who trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half before McBride helped them get within two points at halftime and outscore the Fever (19-17) 32-17 in the third quarter.

    WNBA-leading Minnesota, playing its seventh consecutive game without star forward Napheesa Collier (ankle), had lost consecutive games for the first time this season and was completing a back-to-back after a 75-73 loss at Atlanta on Thursday.

    Kelsey Mitchell scored 27, Lexie Hull had 23, Aliyah Boston had 15 and Shey Peddy added 10 in her debut for the Fever, who played their 14th consecutive game without All-Star guard Caitlin Clark (groin) and their first since losing guard Sophie Cunningham, the team’s most accurate 3-point shooter, to a season-ending knee injury.

    McBride made a jumper to start the third-quarter scoring and she added two more during a 9-0 run that gave Minnesota a 65-56 lead. Mitchell made a 3-pointer to end the run, but Hiedeman scored the final four points to give the Lynx an 82-69 lead at the end of the third quarter.

    Indiana got within five points four times in the final 2:02, but got no closer.

    Hull scored 11 points and the Fever made 5 of 6 3-pointers while taking their largest lead of the first quarter, 22-13. Shepherd had the last four of her 10 first-quarter points and two assists to help the Lynx close within 27-22 at the end of the first quarter.

    Minnesota’s DiJonai Carrington’s basket started the second-quarter, but Damiris Dantas, Hull and Peddy made consecutive 3-pointers and Indiana expanded the lead to 36-24. McBride responded with consecutive 3-pointers and added nine more points and an assist to help the Lynx pull even at 50 before Mitchell’s jumper gave Indiana a 52-50 halftime lead.

    –Field Level Media

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