The Lynx are crushing most opponents.
The Lynx (12-1) are beating teams this season by the largest margin in WNBA history. If they keep it up, their 14.1 scoring margin over opponents will be a league record.
Here is a list of the top six most dominating teams:
Year Team Scoring difference
2012 Lynx 14.1 points so far
2000 Houston 12.8
1998 Houston 12.6
1999 Houston 9.3
2001 Los Angeles 8.6
Last year the Lynx beat opponents by an average of 7.9 points per game. ... Their 32-point victory over New York last Thursday (102-70) was the second biggest win in franchise history; they beat Los Angeles by 43 points (114-71) on May 3, 2006.
Liberty coach John Whisenant after his team was routed by the Lynx last week: "This is the hardest team to defend in the WNBA because they have so many offensive weapons. They just spanked us.They played like a WNBA champion."
Nine of the Lynx's 12 victories have been by double digits, including four by 20 or more points. .. Last year they won a league-best 17 games by 10 points for more.
AUGUSTUS STRUGGLES
Seimone Augustus, the Lynx's leading scorer, had an odd game against Chicago last Saturday. She only took one shot and was scoreless in the first half. She finished with only 10 points.
"It was on our minds at halftime that Seimone had only taken one shot," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said . "I thought they were physical with her. I didn't think her attention to detail at getting open and being assertive was there.
"Luckily for us, we were scoring in other areas. In the second half, we really needed her and we ran a couple of plays for her. Again, she's a great player. It wasn't her best game by any stretch. You've got to give credit to Chicago on that."
Lindsay Whalen, Reeve said, did have her best game all-around. Whalen had 25 points, eight assists and six rebounds. She also helped hold Courtney Vandersloot, the Sky's second-year point guard, to five points. Vandersloot was two for 11 from the field and had five assists versus six turnovers. Not the ratio you want.
"Those two were really competing with each other," Reeve said, "and we subbed earlier for Lindsay then we like to because she was just exerting so much energy on the defensive side of it."
Said Whalen, "It was hard chasing [Vandersloot] around. She goes around all of those screens, and I got tired of chasing her at some points."
But Whalen kept contributing. "I thought offensively she was very important for this game," Reeve said." My mindset going into this game was that I needed Lindsay Whalen to be able to be good off the pick-and-roll and get some easy stuff. She had two threes. It was just a really great game for her.
"Obviously, with eight assists and six rebounds, she got the game ball tonight. She was really good."
It was Whalen's second 20-plus points game out of the last four.
SKY ON LYNX
Chicago coach Pokey Chatman said her team didn't play defense well enough against the Lynx in the first half: "What I told the team [is] they scored 27 in the first quarter [and 24 in the second] but 28 in the entire second half. It has to start in the defensive end of the floor. It's not enough to get those things late against a veteran team, playing at home, last year's champion. They'll punish you."
Sky center Sylvia Fowles on Lynx: "They're just aggressive. They know what it takes to win. They've been there and done that. I mean they have the team that they had since last year so they all locked in and they focus and they know how each other play.
"You go up against the best and some teams are better than some. That's just what you deal with. Me personally, I like the challenge. I like playing against the Minnesotas and Indianas because they bring the best out of you."
ETC.
* The Lynx made six of 11 three-point shots against Chicago last Saturday.
* Reeve on Lynx being on national TV on the day the 40th anniversary of Title IX was being celebrated: "I felt really blessed to be one of the teams to represent on ESPN on this 40th anniversary. It was just really special."
* Taj McWilliams-Franklin about Lynx being scoreless for first seven minutes of third quarter: "Our game is always about running, anytime we don't do that we end up stagnant like in the third quarter for a period of time."
* The Lynx coaches and players, except for Jessica Adair who had arthroscopic knee surgery on Friday, were at a party Monday evening with season ticket-holders.
* Candice Parker, for the third time in five weeks this season, was named the WNBA's player of the week in the West. Los Angeles teammate Nneka Ogwumike won the award once. Phoenix forward DeWanna Bonner, who will be at Target Center on Wednesday, also won it once.
The Lynx, who have the league's best record at 12-1, have been shut out so far. Guard Lindsay Whalen of the Lynx was among the other nominees.
Indiana forward Tamika Catchings was the East player of the week. It was her second such award this week and 16th of her career.
Snippets from Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and P.J. Fleck show teams are full of optimism and are dealing with the changes in college sports.
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