Not much depth, but moving the ball on the perimeter, raining threes, and playing fierce defense — it added up to 30-10 record and the second seed. And after the Olympic break, where Reeve was the winning coach and Collier collected a gold medal, the Lynx were a winning machine.
Even the New York Liberty wasn’t going to be safe from this team, the way the Lynx were playing.
And the first playoff series against the over-the-hill Phoenix Mercury was a cruise, with the Lynx getting what they wanted on the offensive end and scoring 101 and 102 points in two wins.
The Lynx had caught and passed the Connecticut Sun for the second seed with that post-Olympic surge.
The Sun won two straight to eliminate the Indiana Fever, offending famous sports writer Christine Brennan in the process with an incident involving Caitlin Clark.
The WNBA players association overreacted by chastising Brennan for asking a tough question to the Sun’s DiJonai Carrington. Then again, Brennan is said to be writing a book on Clark and was over-the-top in her unhappiness over Caitlin not being on the Olympic team.