The Lynx have played their final regular season home game, but now they are going on the road to fight for the chance to play at least one more contest in front of the Minnesota crowd. They had an intense and successful day of practice on Tuesday as they prepare to face the Mercury and Sparks in their last two regular season games.

While Minnesota has clinched a playoff spot, their seeding is far from set. If they keep winning the Lynx could host a first-round playoff game. If they drop in the standings, they’ll find themselves on the road.

One of the big takeaways from the Lynx’s homestand is how important their fans are to them. While the team deserves all the credit in the world, there’s no question the fan support helped. The last four games produced the loudest and most excited crowds that the team has seen all season and it gave the team all the more drive to fight for homecourt in the playoffs.

“Our fans showed us who they are,” said head coach Cheryl Reeve. “They’ve shown through the ups and down, at the beginning of the season not winning as many home games as we’re accustomed to. Being there during this four-game homestand that we had, we played great and they acknowledged it. They were so excited, and that was fun. For us and I think for them that was pretty moving to realize what they had behind them.”

The fans have certainly helped, but the Lynx have also fundamentally transformed their play after the All-Star break. Notably, they have gone from a team that had a tendency to fold down the stretch to one that has played its best basketball in the fourth quarter. Reeve attributes that to familiarity, awareness, understanding of players’ roles and a drive to compete and earn victories no matter what it takes. While the early-season struggles weren’t any fun, the team now understands how to overcome those more difficult stretches.

“We’re like clockwork in terms of our understanding of who’s playing well, who’s here tonight, who’s not, what needs to happen,” said Reeve. “Obviously, those shortcomings in the early part of the season caused us to kind of take deep dives, and we know what we’re doing.”

“It’s just being comfortable,” said Sylvia Fowles. “We have a team that’s very unselfish, so we pass up on a lot of shots. Sometimes that can be a good thing and sometimes that can be a bad thing, so we try to let each other know that it’s O.K. if you miss me now and then. If you’re open, you’re open. We’ve just gotten comfortable taking those shots and making sure we’re not offending anybody, and just going out and playing for each other.”

That focus and intensity has translated to practice. While the Lynx don’t play a game until Friday, which works against creating a sense of urgency, nobody needed to be told what to do on Tuesday. The Lynx have a single goal—secure homecourt advantage and do some damage in the playoffs.

“They were great. They were so focused today,” said Reeve. “They were so locked in. Our shooting games were the best in the history of shooting games in terms of their results… I didn’t know how to act! I wasn’t able to yell at them and I was ready to yell at them!”

Jokes aside though, Reeve is excited about what she sees in this group. They look like a team that knows what it takes to keep winning games. Facing a big couple games on the road will be a good test heading into the playoffs.

“They spoke loud and clear who they want to be, so I’m hopeful that’s truly how they feel,” said Reeve of the team’s play in the last four games. “We know we have a shot to make some noise if you will, to be a team that people don’t want to play against.”