Cheryl Reeve didn’t sound like a coach whose team just won its fifth straight game. Minutes after the Minnesota Lynx beat the Portland Fire 101-93, Reeve stood at the podium and went in on her own defense. Hard. The kind of criticism that makes you wonder if she’d rather have lost ugly than won ugly.
“We won the game because we outscored them. We’re not going to give the W back but we have to start making some progress,” Reeve said. “I’m not sure that it’s sinking in, so I don’t know what lies ahead for us defensively.”
That’s a grim outlook for a team sitting at 20-6, best in the league. But watch the tape and you see what she’s talking about. Portland hung around all night. The Fire cut the lead to 53-50 midway through the third quarter before Minnesota answered with back-to-back threes from Nia Coffey and Kayla McBride. That felt like a team putting its foot down. Reeve saw it as a team covering up a crack that keeps widening.
Defense? What Defense?
Reeve pointed specifically to transition defense and one-on-one guarding. Her guards, she said, need to “buck up and have more pride” on the ball. The quotes came from a postgame press conference posted by Lynx beat reporter Andrew Dukowitz. Reeve didn’t sugarcoat it. “We talked a lot about our transition D. Higher pick-up points, dictating — we just haven’t done that. Tonight, defensively, we couldn’t guard one-on-one.”
Portland’s Bridget Carleton dropped 22 points. Carla Leite and Sarah Ashlee Barker each scored 21. That’s three players going for 20-plus against the league’s top team. If the Lynx were playing a contender instead of a .500 club, the outcome might’ve been different.
McBride Keeps Rolling, But That’s Not the Story
McBride finished with 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting, hitting four threes. It was her sixth straight game with at least 20 points. She also moved past Becky Hammon into the top 20 on the WNBA’s all-time scoring list, which is legit. Natasha Howard added 16, Olivia Miles had 14 points and 10 assists, Courtney Williams scored 15, and Dorka Juhasz put up 12 off the bench. Plenty of offense. Enough to win most nights.
But Reeve is looking ahead. Next up is Seattle on Monday, a team sitting at 6-21. The Lynx beat them by 20 in June. On paper, that’s another win. But if the defensive issues aren’t fixed, a better opponent in the playoffs will make them pay.
Minnesota hasn’t lost since July 9. Five straight wins. Best record in the WNBA. And their head coach is this worried. That should tell you something.
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