As aggressive and successful as Minnesota’s defense was in the third quarter to get the Lynx back in Sunday night’s game, the lack thereof before and again early in the fourth quarter proved costly.
Atlanta ultimately held off a late Lynx charge and handed Minnesota its first regular-season home loss in 15 outings with a 90-86 win at Target Center.
“We didn’t feel that playing hard is an adjustment and that’s what we had to do at halftime, and we did,” said coach Cheryl Reeve, whose team was down 14 points at halftime. “In the fourth quarter we lost our ball pressure again, we didn’t guard again. We did it for one quarter today.”
Napheesa Collier once again lit up the score sheet with 32 points, eight rebounds, seven assists, four steals and two blocks in almost 37 minutes of action.
Nine of of those points came in the final 4:38 when the Lynx (22-5) thrillingly turned a 13-point deficit into a three-point game in the final seconds and the sellout crowd of 8,788 was rocking.
Collier had seven points in the final 1:22, including a jumper with 10.6 ticks remaining.
She then stole the inbounds pass along the baseline less than three seconds later, but her momentum forced her to step out of bounds before she could get the ball to a teammate.
The positives of the final few minutes are not something Reeve will dwell on.
“We didn’t lay down. That doesn’t mean a whole lot to us, that’s what you’re supposed to do … but we had bigger problems on the night. We just didn’t come to play defensively. We were really easy to play against in the first half. Offensively, we gave into their physicality. It’s not new for us, we saw it in Atlanta.”
That was June 27, a game the Lynx won 96-92 in overtime.
Collier was 14 of 18 from the field. Minnesota’s other four starters were a combined 12 for 34.
“I thought Phee was the only one playing with great aggression … she just didn’t much help,” Reeve said.
Alanna Smith finished with 12 points, Courtney Williams had 11 to go with nine assists. Kayla McBride and Bridget Carleton combined for four points.
Natisha Hiedeman had all 10 of her points off the bench in the fourth quarter.
Brittney Griner, Atlanta’s 6-foot-9 agile center, scored 17 of her season-high 22 points in first half when the Dream shot 60.7% and opened a 46-32 lead at the break. She entered averaging 10.8 per game.
“Coming out in that first half like that really set us back, but we got back on track in the second half,” Collier said.
That started with the defensive pressure.
Providing a bolt of energy off the bench, Diamond Miller’s aggression on both ends helped set the tone as Atlanta (15-10) made just five of 20 shots in the third quarter and Minnesota got within three before the Dream led 60-54 at quarter’s end.
“We were sporadic in our aggression, When we did it we were pretty effective,” Reeve said.
The Dream then made their first six shots of the fourth to push the lead to 74-63.
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