INDIANAPOLIS – The most critical commonality for the Minnesota Lynx and Indiana Fever, as of Tuesday, was each other. The teams will meet in two straight games to end the WNBA regular season. The same faces effectively will decide each other’s postseason fates over at least 80 minutes.
As pure theater, Tuesday’s meeting had promise. Their only previous meeting in early August featured 208 combined points and became the second-most-watched WNBA regular-season game ever. “That was one of the best games of the season,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said before this one.
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History did not repeat. But a reenergized Fever squad atoned for one of its worst offensive performances of the season with one of its most efficient halves all year, then held off a lineup of ornery Lynx reserves in a 96-77 win at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. It assured Indiana will slide no lower than the sixth seed in the postseason while leaving Minnesota with a couple glaring concerns.
The Lynx need to win a rematch Thursday to clinch the No. 1 seed in the postseason, all while All-Star and MVP contender Olivia Miles missed Tuesday’s game with a left calf injury. Reeve certainly seemed to take direct aim at some urgency well before the night was over: She benched every starter to begin the second half, and if it didn’t bring her team all the way back, it certainly sent a message.
More takeaways from the penultimate performance of the regular season for both sides:
No more Minnesota nice
Over the first two months of the season, the Lynx allowed opponents to score 89 or more points just four times. It’s now happened eight times since the beginning of August — including four straight games going into the regular-season finale. They have not deluded themselves about the problem.
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“I want to see the ‘F you’ about us,” wing Kayla McBride said before the game. “And I mean that wholeheartedly. Like I don’t care about the outcomes, I don’t think, at this point. I’m more concerned about our ‘F you’ towards the other team. Just going and ripping people’s hearts out and taking momentum back, and finishing games and putting hammers down.”
Instead, the team played lethargically and missed shots from the start, with the Fever multiple steps ahead in ball movement and rim-running in transition. Hence Reeve’s unmistakable message at halftime: deploy a lineup of five reserves to start the third quarter.
That group actually cut the deficit in half within the first three minutes of the third quarter, ultimately outscoring the Fever by 16 in the frame. It didn’t last, as Indiana kept the visitors at arm’s length in the fourth quarter. The Lynx have been trending sideways since the All-Star break, and this is the last chance for a wake-up call.
Indiana back in the Boston market
The Fever’s 77 points on Sunday was the second-lowest total of the season, and the main fix was playing through All-Star center Aliyah Boston with more intent. Boston totaled just 15 points on 14 shots across Indiana’s last two games, which is a very good plan if the idea is to lose early in the postseason.
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Foul trouble plaguing Boston against Washington over the weekend wasn’t enough of an excuse for Fever coach Stephanie White. “I’m concerned,” she said before the game. “We gotta get A.B. going. She’s gotta be a focal point of what we do.”
It took Boston about four minutes to get her hands on the ball in the paint on Tuesday, and she didn’t record an official field goal attempt until 29 seconds remained in the first quarter. But the slow-ish start didn’t last. She finished with 17 points and seven boards, doing the most damage early. By the end of the half, Boston’s scoring total (13 points) nearly matched her previous two nights out.
But everyone felt the relief. Before the game, White said the Fever were searching for their flow, especially against better teams that can drag the Fever into slogs. “In terms of the grit, it’s like, we gotta be willing to play through the mud, so to speak,” White said. “We’ve got to be willing to be intentional about getting to the second, third and sometimes fourth action.”
All the actions worked early Tuesday. The Fever had nine assists on nine made shots in the first quarter and 17 helpers on 18 makes at halftime — a pretty astounding share rate even for Indiana. And following White’s plea for more help from the bench, Sophie Cunningham took the floor for extra shooting well before tipoff and then contributed 11 points after a zero-point, seven-minute showing on Sunday.
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Even Kelsey Mitchell‘s record streak of 20-point games survived, barely, on a 3-pointer just before the two-minute mark of the fourth quarter, making it 27 such performances in a row.
Miles to go?
In an eyebrow-raiser, Miles was listed as questionable early Tuesday with a left calf muscle injury. The All-Star rookie logged 30 minutes in Connecticut on Sunday with no discernible issue, so eyes were on her when the doors opened for a shootaround viewing window at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
The good sign: Whatever the problem with her calf, Miles moved around easily while arguing semantics over the half-court shot contest to end the workout. The bad signs: Miles wore glasses, not goggles, suggesting she didn’t see competitive action. And she left the arena with an ice bag taped to her lower leg.
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About 90 minutes before tipoff, the Lynx officially ruled out Miles for the night. That took 19.8 points and six assists per game out of the lineup with a playoff seeding in the balance. “It changes a lot, because she’s the head of the snake,” White said before the game. “It changes coverage, it changes who their primary ballhandler is, probably the actions they run.”
The question, now, is how ready Miles will be for the Thursday night rematch in Minneapolis — and how well she’ll hold up for the playoff run.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Minnesota Lynx, Indiana Fever, WNBA
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