Frankly, Janel McCarville joked, it got a little monotonous.
"I got a little tired of having to stand up and always cheer for her," the Lynx center said, referring to Maya Moore, who spent the first half of Minnesota's 97-74 victory over Seattle on Saturday at Target Center shooting the lights out. "Every possession it was Maya, Maya, Maya. … When her shot is falling like that, there's not much the defense can do.''
In a game that showed the Lynx appear to be peaking for the upcoming playoffs, Moore scored 30 points on 12-for-15 shooting. Of those, 25 came in the first half. But in the second half everyone else joined in — including the bench — and the result was a one-sided victory over a Seattle team that had won five of six.
Coach Cheryl Reeve called it a message game, and it kept the Lynx (22-7) one game ahead of Los Angeles in first place in the Western Conference with the Sparks up next on Wednesday.
"We want teams to understand they're going to have to play really well to come in here and beat us," said Reeve, whose team won its fourth game in a row.
Moore — who had a career-high 35 points in her last game at Target Center — wasn't the whole story. Seimone Augustus had 16 points. Monica Wright had 10 points and seven assists to lead a Lynx bench that scored 31 points, including a career-high 14 from rookie Rachel Jarry. Point guard Lindsay Whalen had 12 points and five assists.
But the tone was set early by Moore, who had 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting in the first quarter, 10 in the second and five in the third before sitting down.
"We use the word cooking," Augustus said. "She was in the kitchen cooking and I was just kind of waiting for dinner in the dining room.''
