MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Cheryl Reeve described the locker room conversation at halftime in the same terms one might use to praise a brainstorming session at a corporate retreat. \u201cIt was collaborative,\u201d said the Lynx coach. \u201cThey were all engaged.\u201d Her group had entered the locker room down by seven. It would return an hour later with a comfortable win.<\/p>\n
But that is standard operating procedure in Minnesota. The No. 1 seed Lynx make almost everything look easy. They can play with a sense of urgency but without any panic. This is not a perfect team. But it\u2019s such a calm, balanced, cohesive one that it can sometimes be possible to believe otherwise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Lynx shut down the Mercury in the second half to win Game 1 of the WNBA semifinals by a score of 82\u201369.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Minnesota\u2019s halftime conversation had been a collaborative example of group engagement, its performance that followed was, too. This was the first game of the season in which both Courtney Williams and Kayla McBride scored more than 20 points: Williams led all scorers with 23 and McBride finished with 21. Both guards did their best work in the second half. They were joined by Napheesa Collier, who scored six consecutive points to take the lead in the third quarter, and Bridget Carleton, who helped them keep it with her rebounding and a pair of timely baskets. And some of the biggest minutes of the game came from reserve Maria Kliundikova. The center logged twice as much time in just the second half today as she had in both games of the first round combined.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is how the Lynx prefer to win. All year, they have joked about being fueled by the power of friendship, and if that might be a bit reductive, it\u2019s hard to argue they are not fueled by the power of sharing. Minnesota set a WNBA record for assists this season at 23.3 per game\u2014breaking the record this same group set last season. It regularly makes big asks of the bench. (Consider that Minnesota has both the second- and third-place candidates for Sixth Player of the Year in Natisha Hiedeman and Jessica Shepard.) Cheesy as it may sound, they really do play like a team whose halftime discussions can fairly be described as \u201ccollaborative,\u201d defined by their level of group engagement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn those moments, when we need to brainstorm or whatever, it\u2019s never like we\u2019re all on islands,\u201d McBride said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing it together. That\u2019s really what it is. We\u2019re just trying to problem-solve.\u201d<\/p>\n
What they needed to solve here was the problem they faced in Alyssa Thomas. The forward had 16 points in the first half for Phoenix\u2014nearly all of them in the paint, slicing through to the basket seemingly at will, no matter who or what might be in her way. The primary assignment on her belonged to Collier. But the Mercury have a knack for triggering coverage that forces smaller guards to switch on to Thomas. And so here was the subject of their halftime brainstorming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thomas had just two points in the second half.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Minnesota\u2019s adjustment was partially a matter of switching up looks and forcing Phoenix to turn to options besides Thomas. It was partially a matter of introducing Kliundikova. While she gets limited minutes, she has the longest wingspan on this roster, and there may be no member of this group who has better raw tools for rim protection. (That includes co-Defensive Player of the Year Alanna Smith<\/a>.) She did not see the floor in the first half. But then Reeve put Kliundikova out instead of Smith. In just eight minutes of play, she recorded four rebounds and two steals, and she finished +14.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe was definitely a game-changer,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWhen you sit most of the game, you\u2019ve got to come in and make that instant impact, you\u2019ve just got to be mentally strong, and that\u2019s exactly what she is.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Game 1 was not an ideal outing for the Lynx. (Their first half was far too sluggish.) But it was something like an ideal display of their strengths. Their biggest star is Collier<\/a>\u2014who had been announced as MVP runner-up <\/a>on Sunday\u2014but their biggest asset is how they fit together as a unit. That\u2019s instrumental not just to why they win but how they win.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey problem-solve together. They don\u2019t finger-point,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cIt\u2019s a mature group, emotionally mature, and I didn\u2019t do anything to bring that along. That\u2019s just who they\u2019ve always, always been.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Which, again, might feel like a compliment better suited for an especially productive office unit. But it\u2019s befitting a group who make winning this way feel like business as usual.<\/p>\n SI WNBA Playoffs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Cheryl Reeve described the locker room conversation at halftime in the same terms one might use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-160719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}