The Lynx gave up 105 points in a 16-point home loss to a sub-.500 Chicago team on Tuesday.
Cheryl Reeve and Rocco Baldelli take blowout losses differently
Reeve was clearly peeved at what she perceived as both a lack of effort and execution, particularly from the Lynx starters, in a 105-89 loss that dropped Minnesota to 4-6. Baldelli might just be used to losing by now after a 10-0 loss in Seattle.
June 16, 2021 at 2:47PM
The Twins were drubbed 10-0 in Seattle, a game in which nothing went right.
Both games continued trends of disappointing starts for two teams with lofty expectations to compete for championships coming into the season.
Maybe the fresher nature of the Lynx season — and the frustration of giving up 105 points — caused Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve to sound much more upset about the drubbing her team received than Twins manager Rocco Baldelli did about his team's defeat.
It could also simply be a function of the personality of each coach.
As I noted on Wednesday's Daily Delivery podcast, Reeve ripped her team's defense, lamented the poor play of her lineup and blasted herself for poor offensive coaching.
Reeve, in reply to a question about the team's defense, said: "What defense? I didn't see us play any defense."
Regarding an offense that gave up 20 turnovers, she said: "I can't coach offense. Thirty-two points off turnovers. I have to continue to find answers."
Her harshest comments were reserved for the Lynx starting lineup. Napheesa Collier, Bridget Carleton, Sylvia Fowles, Layshia Clarendon and Kayla McBride were all on the floor during a decisive stretch late in the first half and early in the second half when Chicago turned a two-point lead into a double-digit lead.
"We cut it to two, and then we just had a group that ... I left some people in there that were just not here tonight," Reeve said. "I'm playing people that weren't very good, and they were able to get it back to 9 at halftime. And then started those same people (in the second half) and saw the lead grow."
Ouch. The Lynx are only 10 games into their slightly shortened 32-game season, meaning it's only 31% over. A turnaround is still possible from a disjointed 4-6 start fueled in large part by early player absences.
Baldelli, having already absorbed 40 losses before Tuesday to go with just 26 wins, sounded more like a leader who was resigned to his team's fate even if he didn't like it — and someone who has seen 41% of the season come and go already.
The Twins trailed 5-0 by the end of the second inning, mustered just four hits, and in the field committed an error and passed ball.
"Nothing came easy today. They hit some balls hard, but even when they didn't, things did not seem to work out for J.A. tonight," Baldelli said of starter J.A. Happ. "Some softly hit balls fell, but it wasn't one play or one inning. We didn't play well at all."
That last sentence is about as close as Baldelli comes to ripping his team, which is about four measures below where Reeve went on Tuesday.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
