For three straight losses, the Lynx looked like a team waiting on its best player. Sunday in Connecticut, Napheesa Collier stopped making them wait on the first possession, and Minnesota built a lead big enough to survive nearly giving it all back after halftime.
Collier scored the game’s first four points, Minnesota ripped off an 11-2 start and led 27-12 after one quarter, and with under four minutes left in the half the lead had ballooned to 45-26. Collier had 19 of her 23 before the break. Then the Lynx stopped guarding anybody, and a 10-32 club turned a 19-point rout into a nervous night.
Collier finished with 23 points, and the number matters less than the timing. After 14 points at home against the Liberty, she came out in Connecticut and buried the Sun before they got comfortable. That is the version of this team the record was built on.
Olivia Miles added 21 and made history doing it, passing Caitlin Clark for the most points by a rookie in a WNBA season when she hit a free throw in the second quarter to reach 770, one clear of Clark’s 769 from 2024. Natasha Howard controlled the interior for 18 points and 11 rebounds, Kayla McBride chipped in 14, and Courtney Williams added 11. Minnesota shot 50 percent from the floor and went 25-for-27 at the line, the kind of efficient offensive night that had gone missing during the skid.
Connecticut did not quit. After Minnesota led 61-43, the Lynx went nearly five minutes without a point, and the Sun, hot on their way to 15-for-28 from three, clawed all the way back within seven before Minnesota finally steadied and pulled away. Cheryl Reeve was not soothed by the final margin. “It’s unacceptable, I think, some of the things that we did. I’m not happy… Just not connected defensively. It’s not our standard,” she said afterward, and set a film session for the next day.
I’ve spent three recaps waiting for Collier to look like a two-time MVP runner-up again, and the first quarter answered the whole question.
The win snaps a three-game losing streak and moves Minnesota to 32-10, one win or one Golden State loss from the No. 1 overall seed and home court throughout the playoffs. The Lynx close with a home-and-home against Indiana, and control of the top seed is theirs to finish.
Here is the honest part. This was the response the moment demanded, and Collier setting the tone early is the whole difference between the team that lost three straight and the team that leads the league. But it came against a 10-32 Sun club already packing for Houston, Minnesota still went 4-for-21 from behind the arc, and the defense that let that club shoot its way within seven is the reason Reeve was reviewing film instead of celebrating. The tone-setting was real. The outside shooting the Lynx could not summon against a contender still has not come back.
The skid is over; the questions the Liberty asked are not.
