The Lynx are in Washington on Friday night (6:30 PM Central, ION, CareFirst Arena), they are 30-7, and the only question that matters is whether Olivia Miles can push off a left ankle she rolled 48 hours earlier.
Miles went down midway through the fourth quarter Wednesday at Chase Center, stepping on Napheesa Collier’s foot while sliding on defense, and did not return to a game Minnesota won 77-66. Cheryl Reeve’s postgame read was thin: “She did tweak it but I don’t have any idea where it’s at. I haven’t seen the play yet.” No imaging has been reported. Miles walked to the podium unwrapped and asked Kayla McBride a question from the back of the room, which is not a diagnosis but is the best evidence available as of Thursday.
She had 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting, seven assists, two steals and two blocks in 30 minutes before it happened. She also rolled the same ankle on July 15 against the Sparks, missed exactly one game, and was back four days later.
That history is why nobody in Minnesota is panicking, and it is also why Reeve has zero incentive to push. Golden State sits four games back at 25-10, which puts the magic number for the No. 1 overall seed at five with seven games to play. A rookie point guard’s October is worth more than a Friday in August.
Washington is the wrong place to be shorthanded
The Mystics are 21-14, sixth in the league, 8-2 over their last ten and coming off a 93-82 win over Toronto on Aug. 19. Sydney Johnson’s team is 13-6 at home and playing for something real: nine games left, Dallas one game back in the chase. Sonia Citron scores from everywhere, Kiki Iriafen keeps hitting the shot that decides the fourth quarter, and Shakira Austin is a rebounding problem that Minnesota has already failed to solve once.
The season series is split, and both games were tight. Washington took the opener 84-79 in Minneapolis on June 21, closing hard in the fourth with Sonia Citron doing most of the damage. Minnesota answered three nights later in D.C., 78-76, with Natasha Howard going for 21 and 15 and Miles scoring 10 in the fourth quarter of a game the Lynx trailed by 12. Collier was still out rehabbing offseason ankle surgery for both, and she didn’t debut until July 22. So the tape has a ceiling. The pattern is the durable part: this Washington team plays Minnesota to the possession.
My younger brother, who has sent me exactly zero unprompted basketball texts in his life, messaged me from Duluth at 11:40 Wednesday night to ask if Miles was okay. That is the temperature.
So the things to watch are narrow. Whether Miles is dressed, and if she isn’t, how much of the offense runs back through Courtney Williams. Whether Natasha Howard can hold the defensive glass against Austin, who pulled down 16 rebounds the last time these teams shared this floor. Whether a team that is 16-2 on the road can close a fourth straight road game — against a rested opponent, with playoff math on the line.
The Lynx do not need this game. Washington does, and that gap is the whole spread.
Prediction: Lynx by 6, and nobody exhales until the injury report drops.
