It’s great to have a defensive identity, particularly in the playoffs. You want to have a controllable factor you can hang your hat on when the pressure and competition mounts. The Lynx have established that foundation upon which they can lean this postseason.

But sometimes opponents are simply going to make shots. In Game 1 of the WNBA playoffs on Sunday, Phoenix hit 52 percent of its triple tries as Diana Taurasi, Natasha Cloud and Kaleah Copper each pulled out their personal flamethrowers to shoot the Mercury back into a game it looked as though Minnesota won in the first half at Target Center.

Once talented players heat up, dousing them can be a nearly impossible task. So, there are times in a series when you simply may have to answer back on the offensive end.

And, as the Lynx proved again down the stretch Sunday, they’re more than capable this season of fighting fire with fire.

Minnesota scored on 10 of its final 12 possessions over the final 6-plus minutes of Sunday’s game to stave off the Mercury and close out the Lynx’s 102-95 victory.

During the stretch of offensive success, the Lynx utilized Napheesa Collier’s excellence, a bevy of pick-and-roll actions, a tough shot from Bridget Carleton and some timely free-throw shooting. But it all centered on one key factor: Spacing.

Certainly in past seasons, Minnesota’s lack of a floor general was glaring. It always seemed like that was the missing link amid the Lynx’s offensive struggles. And Courtney Williams’ playmaking has aided in the team’s efforts. The Lynx led the WNBA in assists per game this season (23), up from 19.4 in 2023.

“We just play so well together,” Collier said. “We have so many assists on all of our baskets, and I got a lot of easy shots (Sunday) because of our unselfishness on our team.”

But it’s also easier to playmake when there’s room to operate. And Minnesota’s shooting has given it plenty of that.

The Lynx saw a dramatic increase in 3-point shot attempts this season — up to 25 from 20.8 a year ago — with hyper efficiency. Minnesota knocked down 38 percent of those shots, the highest hit rate on deep balls across the league in a non-bubble WBA season since 2012, when the Lynx and Fever both shot 40 percent from deep (on fewer attempts) en route to meeting one another in the Finals.

The Lynx looked like they would be about the least likely candidate to take charge of the revolution from beyond the arc. But Carleton’s evolution to a starter who is leaned upon for heavy minutes means Minnesota usually has two, high-volume sharpshooters sharing the floor in Carleton and Kayla McBride. And everyone else is willing to let it fly when the opportunity arises, from the bigs in Collier and Alanna Smith to the other guards like Williams and Natisha Hiedeman. Everyone is presented as a shooting threat.

Which means opposing defenses are not packing the paint or freely doubling onto Collier without at least a moment of hesitation. Because if that double team, or even split second of extra attention hits, Collier will hit an open Carleton for a big triple, such as the one that beat Connecticut last week at the end of regulation to secure the No. 2 seed.

And if you can’t double Collier, she will dominate, as one of the WNBA’s top talents is wont to do. The All-WNBA forward, who scored 38 points Sunday and finished as the runner-up in the MVP race, operating in space presents one of the toughest matchups a defense can face.

And she’s not the only one taking advantage. Williams flawlessly executed a few key pick and rolls down the stretch Sunday — both in the middle of the floor and on an empty-side action that led to an easy bucket for Collier — which the Mercury tried and failed to guard with two defenders, likely in fear of getting burned by the kickout triple.

Against Minnesota, defenses now must pick the poison by which they choose to die. Sure enough, now down 1-0 in the best-of-3-games series after the Lynx’s net-scorching finish on Sunday, Phoenix’s season is indeed on life support.

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By JONEL ALECCIA

Obesity is high and holding steady in the U.S., but the proportion of those with severe obesity — especially women — has climbed since a decade ago, according to new government research.

The U.S. obesity rate is about 40%, according to a 2021-2023 survey of about 6,000 people. Nearly 1 in 10 of those surveyed reported severe obesity, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Women were nearly twice as likely as men to report severe obesity.

The overall obesity rate appeared to tick down vs. the 2017-2020 survey, but the change wasn’t considered statistically significant; the numbers are small enough that there’s mathematical chance they didn’t truly decline.

That means it’s too soon to know whether new treatments for obesity, including blockbuster weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound, can help ease the epidemic of the chronic disease linked to a host of health problems, according to Dr. Samuel Emmerich, the CDC public health officer who led the latest study.

“We simply can’t see down to that detailed level to prescription medication use and compare that to changes in obesity prevalence,” Emmerich said. “Hopefully that is something we can see in the future.”

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Most telling though, the results that show that the overall obesity rate in the U.S. has not changed significantly in a decade, even as the rate of severe obesity climbed from nearly 8% in the 2013-2014 survey to nearly 10% in the most recent one. Before that, obesity had increased rapidly in the U.S. since the 1990s, federal surveys showed.

Measures of obesity and severe obesity are determined according to body mass index, a calculation based on height and weight. People with a BMI of 30 are considered to have obesity; those with a BMI of 40 or higher have severe obesity. BMI is regarded as a flawed tool but remains widely used by doctors to screen for obesity.

“Seeing increases in severe obesity is even more alarming because that’s the level of obesity that’s most highly associated with some of the highest levels of cardiovascular disease and diabetes and lower quality of life,” said Solveig Cunningham, an Emory University global health professor who specializes in obesity.

Cunningham, who was not involved in the new study, said it’s not clear why rates of severe obesity are going up, or why they were higher among women. Factors could include the effects of hormones, the impact of childbearing or other causes that require further study, she said.

The new study also found that obesity rates varied by education. Almost 32% of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported having obesity, compared with about 45% of those with some college or a high school diploma or less.

The new report follows the release earlier this month of data from U.S. states and territories that showed that in 2023, the rate of obesity ranged widely by place, from a high of more than 41% of adults in West Virginia to a low of less than 24% of adults in Washington, D.C. Rates were highest in the Midwest and the South.

All U.S. states and territories posted obesity rates higher than 20%. In 23 states, more than 1 in 3 adults had obesity, the data showed. Before 2013, no state had a rate that high, said Dr. Alyson Goodman, who leads a CDC team focused on population health.

Color-coded U.S. maps tracking the change have gradually shifted from green and yellow, the hues associated with lower obesity rates, to orange and dark red, linked to higher prevalence.

“Sometimes, when you look at all that red, it’s really discouraging,” Goodman said.

But, she added, recent emphasis on understanding obesity as a metabolic disease and new interventions, such as the new class of weight-loss drugs, gives her hope.

The key is preventing obesity in the first place, starting in early childhood, Cunningham said. Even when people develop obesity, preventing additional weight gain should be the goal.

“It’s really hard to get obesity to reverse at the individual level and at the population level,” Cunningham said. “I guess it’s not surprising that we’re not seeing downward shifts in the prevalence of obesity.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.