The scariest thing about playing the Minnesota Lynx is not that you don’t stand a chance, which, to be clear, you probably don’t. It’s that for a quarter or two or however long they want, the Lynx will let you feel like you do. Their 82-69 win over Phoenix in Game 1 of the best-of-five semifinals took a familiar shape—the same shape as their last win, over Golden State, and the same shape as many of their regular-season wins. They may need a minute to settle in, they might just take the second quarter off, but it doesn’t matter. Eventually you’ll mess up, and the Lynx will tighten the screws.
The Lynx trailed the Mercury by seven at halftime, and the incredible first-half shotchart was a pretty good sketch of what the Mercury offense is always trying to do. Alyssa Thomas can hurtle toward the basket on a fast break, but in the halfcourt she can just as quickly hunt a mismatch. She leaned both on those instincts and on her sheer strength to score 16 points in the half. By the break, the Lynx and their All-Defense frontcourt had ceded a shocking (and playoff-record!) 42 points in the paint—that is, all but five of Phoenix’s first-half points. When Holly Rowe asked Thomas in a sideline interview how she planned to guard Napheesa Collier, Thomas coolly answered, “Yeah, she gotta guard me too.”
Fair enough. So they did. Thomas would only score two more points the rest of the way as the Lynx defense keyed in on stopping the inverted pick-and-rolls that were letting Thomas get to the rim. “We cleaned up guarding probably the most difficult play for any team in the league to guard,” Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said. “Once we solved that a little bit, we made that a little harder, they went to other areas in their offense and we were mostly prepared for some of that.”
The first-half Lynx bring to mind hitmen in movies, studying their targets’ movement patterns before the kill. When they’ve collected the information they need, they strike with sudden precision. “I think once we settled in, after setting records in the wrong direction, we spent all of halftime sort of hearing how could defend better, defend the paint, address what their concerns were,” Reeve said. “It was a collaborative effort.” By limiting Thomas as a playmaking hub, they cut off oxygen to the rest of her team. The Mercury scored 47 first-half points and just 22 second-half points, only 12 of those in the paint.
Like any good cinematic contract killer, they go about their business with little noise or drama. Before the game, the league presented Lynx center Alanna Smith with her trophy for winning Defensive Player of the Year, a title she shared with A’ja Wilson. But when the Lynx were struggling to rebound late, Reeve had no qualms pulling Smith for bench big Maria Kliundikova, who hadn’t played since Game 1 of the Valkyries series, when she came in for a few garbage time minutes in a 30-point game. Kliundikova instantly made a difference on the glass; her ability to come down with defensive rebounds and get the Lynx second-chance points helped Minnesota close the game on a 14-2 run.
Talent certainly sets this team apart. So does coaching. Reeve has never been especially keen to go deep into her bench, and the Kliundikova substitution might not be a move she would have made last year. But like her team, Reeve was quick to adapt and course-correct when the situation called for it. “We just got to the point where we just needed something different and Mash rose to the occasion for us,” she said. “So credit to Mash for being ready and for being big.” It was just business.
