So I was sitting in a sports bar in my neighborhood last week when a Lynx fan who knows me approached my table with a question: How worried should he be about the Lynx going into the playoffs?
Context: This happened before Tuesday night’s substandard effort and blowout loss at Indiana that Napheesa Collier called “embarrassing;” before Rookie of the Year favorite Olivia Miles missed the final two games with a strained left calf; and after the New York Liberty hounded Miles baseline to baseline and beat the Lynx at home Sept. 18 in the first game after the two-week FIBA World Cup break.
This fan isn’t alone. Many others posted similar concerns on social media the last few weeks as the Lynx struggled to lock up the No. 1 playoff seed, losing four of five, the first extended funk of the season. This followed a seven-week stretch where the Lynx appeared unbeatable, riding a superior offense (and a less impressive defense) to win 16 of 17, inspiring thoughts of that elusive fifth WNBA title.
The Lynx finally backed into the top seed late Tuesday night when Golden State lost in overtime at Portland. Hours earlier, the Lynx squandered the chance to clinch it themselves. That 96-77 drubbing at Indiana saw Coach Cheryl Reeve bench starters Collier, Kayla McBride, Natasha Howard and Courtney Williams midway through the second quarter and leave them there the rest of the night. Not the way to energize your fan base with the playoffs starting Sunday.
“We should be disappointed and embarrassed about the product that we put on the floor tonight,” Collier, the Lynx captain, told reporters on site in Indianapolis. “Not proud of what we did.
“These things cannot happen. We had just met about the things we want to get done in the postseason, and we didn’t do any of these things.”
Thursday night at Target Center, in the final game of the regular season, the Lynx responded with an overwhelming recovery against the same Fever team that dismantled them two nights earlier. Led by McBride’s hot shooting, the Lynx jumped to a 25-4 lead in the first eight minutes, to the delight of the raucous Fan Appreciation Night crowd of 15,221. The Lynx led by as many as 36 in an eventual 86-66 rout that saw reserves play the entire fourth quarter.
That seemed to quell some of the fan angst going into Sunday, when the Lynx (33-11) host the New York Liberty (26-18) in Game 1 of a best-of-three first round series, a rematch of the bitterly-contested 2024 finals.
“I’m not surprised at how we came out,” Reeve said after the game. “I’m happy for us to kind of get that feeling back, knowing we’re going to be successful. The leadership was there, the want-to, the connection. And obviously shot-making. That was a big part of it.”
The Lynx shot a sizzling 70.6% in the first quarter, with five players combining for six 3-pointers. Collier hit a pair of threes and didn’t score again, but she didn’t have to. McBride hit six 3-pointers among her game-high 22 points, and Howard added 21 points inside with eight rebounds.
“It felt good to play cohesively for the first time in a while,” McBride said.
Most importantly, the Lynx held Indiana to 34.2% shooting, its best defensive effort in more than a month.
Defense has been an issue since midsummer. For Reeve, holding an opponent below 40% shooting is a key benchmark that usually leads to victory. Since 2010, Reeve’s first season, the Lynx are 185-9 when opponents shoot less 40%, a note Reeve gleefully references and updates every time the Lynx do it.
But before Thursday, the Lynx hit that mark only once in 24 games since June 28. Reeve remembered, without looking it up, the one time – Aug. 19 at Golden State. The Lynx did it 10 times in the first 19 games. It’s happened so infrequently lately the Lynx no longer include that stat in their pregame press notes.
No surprise, then, that since early July the Lynx have fallen from first to fourth in the league in team defensive rating. It doesn’t take a metrics savant to understand that’s not helpful for a team with championship aspirations. The loss at Indiana, even without Miles, illustrated the issue more than any stat.
So what happened?
“I’ve really spent a lot of time trying to figure that out,” Reeve said. A record-setting season for offense leaguewide, coupled with the lack of a deep bench, made it harder for the Lynx to clamp down for 40 minutes as the season went along and minutes piled up for the starters.
“If we could really get that going again,” Reeve said, “that would be great.”
Then there’s the 15-7 home record, a .681 winning percentage which looks good by most standards except the ones the Lynx set for themselves. Let’s face it: If the Twins won two-thirds of their home games, they’d be in the playoffs. But baseball isn’t basketball, where home dominance really means dominance.
In the four Lynx WNBA championship seasons – 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017 – the Lynx went 14-3, 15-2, 13-4 and 15-2 at home in the regular season. They were even better in 2012, going 16-1 before losing in the finals to Indiana. That’s the kind of dominance we’re talking. The Lynx established that the last two seasons, going 16-4 in 2024 (lost in the finals) and 20-2 last year (lost in the semis).
This season, not so much. The Lynx held fourth-quarter leads in four of their seven home losses (another was tied) but couldn’t finish things off. Conversely, the Lynx went 18-4 on the road, breaking the WNBA record for road victories.
“It sucks to have the record we do at home,” Reeve said. “We’re not satisfied with that remotely.”
Oddly, that issue comes at a time the Target Center has never been fuller or louder for Lynx games. This season the Lynx attracted a club record 19 crowds of 10,000 or more, almost three times more than last season’s total (seven) and nearly twice as many as the previous club from the 1999 inaugural season (10). For the first time, the Lynx opened the upper level of Target Center for every game, not just for the Camp Day matinee or the occasional Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers appearances.
It also reflects the rising popularity of the WNBA and women’s basketball in general, coinciding with Clark and Angel Reese coming into the league. Reeve likens it to the 1979 arrivals of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird to the NBA, a ready-made rivalry sowed in the NCAA Tournament. Here’s how big things have become: Though the Lynx set a club record for average home attendance (12,351 per game), it ranked only sixth among the league’s 15 teams.
So what’s next? The Liberty beat the Lynx two of three this season, most recently Sept. 18, when the Lynx gave up 26 points in the final 8:18 to lose, 93-81. That the Liberty, with 26 wins, are only a No. 8 seed says plenty about the depth of the playoff field. To these eyes, any of the eight could advance to the finals – a first. Each poses specific challenges for the Lynx. In New York’s case, defending Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu proved problematic in all three meetings.
“I don’t think anybody should be surprised by any outcomes,” Reeve said. “I wouldn’t be surprised by anything, because I think all the teams are that good.”
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