The Minnesota Lynx played their third and final scrimmage Wednesday night against the Dallas Wings. Though neither side kept score, the play of Sylvia Fowles and Napheesa Collier were bright spots for the Lynx during the 40-minute rehearsal.

the cut 🔪
the bump 💥
the turn 🌀
the fade 💰@PHEEsespieces is ready for more in year two. pic.twitter.com/BlSxQvhJqf

— Minnesota Lynx (@minnesotalynx) July 23, 2020

Before Minnesota tips-off the 2020 WNBA season on Sunday versus the Connecticut Sun (11am CT, ESPN), a few notes from the ground at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.:

FOWLES’S DEFENSIVE CHALLENGE

Sylvia Fowles has been a dominant traditional center in every season she’s played in the WNBA. Entering her 12th season, Fowles has the 2017 WNBA Most Valuable Player award; seven All-WNBA honors, six All-Star nominations, and three WNBA Defensive Player of the Year awards to her name.

The competition around the league will be a little bit different in 2020. Many of Fowles’ contemporaries on the low post are absent from WNBA’s single site in Bradenton: Connecticut center Jonquel Jones opted out of traveling to Florida, Las Vegas’s Liz Cambage is not with the Aces, and Tina Charles was granted a medical opt-out in her first season with the Washington Mystics. Phoenix’s Brittney Griner remains Fowles’s top competition on the block.

While Fowles is a more traditional back-to-the-basket big, she’ll be stretched to the perimeter by more three-point-focused centers this season.

“A lot of these post players are now stepping out beyond the perimeter, so it’s going to challenge me in that way to make sure I’m going out and guarding these players because there’s not too many back-to-the-basket post players are playing this year,” Fowles said Wednesday. “It’s gonna be a challenge, but it’s not gonna be hard for me to get up for these games because I’m gonna be doing something totally different that’s out of my comfort zone.”

Added Head Coach and General Manager Cheryl Reeve: “Some teams you’re gonna see [bigs shooting more three-pointers] more than others. The buzz word ‘positionless’ I think is what everyone’s grabbing ahold of. I think it means something different to each team. We certainly understand you have to have versatility, but how we look at this is if you’re playing a team that pulls Syl a little bit further from the basket at times, we have some defensive schemes to help her, but we know we have a really big advantage at the [offensive] end.”

Despite the revolution of ‘positionless’ basketball and bigs shooting threes, don’t expect Fowles to step behind the arc on the offensive side. She’s 1-for-1 from three-point land in her WNBA career and is a knockdown shooter in practice, but Fowles is going to stick to being a dominant player in the post in 2020.

“No way,” Fowles laughed when asked if she’d be launching threes this season. “I know where I’m good, and that’s under the basket.

“Cheryl do give me the green light though, because I be shooting the lights out in practice, believe it or not.”

EYES ON TOKYO 2021

Delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, like everything else in 2020, the Summer Olympics in Tokyo begin one year from Thursday on July 23, 2021. Because of the delay, Lynx forward Napheesa Collier has an extended opportunity to solidify a spot on the USA roster.

“It’s definitely a possibility,” Collier said of her Olympic hopes, “Every opportunity that I get to play for USA [Basketball] is an opportunity for me to prove myself to them and make it not an option — make it so that they feel like they have to put me on the team. Definitely having more time will allow me to do that more, so I guess that’s the bright side of the Olympics being postponed.”

Collier earned a gold medal with the USA at the 2019 FIBA AmeriCup and played for the 3×3 Olympic Qualifying Team earlier in 2020. The USA is 49-1 in games that feature Collier, including 3×3 competition.