Hitting the Hardwood | Lynx Enter Home Stretch Of Regular Season

Mitchell Hansen
Web Editorial Associate
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It’s hard to believe, but we are already in the home stretch of the WNBA regular season.

The second half of the season is officially underway, and your Minnesota Lynx are still sitting atop the league with a 17-2 record following Tuesday night’s win over the New York Liberty in St. Paul.

For all 12 teams in the WNBA, this is time to prove yourself and make a late push for playoffs. Or, in the Lynx case, try to secure the highest seed possible in the playoffs.

“I told the group that post All-Star break means desperation for teams to jockey for position. If you’re going to make the playoffs or position yourself better for the playoffs,” Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said. “We have to make sure that our desperation to reach our goals continue to be at a high level.”

And after a spread out schedule in the first half of the season that included 19 of Minnesota’s games spread out over 73 days, Friday’s game against Atlanta will be the first of 15 games in 38 to finish off the regular season for the Lynx.

“We had almost seven straight weeks of a lot of practice. But, all of that practice doesn’t matter three weeks from now when you’re in the grind, because you’re going to get slippage of things that happen because you’re only playing games and you only have shootaround,” Reeve said. “It’s frankly what the players prefer is to play games. I think we have a lot in, I’m not concerned that there is stuff that we don’t know or something that we couldn’t handle on the fly. I think we are in a good place.”

In the last six years, the Lynx have found success in the second half of the season since their first championship in 2011.

In 2011 and 2012, the Lynx finished the final half of the regular season with a record of 14-3. They went 12-5 in 2013, 13-4 in 2014, 9-8 in 2015 and 14-3 in 2016 in the final 17 games.

Oh, and that included making the playoffs every year and three WNBA championships. Don’t forget that part.

With teams in desperation for a late-season push towards the playoffs or attempting to climb up for a better seed in the postseason, Minnesota knows it will have to be at its best once the second half winds down and the playoffs approach.

“I think teams are going to come out and be more physical. I think a lot of teams are going to be more antsy to try and make a run,” Sylvia Fowles said. “As for us, I think we just need to stay aggressive and stay the way we’ve been playing and continuing this run.”

Things are about to get busy for the Lynx in the second half of the season, but they are more than ready for that challenge.

“We have 15 games left, you don’t have a lot of time,” Reeve said. “Time is now if you’re going to do it.”

The Lynx are back in action on Friday night when they take on the Atlanta Dream at 6:30 p.m. in Atlanta. The game will be aired on Fox Sports North and 106.1 BOB FM.