Augustus scores 18, Moore adds 16 to help Lynx beat Silver Stars 85-63 for 8th straight win

MINNEAPOLIS — Seimone Augustus scored 18 points and Maya Moore added 16 as the Minnesota Lynx beat the San Antonio Silver Stars 85-63 on Friday night for their eighth-straight win.

Monica Wright finished with 14 points for the Lynx (15-3) and Lindsay Whalen scored 12. Janel McCarville grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds.

Playing for the first time in nine days due to the All-Star break, the Lynx were sluggish from the floor early before pulling away and extending their franchise-record home winning streak to 17 games, the fourth-longest in WNBA history.

"It didn't feel like nine days," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. "Getting that time off, obviously minus the All Stars, I just thought was really good for us. I thought we came back with great focus."

Minnesota improved to 9-0 at home this season.

Shameka Christon scored 15 points on 5-for-7 shooting on 3-pointers, and Danielle Robinson added 12 points for the Silver Stars (6-13). San Antonio, which had won two straight heading into the All-Star break, shot 25 for 73 (34 percent) from the field — the lowest field goal percentage the Lynx have allowed this year.

Still, the Silver Stars stayed close to the league-best Lynx for much of the first half, thanks to strong rebounding and Minnesota's own shooting woes. The Stars, the worst rebounding team in the league, was outworked just 20-19 while trailing by six at halftime.

"It was that kind of quarter," San Antonio coach Dan Hughes said. "It wasn't a free-flowing quarter in situations and neither team did a good job of getting to the foul line. They did a good job defensively and we didn't make some shots that I think we are used to making."

Even with that, Reeve and her players weren't completely satisfied with their defense, so much that the coach said she starting chiding assistant coach Jim Petersen.

"I was on him about we weren't defending stuff very well," Reeve said, "and he looked at me, he said, 'They only had nine points in the third quarter, what do you want?'"

Minnesota led by as many as nine early but couldn't pull away in the first half thanks to a 6-for-19 shooting performance in the second quarter, including several missed layups. The Lynx led 31-22 midway through the quarter before San Antonio went on an 11-4 run fueled by three 3-pointers, two by Christon, to make it 35-33 with 1:19 left in the half.