A rematch of last season’s WNBA Finals feels in some ways like a playoff series for the Lynx, who beat the Liberty on Sunday 83-71 before travelling home. The team doesn’t play again until hosting New York on Saturday. The Lynx then return to Barclays Center to face the Liberty on Aug. 19, playing three times in nine days.
“It’s a weird schedule, three games in nine days,” Minnesota guard Kayla McBride said. “You get to know a team and what they like to do.”
New York doesn’t have the same luxury, heading west for back-to-back games against Los Angeles and Las Vegas on Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to play Minnesota for the home-and-home set.
“It would have been nice to have it be spread out a little bit,” New York coach Sandy Brondello said. “It’s a series with a few games extra for us, not for them.”
This is the fifth time since 2013 that one team has played another in three straight games in the regular season, according to Stats Perform. New York and Las Vegas played three straight games against each other in 2022. The year before the Lynx had three consecutive matchups against Indiana.
A number of factors go into scheduling such as arena availability.
The two teams will have played four times over a three-week stretch with Minnesota winning the first matchup at home on July 30.
New York star Breanna Stewart will most likely miss all of the games while recovering from a bone bruise in her right knee. Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier, who is a front-runner for the MVP this season, was out for Sunday’s matchup while dealing with a sprained right ankle. She might miss the next two meetings as well as she recovers.
“You never know what’s going to happen with teams and like the league didn’t know that Phee and I were both going to be out,” Stewart said. “You want to see everybody full throttle. That’s the first game of the season or the second or the third, not August.”
Minnesota (27-5) currently has the best record in the WNBA with New York 6 1/2 games behind.