Minnesota’s home crowd stood in applause as Brittney Griner heard her name announced for the first time at Target Center since returning to the U.S. And they stayed standing as the 6-8 Griner backed down Napheesa Collier, one of their own prized players, before flipping up and in an uncontested hook shot less than two minutes in.
From then on, the Lynx took control of the show.
It wasn’t another career night for Collier or Diamond Miller, and Minnesota still leveled the Phoenix Mercury as part of a controlling 75-64 victory. With chemistry on both ends that seemingly took some time to cultivate, the Lynx now find themselves with a five-game winning streak at 9-9.
Reeve saw eight of her players make at least one shot by the 8:16 mark of the second quarter, at which point Griner had only produced the two points from her earlier field goal. Once the final buzzer sounded, she’d scored 12 — well below the 19.8 points-per-game average that ranked fifth in the WNBA ahead of Friday’s contest.
Collier didn’t fare much better for her standards, finishing with 12 points on 6-of-18 shooting. But she did have a game-high 12 rebounds, as her teammates helped shore up a sufficient offensive performance.
Per usual, Miller and Kayla McBride finished in double figures with 10 apiece. Unusual, though, was what Bridget Carleton and Nikolina Milic provided in the points department — 11 and 10, respectively. Neither entered the matchup with averages of more than six points per game.
Michaela Onyenwere’s 24 points on 9-of-18 shooting that included three three-pointers similarly came as a surprise throughout a night in which she was among the Mercury’s few bright spots. They didn’t have any other double-figure scorer, outside of Onyenwere and Griner, with 37.7% field goal percentage to show for their struggles.