Before her team’s season opener Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve spoke about the “great challenge” in facing a Seattle team she believes will be a top three team in the WNBA this season.

“I like the opportunity to be really thrown into the fire and see us get hit with some adversity because that will happen tonight,” Reeve said.

Reeve had to like what she saw.

Napheesa Collier finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds and Minnesota pulled away late to beat Seattle 83-70 Tuesday in the Emerald City.

The two teams meet again in Minnesota’s home opener Friday at 8:30 p.m.

Collier’s stat line is to be expected of one of the league’s top players, but a couple of Lynx newcomers quickly made their presence known.­­

Alanna Smith scored a career-high 22 points, and Courtney Williams added 14 points, seven assists and five steals, one off her career high.

Minnesota had 15 steals and eight blocks. It shot 45.3% from the field.

“There were some shots that we missed that we should have made. But I think we stayed really consistent, consistent in our emotions,” Smith said on the team’s radio postgame.

Smith, a 6-foot-4 free-agent signee, is expected to provide some more offensive versatility from the post. She made three of her four shots from outside the arc, an area where Minnesota finished 7 of 23 as a team. Solid around the rim, Smith grabbed eight rebounds and had four blocks.

Minnesota outscored Seattle 20-10 in the final quarter.

Collier’s 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter gave Minnesota a 70-62 lead. After a block by Cecilia Zandalasini, Collier drained a jumper at the other end, and added a layup less than a minute later to cap a 25-8 Minnesota spurt and provide a 12-point cushion.

A long jumper by Williams and 3-pointer was followed by a trey from Kayla McBride and the Lynx were up 79-64 with 4:13 left.

“We’ve got a lot of weapons and I think it’s gonna be anyone’s night throughout this season,” Smith said.

Down by eight points early in the second quarter, Minnesota scored the final seven points of the first half for a 45-44 lead. The final from a trio of guards that could very well see some significant court time together this season.

Natisha Hiedeman forced a turnover with 17 seconds left, Williams missed a layup, but McBride followed for a tip.

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Given that rapper Megan Thee Stallion has loomed large as one of hip-hop’s biggest stars in the time since her 2019 breakthrough hit “Hot Girl Summer,” it was a bit of a surprise that her concert Tuesday at Target Center was the first show of her first-ever tour as a headliner.

Not to say she doesn’t have experience working a crowd, as Megan has toured as the opener for Future and Dua Lipa and played pretty much every festival out there. But she wasn’t the main attraction — not until Tuesday night at the downtown Minneapolis basketball arena in front of a capacity crowd.

She opened with her recent single “Hiss,” her third Billboard Hot 100 chart topper and the first-ever solo female rap song to debut No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200. And from there, she worked in eight more songs — “Thot S—,” “Freak Nasty” and “Hot Girl” among them — along with an extended dance break in a mere 25 minutes.

With energy bursting from both the stage and the audience, that first act proved to be one of the most unabashedly fun and almost comically profane openings of an arena show in recent memory. Her large, but relatively simple, stage helped amp up the party energy. The circular stage had cutouts on either side for VIP sections filled with fist-pumping and twerking fans.

After a brief break to change costumes, Megan returned for a strong run of “Plan B,” “Cognac Queen,” “Big Ole Freak” and “Girls in the Hood” that ended with her most recent single, “Boa.” Both “Hiss” and “Boa” are from her upcoming third album, which seems to be snake-themed. (Serpent imagery also showed up on the big screens throughout the evening.)

But midway through the show, Megan slowed things down, almost to a crawl. She stopped rapping and began wandering aimlessly and chatting with the crowd. She goofed around with folks in the VIP sections in a manner that didn’t really play to the rest of the arena. At one point, she pulled said fans onto the stage to dance in a segment that somehow managed to feel chaotic and dull at the same time.

Things picked up considerably for her third act, which opened with “WAP,” her notoriously racy 2020 Cardi B collaboration that topped the charts around the world. After “Cash S—,” she stopped the action once again. Although this time it was because she needed help with her in-ear monitors and her playful banter with both the crowd and the blushing crew guys proved Megan Thee Stallion can be a real charmer when she wants to be.

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A Monticello, Minn., man has been arrested and charged in last week’s fatal shooting of an off-duty Eagan and Eden Prairie firefighter who prosecutors say was caught in the crossfire between two groups that exchanged more than 60 rounds of gunfire in a south Minneapolis parking lot.

Marquise Trevone Hammonds-Ford, 28, was charged in Hennepin County District Court last week with first-degree riot resulting in death and two counts of illegal gun possession in connection with the May 5 shooting of 40-year-old Joseph Charles Johns behind the former Whiskey Junction bar in the 900 block of Cedar Avenue South.

Marquise Trevone Hammonds-Ford (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

Johns was a full-time firefighter with Eagan since 2020. He was also a duty call firefighter part-time in Eden Prairie, where he lived, since 2015.

Hammonds-Ford was arrested Monday and appeared in court Tuesday. He remained jailed in lieu of $1 million.

Hammonds-Ford is a member of the YNT criminal street gang of north Minneapolis, the charges say. At the time of the shooting, he was on supervised probation on an illegal gun-possession conviction out of Hennepin County.

According to the criminal complaint:

Minneapolis police responded to the area around 12:30 a.m. May 5 after a call of a shooting with two people injured. They found Johns, who was pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center of a gunshot wound to the chest.

Officers collected 63 discharged cartridge casings, which were found in clusters on both sides of the street in front of the bar.

Officers spoke to witnesses and learned that prior to the shooting hundreds of people had gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of a motorcycle club.

Joseph Charles Johns, a firefighter with the Eagan and Eden Prairie fire departments, died while off duty on May 5, 2024. (Courtesy of the Eden Prairie Fire Department)

Evidence, including video surveillance, showed that Johns was shot as two groups exchanged gunfire from opposite sides of the street. Based on a witness account, Johns was directing traffic when the gunfight erupted, catching him in the crossfire.

The shootout was prompted by Hammonds-Ford, who pointed his handgun, which was modified into an automatic weapon, at an upward angle and let off a rapid succession of gunshots. Numerous others from both groups began shooting handguns across the street at each other.

When the shooting stopped, Hammonds-Ford and others sped off and dropped off an injured associate at HCMC.

Forensic testing showed that shots were fired by seven guns: six 9mm firearms and one 10mm firearm.

The bullet recovered from Johns’ chest was fired from a 9mm handgun.

Investigators created a map of the crime scene that showed a cluster of four 10mm cartridge casings in the exact spot where Hammonds-Ford fired his initial barrage of gunfire.

“The investigation into other suspects responsible for the death of (Johns) is ongoing,” the complaint states.

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