The Lynx are back in Las Vegas on Saturday night (7:00 PM Central, CBS and Paramount+), and the schedule did the Aces a small favor: it gave them a week to sit with what happened the last time these two teams shared a floor.
What happened was a 98-87 Minnesota win at Target Center on Aug. 8, a four-point game at the half that the Lynx cracked open in the third quarter behind 26 from Olivia Miles. Napheesa Collier and Miles combined for 48. It was the kind of night that makes a defending champion stew for a week, and now the champion gets the rematch on its own floor.
Here’s the honest complication, and I’m not going to dress it up, because my mom already sent me the grimace emoji about it: the Lynx are 28-7 and the best team in basketball, and they just survived Portland 85-81 on Wednesday after leading an expansion team by 29. One rotten quarter, at the tail of three games in five nights. I wrote in the recap that the film session before this Aces game would not be gentle. It won’t be. Cheryl Reeve does not let a 29-4 run go into the archive unexamined.
The rookie is still the story
Olivia Miles is averaging 19.7 points and 5.8 assists as a rookie running the league’s best team, and in July she was named the WNBA’s Rookie of the Month.
https://twitter.com/WNBAComms/status/2085056135116075473
The Collier return hasn’t shrunk Miles; it has freed her. Phee draws the second defender, Miles makes the read, and Kayla McBride, who hit a career-high 10 threes this month, is waiting on the arc. Natasha Howard is playing two-way All-Star ball. It is the roster every contender claims to want.
What Vegas has waiting
The Aces are still the Aces: A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young, Chelsea Gray, and the muscle memory of a defending champion. They will be without Justine Pissott (leg) and Cheyenne Parker-Tyus (concussion), but the stars who decide games are healthy, and Michelob ULTRA Arena will be loud and personal. A week ago they got outclassed in Minnesota. Saturday is the reply, and Wilson has never needed extra motivation to be terrifying.
Minnesota’s own report is thin: Emma Cechova is out for the season with a torn ACL and Chloe Bibby has missed time for personal reasons, but the rotation that matters is intact and rested enough.
What I’m watching is two things. First, whether the Portland lapse was tired legs or a habit, because a top seed that lets go of the rope for eight minutes against a 13-20 team cannot do it against Wilson and live. Second, whether Reeve keeps staggering Collier and Miles so one of them is always on the floor, which is the setting that turned the first meeting into a runaway.
The Lynx already own the season series lead and the top seed. This is the game that tells us whether Wednesday meant anything.
Prediction: Lynx by 9, and the film session does its job.
