With one of the league’s best players on the roster, it can sometimes be easy for the Minnesota Lynx to be unaware what Napheesa Collier does during a game.

“She just makes the right play, the simple play, and it looks easy for her. It’s just the talent she has, playing at a high level. She’s capable of doing this every night against anybody,” said Bridget Carleton.

On Saturday, “this” meant Collier finishing with a team-high 30 points, one shy of her season apex. She made 13 of 16 shots and was lethal with turnaround jumpers in the lane.

Minnesota made its first 10 shots of the third quarter — five by Collier — to blow open a close game en route to a 99-83 win at Washington.

The Lynx (19-8) shot a season-best 57.8%, making 37 of 64 attempts, including 11 of 21 from 3-point range.

Collier missed the final five games before the Olympic break with plantar fasciitis before winning a gold medal with Team USA. Coach Cheryl Reeve said “it was top of mind to get Napheesa Collier going again.”

How Collier finds success sounds simple enough.

“Just being aggressive and knowing that the coaches have confidence in me and my teammates have confidence in me so just really trying to read the defense and get to my shot,” she said.

Keyed by Collier and locking in defensively to get out in transition, Minnesota outscored the Mystics (6-21) 33-17 in the third quarter, including a game-breaking 27-9 run, to lead by 22 entering the final 10 minutes.

Collier made all six of her shots in the quarter, including a 3-pointer, while also grabbing four rebounds and getting a steal.

“Phee’s the type of player that it can happen whenever, and I feel like every game she plays she makes it so much easier for everybody on the court,” said Carleton, who finished with 16 points, including makes on three of her five attempts from deep.

Added Reeve: “We never worry about Phee taking bad shots, she’s always going to make the right basketball play. But playing to her and causing rotations helps our team overall. I thought we were pretty intentional in our transition. We were getting to our drag screens pretty quickly. I thought we overall moved the ball decently and found people in good spots.”

The league’s top assist team at 23 per game, the Lynx finished with 26, 10 more than they had Thursday.

Courtney Williams finished with 14 points and seven rebounds, including 10 of the team’s 17 points before the half.

“Court was terrific managing pick and roll in the second quarter, she was making some shots. … She was making the right reads and kind of gave us momentum going into the half to understand what needed to happen in the third quarter,” Reeve said.

Sitting atop the Western Conference, next up for the Lynx is a home-and-home matchup with the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces, starting Wednesday in Sin City.

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Sketch comedy has been Brave New Workshop’s modus operandi ever since it launched its first revue in a little Northeast Minneapolis coffeehouse in 1961. So its presidential election show was a quadrennial tradition from 1964 to 2016, before COVID scuttled it in 2020.

But Brave New Workshop is tapping into the current electoral zeitgeist again with “No Country for Two Old Men.” And, seeing as thinking on your feet is an essential part of the troupe’s improvisational training, it’s appropriate that the past month’s events have forced the team of writer/performers to revise and revise again.

Brave New Workshop’s first election show since 2016, “No Country for Two Old Men,” features, from left, Doug Neithercott, Isabella Dunsieth (front), Denzel Belin and Jeffrey Nolan. (Courtesy of Hennepin Arts)

For example, that title may have seemed obsolete when President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid. But it works in the context of the opening song, a recap of the campaign thus far that allows audiences to laugh at events that may have seemed too worrisome at the time.

The show is a landslide winner in the political comedy category. “No Country for Two Old Men” is the funniest thing the company’s concocted since before the pandemic, a high-energy collection of skits and songs that tosses caution overboard and could be the ideal antidote for news-infected gloominess.

While TV viewers speculate about who’s going to play Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on “Saturday Night Live,” it bears remembering that that show was made possible by pioneers like Brave New Workshop and such kindred contemporaries as Chicago’s Second City and Los Angeles’ Groundlings.

And please note that it’s far more thrilling to experience this kind of comedy up close in an intimate space like the theater that now bears the name of company founder Dudley Riggs. Not only that, but the writing’s often much better and more slickly delivered than on “SNL.”

Even if you think that you’d rather escape political discussions altogether, perhaps what you need is an opportunity to laugh about all that’s happened in recent months. If you witnessed Biden’s decline with heart-sinking sadness, check out the hilarious version of him offered by new addition Jeffrey Nolan, who brings smiles as he mumbles raspily about “histrionic achievements” and “exploding health care.”

Or enjoy the campaign advice offered by Doug Neithercott’s “Pander Bear,” who oversees the dumbing down of candidate Lauren Anderson’s stump speech. And witness divisiveness in action in a game of “Black or Woman” or its dance-pop antidote, Isabella Dunsieth’s Madonna-esque “Ethnically Ambiguous.”

Granted, the material isn’t consistently strong. Denzel Belin’s burlesque-style profession of lust for old white male politicians and a brief tutorial on “Project 2025” lack the cleverness or bite of the bits around them. But bite is preponderant in most of this revue, and what a welcome return that is after a few years of post-pandemic carefulness.

Directed with briskness and punch by Brave New Workshop’s artistic director, Caleb McEwen, it bears echoes of the delightfully snarling shows he created early this century in tandem with wife Katy McEwen. While some may complain that “No Country for Two Old Men” isn’t an equal-opportunity offender, it will likely evolve to include more campaigning critiques for Kamala Harris and Walz.

And our governor does make a cameo courtesy of Neithercott. Given a little more time, his imitation might rival his spot-on Donald Trump.

Brave New Workshop’s ‘No Country for Two Old Men’

When: Through Nov. 2

Where: Dudley Riggs Theatre, 824 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis

Tickets: $40-$32, available at bravenewworkshop.org

Capsule: The bite is back at Brave New Workshop.

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Prosecutors in western Minnesota have filed a gross misdemeanor charge of reckless driving against a college hockey player from Lakeville following a 2023 crash that killed one of her teammates.

The fatal crash one year ago at a four-way stop about 25 miles west of Willmar involved an SUV carrying four members of the Gustavus Adolphus women’s hockey team returning home to St. Peter from a weekend trip to Aberdeen, S.D.

Gianna Kate Gasparini, 20, of Lakeville, was driving a Chevrolet Equinox carrying three of her fellow teammates. Jori Lynn Jones, 19, of Little Canada, died as a result of her injuries. The other two passengers were Lily Mortenson, of Champlin, and Kayla Marie Bluhm, of Chisago City.

The criminal complaint filed this week in Chippewa County District Court accuses Gasparini of not stopping at the intersection of Minnesota Highways 40 and 29, and striking a Dodge Caravan minivan crossing the intersection at around 12:40 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2023.

The allegations are based on the findings of an accident reconstruction report by the Minnesota State Patrol and statements by a witness.p headlines f St. Clod LIVE 5-30-24 fixed

According to the criminal complaint, a witness told a State Patrol trooper that the Dodge minivan, driven by Brandi Kay Rasmussen, of Benson, had stopped at the intersection and was proceeding southbound when the collision occurred. The witness said the Equinox did not stop and appeared to be going a little over 60 mph, according to the complaint.

The accident reconstruction report stated that Gasparini was traveling at 78 mph prior to the crash and struck the minivan at 55 to 65 mph.

In interviews following the crash, Gasparini told the State Patrol that she had not traveled on the road previously and did not notice it was a four-way intersection “until way too late.” She said her front seat passenger told her there was a stop sign just a few feet before the vehicle entered the intersection and she hit the brakes.

Gasparini had no alcohol in her system, and was not distracted at the time of the accident, according to the complaint. She told an investigator at the Montevideo hospital after the crash that she had not taken her medication for ADHD that morning, which she said helps her focus better.

The driver of the minivan, Rasmussen, said she had looked both ways before proceeding into the intersection.

“I didn’t see anything and then I went and all of a sudden, I’m just turning over and turning over and turning over,” the criminal complaint states she told a state trooper at the crash scene.

Gasparini and her passengers were transported to the hospital in Montevideo. Emergency responders began administering CPR to Jones at the scene, and it was stopped when she was pronounced dead approximately one hour after the collision was reported, according to information in the criminal complaint and accident report.

Gasparini has been summoned to appear Sept. 23 on the single charge. She is not under arrest but has been ordered to report to the county sheriff’s office to complete the booking process before her court appearance.

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