The Lynx opened the 2025 campaign with a 28-5 mark and had the look of the clear best team in the WNBA.<\/p>\n
Their net rating through 33 games was 14.3 \u2013 double that of the second-best team.<\/p>\n
They finished the regular season 6-4 and were bounced in the semifinals by Phoenix.<\/p>\n
In contrast, when Minnesota reached the WNBA Finals in 2024, it closed the regular season with 14 wins in its final 16 games (including a loss in the regular season finale in which Napheesa Collier didn\u2019t play).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to peak twice in a basketball season. Teams hope to play their best hoops at the season\u2019s conclusion. Synergy in this sport requires an exact blend of high-talent players competing with the necessary force and patience to get the best out of themselves and one another.<\/p>\n
Once the foot comes off the gas, can you re-apply the pressure on the pedal?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a question for the Lynx to attempt to answer yet again this postseason \u2013 starting with Game 1 of Round 1 on Sunday against New York.<\/p>\n
Minnesota again motored out of the gates this season, going 31-7 through mid-August with the league\u2019s clear-best net rating.<\/p>\n
But the Lynx have played just six games since then \u2013 thanks to the FIBA break \u2013 and gone 2-4 in that span with a minus-4.7 net rating. Minnesota coach and basketball boss Cheryl Reeve lamented the slippage in performance at seemingly every turn. She knows it matters.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to understand the \u201cwhy\u201d for the dip. There can be rust when coming off a lengthy break, and Minnesota had a high seed sewn up and little for which to play in the post-break portion of the regular season.<\/p>\n
But now it\u2019s go time. Can Minnesota simply flip the switch and revert to the dominant force it established itself as over the first 80% of the season?<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s regular season finale had to be reassuring, as Minnesota\u2019s tenacious defense suffocated a motivated Inidiana team that blitzed the Lynx two nights prior.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy for us just to get that feeling back of what it takes to be successful,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cThe leadership was there, the want to, the connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reeve also highlighted the team\u2019s shotmaking on Thursday. When you score, you can set your defense and limit the opponent\u2019s pace.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the defensive the side of the floor will determine Minnesota\u2019s ceiling in these playoffs.<\/p>\n
A unit featuring the likes of Kayla McBride, Collier and Natasha Howard should be able to limit any opposing offense.<\/p>\n
But such performances require nastiness on that end \u2013 an intense focus on detail and the willingness to relentlessly exert endless energy to defend every inch of the floor.<\/p>\n
Those traits are traditionally habits instilled over months of repetition. Minnesota did that. The work was put in over the first four months of the campaign.<\/p>\n
Then it let a lot slide. Now it\u2019s time to return to form.<\/p>\n
Ideally for the Lynx, the game against Indiana was the first major step forward in that process. Because it has to be a quick one. If it is, the end-of-regular season swoon will be but a blip on the radar.<\/p>\n
But if it\u2019s not, another magical season could end far, far sooner than expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lynx opened the 2025 campaign with a 28-5 mark and had the look of the clear best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[1077,99,434],"class_list":["post-861861","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\/861861","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=861861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}