Lynx Keeping Perspective; Ready To Finish Strong

Alexander Shun

Web Editor Associate | @alexpshun 

After a week of hearing how the sky is falling and answering numerous, “What’s wrong?” questions, Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve is focused on making her team better and winning games.

The Lynx have, in some ways, become victims of self-inflicted championship talk that seemingly surrounds the team every year. Players, coaches and fans are not accustomed to seeing the Lynx lose games, especially not after two championships in the past four seasons, but now the Lynx have lost two of their last three games and everyone in Minnesota is seemingly in a frenzy.

Reeve says that internally, the team is keeping things in perspective.

“Internally, we’re not talking about a championship, that’s just so far down the road,” said Reeve. “We’re trying to work really, really hard every day to become the best team that this team can be.”

So how good can this team really be? Very good, they just need time.

For all the moving pieces that Minnesota has been dealing with this season, they are still in first place in the Western Conference and sit just percentage points behind the New York Liberty (their next opponent, just so everyone knows) for the overall best record in the WNBA.

Though media and fans may keep a steady focus on records and home-court advantage in the playoffs, such things are not even on the team’s radar.

“That’s one of those big-picture goals that, when you focus on little things, you look up and go, ‘Oh, we’ve got the best record in the league,’ but it’s absolutely not something that we talk about,” said Reeve. “We’re just going to try and keep perspective about things and we know what our challenges are and, I know this, we’re working really, really hard to become a great basketball team every day.”

With a veteran-laced roster, there is no absolutely no shortage of leaders ready to lead such an operation.

“The main idea of every season is to have some staples offensively and defensively and just consistently fight for that identity every day; every day in practice, every day in the game. So that hasn’t changed, that’s what we’re still striving to do,” said Lynx forward Maya Moore, speaking about the importance of the team and its leaders keeping things in perspective when dealing with tough losses

Media and fans can make keeping things in perspective rather difficult at times, but Reeve and the Lynx aren’t worried about all the outside noise, their only focus is playing the best they can and winning basketball games.

“Staying the course that’s the wrong course is not a good idea, but keeping perspective on what needs to change, what needs to stay the same but [be done] better,” said Reeve. “As coaches, just trying to make sure that we’re doing the best that we can by each individual player to help this group move along.”

The team could arguably use more practice time together and that would seemingly help the team move along, but with constantly being on the road and players shifting in and out of the lineup, the Lynx have not been afforded such a luxury. However, those who know Reeve, know that she never makes excuses.

“The last thing I want is to make any kind of excuses for things because I think excuses are for losers and whiners and we’re neither of those.”

With just six games left in the regular season, four of which will be at home, there is plenty of time to resume the winning ways and return the state of Minnesota to normalcy before the WNBA Playoffs begin, and there is arguably no more motivated team in the league right now than the Minnesota Lynx.

“You can tell these guys, ‘Oh yeah, but you’re still in first,’ but they understand and they want to be a great team; they want to seize opportunities.”

The Minnesota Lynx will play Friday night in New York against the Eastern Conference-leading Liberty. The game will begin at 6:30 P.M. CT.