After reaching the low-water mark of their season Saturday -- falling to seven games under .500 after an 86-59 shellacking at the hands of defending WNBA champion Sacramento -- the Lynx sounded like a team desperately trying to find its way.
In one corner of the locker room, forward Adrian Williams, who scored 12 points, was contrasting the Monarch's clocklike precision with her team's inability to mesh on the floor.
"We didn't feel comfortable out there," she said. "I don't think we have roles. We don't know what each other's going to do on any given night."
In another corner, a frustrated Seimone Augustus, who scored a game-high 20 points, quietly talked about her team's missing chemistry.
"It didn't seem like it was there," she said. "You have to know where to go, who to go to ... who to put in when. Who's your spark plug player on the defensive end? Who's going to give you that hustle play on the offensive end?"
While the Monarchs played like a well-oiled machine Saturday, relying on a balanced offensive attack that kept Minnesota guessing, the Lynx looked like a sputtering jalopy in need of a new engine. It was Sacramento's seventh consecutive victory.
The Lynx trailed for all but the game's first eight minutes, before the Monarchs took control with an 8-2 run and pulled away from there. Minnesota often looked lost on offense, playing with little intensity and committing 24 turnovers, which the Monarchs turned into 23 points.
In a sign of how the night was shaping up, the Lynx even messed up a 2-on-1 fast-break opportunity early in the second quarter when the ball skittered out of bounds under the basket.
Saturday's debacle, before an announced Target Center crowd of 5,323, followed the Lynx's 78-55 loss at Houston two days earlier.
"At the end of the season, we should have things working for us, but right now we're not clicking offensively or defensively," Augustus said. "That's the most frustrating part."
Before Saturday's loss, Lynx Chief Operating Officer Roger Griffith demurred when asked whether management still had confidence in head coach Suzie McConnell Serio through the end of the season.
"The basketball season is a continual daily evaluation when you're not winning games," he said. "The rest of this season is about ... showing that this team will play hard and not quit, and trying to gain confidence, trying to develop that teamwork and that camaraderie."
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