While the big news of the day is Lindsay Whalen’s announcement that she will retire at the end of this WNBA season, the Lynx are still very much in the thick of an intense playoff race.
Things didn’t exactly break perfectly for the Lynx last night. On top of their defeat by the Seattle Storm, several teams that Minnesota is in competition with earned victories, making an already tight competition for playoff seeding even tighter. The Lynx currently sit in seventh place in the WNBA with a record of 17-14.
Here’s what went down last night:
Sun Outshine Sky
Behind 22 points from Courtney Williams and 17 off the bench from Jonquel Jones, the Sun beat the Sky 82-75 in Connecticut.
The Sun started out the season hot but fell off a bit as they dealt with a bit of locker room dysfunction. They’re back in form now, though, having won six of their last seven games. The Sky did the Lynx a favor and beat the Sun on Friday in Chicago, but were unable to replicate the feat on the road last night.
The Sun outrebounded the sky 51-33, and grabbed an insane 21 offensive boards—Jones alone had nine. On a night where their usually scintillating offense wasn’t clicking, Connecticut’s rebounding prowess helped bail them out.
The Lynx probably wish Chicago had done a better job of boxing out.
With the win, the Sun jumped up to fourth-place in the league. They have the same number of wins (18) as the Sparks and Mercury.
Mystics Clip Wings
The battle for the WNBA’s No. 8 seed is getting very, very interesting.
If you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I’d have said with very little doubt that the Wings would make the playoffs and the Aces would miss out. Today I’m not so sure.
With their 93-80 loss to the Mystics, the Wings dropped to 14-17, just one game ahead of the Aces. They have lost eight in a row. While the Wings still control their own playoff destiny, they need to turn things around quickly. After the game, it was announced that Dallas decided to part ways with coach Fred Williams. Former Lynx player Taj McWilliams-Franklin will step into the head coaching role.
McWilliams-Franklin is extremely well-liked, and will certainly make a great coach, but this is a tough situation to step into. Best of luck to her.
The Mystics, on the other hand, have begun to separate themselves from the pack fighting for the No. 3 to No. 7 seeds. With a record of 20-11, they have a solid two-game lead on the Sun, and trail the Dream, who have kept winning despite the loss of Angel McCoughtry, by 1.5 games.
The Mystics need only one more win to mathematically eliminate the Lynx from earning the No. 3 seed, so while it hurts to see a team ahead of Minnesota in the standings get a win, this outcome may have been for the best. With the turmoil at the bottom of the playoff bracket, Minnesota is highly unlikely to fall to No. 8.
Mercury Take Down Sparks
Talk about a no-win situation.
The two teams directly ahead of the Lynx right now are the Mercury and Sparks. With the 86-78 win at home, Phoenix is now a half-game ahead of Minnesota.
In some ways, the Mercury victory was a good thing for the Lynx as it pulled the Mercury and Sparks closer together. It is now slightly easier for the Lynx to overtake both teams assuming they keep winning and their rivals take a few losses.
Of the Sparks and the Mercury, the Sparks probably have a tougher schedule. The Lynx also hold the tiebreaker over the Mercury, which could come in very handy down the stretch. Don’t look away now, it’s going to be a photo finish.