Rebekkah Brunson, the Lynx's 6-2 power forward, expects a high-scoring game with Atlanta on Sunday when the second- and third-highest scoring teams in the league meet. Both average slighty above 80 points per game.

Sunday is the first game of the best-of-five WNBA Finals.

"Both teams like to get out in transition and run," Brunson said. " It will be an up-tempo pace. It is going to be exciting and there will be a lot of points scored. Hopefully, we are the ones that score more.

"They have a lot of size," said Burnson, who averaged nearly nine rebounds per game. "But were are in here preparing. We are practicing with men that are a lot bigger than us and stronger than us, so I think we have done everything we can to prepare for them being bigger than us inside."

Two key rebounders for the Dream are 6-4 forward Sancho Lyttle, who missed both of Atlanta's games against the Lynx in June, and 6-5 center Erika de Souza, who probably will miss Sunday's game. She is playing for Brazil in the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship for Women. Brazil played Argentina in the gold medal game on Saturday night in Colombia.

Lyttle missed those games in June because she was playing for Spain in the European Women's Basketball Championships.

"We're two teams that matchup really well," said Taj McWilliams-Franklin, the Lynx's 6-2 veteran center. "We haven't played them yet at full strength. When we played them, they were missing Sancho (Lyttle). And now, in Game One, they're missing Erika de Souza. But, I think it's an exciting matchup. We both have some superstars, great point guards, great role players. Just like them, we expect to win. It's about who's going to impose their will on the other team."

McWilliams-Franklin said both teams have some of the best rebounders in the WNBA. "If you look at the rebounding leaders, it's largely made up of players from Atlanta and Minnesota," she said. "Rebounding is always important for us no matter who we play. In this series, we want to hold them to a lower shooting percentage, and in order to do that, we have to eliminate second-shot opportunities."

This is McWilliams-Franklin's fourth time in the WNBA Finals. She was on two Connecticut teams, with Lindsay Whalen, that lost twice in 2004 and 2005, and she was on a Detroit team with teammate Alexis Hornbuckle that won the league title in 2008.

"For me, any opportunity you have to get to the Finals should be special," McWilliams-Franklin said, "whether it's your first year, like Maya (Moore), or me in my 14th year."

McWilliams-Franklin said she keep for the competition and camaraderie. "And just still having something to give to the game, my teammates, the fans," she said. "I love playing. I love the competition, I love the games, I love the travel. I love everything about it, so I continue playing until I don't feel that way."

McWilliams-Franklin, who turns 41 in less than three weeks, has repeatedly said she will decide about playing next year a few months before next season starts. She signed a one-year contract with the Lynx last February.