{"id":757374,"date":"2026-07-11T21:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757374\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T21:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T21:25:14","slug":"miles-returns-with-23-points-as-lynx-beat-liberty-twin-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/757374\/","title":{"rendered":"Miles returns with 23 points as Lynx beat Liberty \u2013 Twin Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olivia Miles made a triumphant return Saturday.<\/p>\n

Back after missing two games with a strained calf, Miles scored 23 points, corralled a huge rebound late, and the Minnesota Lynx beat New York 90-85 at Target Center.<\/p>\n

With the Lynx up 88-85, Courtney Williams missed a pull-up jumper with 16 seconds left. The ball bounded around for three seconds before Miles grabbed it near the corner. Rather than driving back to traffic near the rim, the No. 2 overall pick in this year\u2019s draft played keepaway on the dribble for five seconds before getting fouled. Two free throws provided the final Minnesota points.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe thinks the game in a way that was not surprising at all,\u201d said coach Cheryl Reeve.<\/p>\n

Natasha Howard had a steal as the final seconds ticked away, and the sold-out crowd of 12,405 roared in support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to protect our home court. Our fans were amazing today,\u201d Kayla McBride said in an on-court postgame interview. She led the team with 25 points and had four steals.<\/p>\n

Howard had 16 points and nine rebounds, and Williams had 12 points and 12 rebounds (5 offensive) in a game Minnesota (17-6) led by 15 points midway through the third quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not supposed to be easy; certainly wasn\u2019t easy,\u201d Reeve said.<\/p>\n

Minnesota made a season-high 14 shots from outside the arc, including five from McBride and four from Miles.<\/p>\n

Three straight triples by McBride gave Minnesota an 84-80 lead with 2:43 left, Marine Johannes answered with her own try for the Liberty, and Howard converted a feed from Nia Coffey to make it 86-83.<\/p>\n

Miles made two free throws for an 88-83 lead with 52.9 seconds left before Sabrina Ionescu missed from deep on a shot that would have gotten New York within a bucket.<\/p>\n

Once she settled in, Miles found her groove in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

Missing her first five shots, the All-Star Game starter in two weeks sank her next four, three of which were triples. That included a 3-pointer with one second before halftime to give the Lynx a 42-32 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked all the shots she was getting,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cI liked her overall game.\u201d<\/p>\n

But New York\u2019s got a pretty good guard, too.<\/p>\n

Ionescu took over for New York (13-10) in the third quarter, scoring as many points as Minnesota in the frame.<\/p>\n

Ionescu scored 19 of her 25 points in the third quarter, a frame that included a 21-2 Liberty run over a nearly five-minute span that gave New York a 62-58 lead before a late McBride triple got the Lynx within a point with 10 minutes to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just couldn\u2019t find our footing; they were playing off our misses. We got to the fourth quarter and steadied ourselves,\u201d Reeve said.<\/p>\n

Briefly<\/p>\n

Before the game, Gov. Tim Walz presented a proclamation designating Saturday as \u201cCheryl Reeve Day\u201d in Minnesota to honor the coach, who set a WNBA record with her 380th regular season win Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\"SabrinaSabrina Ionescu #20 of the New York Liberty draws a foul against Kayla McBride #21 of the Minnesota Lynx in the first quarter at Target Center on July 11, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by David Berding\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olivia Miles made a triumphant return Saturday. Back after missing two games with a strained calf, Miles scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[1077,99,434],"class_list":["post-757374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}