With less than two weeks remaining in the WNBA regular season, Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said before Saturday night’s game in Uncasville, Conn., that her team — which has the best record in the league — still has things to work on.
“We want to steadily improve as we head into the playoffs,” Reeve said in her pregame comments to media.
One concern Reeve mentioned was, “We can’t be as careless with the basketball as we were against Seattle [on Thursday at Target Center], or we’ll be in big trouble.”
The Lynx showed improvement in that area on Saturday as they defeated the Sun 94-70 to clinch the No. 1 overall seed for the WNBA playoffs for the first time since 2017. The victory was a franchise-record 31st for the Lynx, who were 30-10 last season.
“I don’t know how the players are, but I know, we never really had looked at our record,” Reeve said in her postgame news conference. “And so when you clinch, and you look at the record, you go, ‘Holy cow. We have 31 wins.’ As you mentioned, the most ever in franchise history.
“What does it mean? That this group is really special. That thus far in two years, they’ve won 61 games together. That’s a really, really special group. Just really happy for them.”
The Lynx (31-8) could have clinched the top seed on Thursday at Target Center, but they were outscored 60-33 in the second half as Seattle rallied for a 93-79 victory. The Lynx committed 14 turnovers in the loss, only their second at home in the regular season.
“We have a scenario now that if we win our home games, we win a WNBA championship. We believe in our abilities at home,” Reeve said. “Our fan base is terrific, they’re going to turn out like crazy for us. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but any little thing that you can get to be an advantage in your favor, we need to be able to make sure that we secure. That was one of our goals, and happy that the team accomplished it.”
