Thursday was a strange day for Rebekkah Brunson because practice ended when it ended.
Usually, the Lynx forward will stay after an extra 20 minutes, working 1-on-1 with assistant coach Jim Petersen. But Petersen held her out Thursday for the first time all season due to some minor tendinitis in one of her knees.
Brunson's normal post work is done during the group timeframe, and in that space, she exhibits the work ethic that has given her coaches and teammates such a deep respect for her. But that reach-for-it attitude doesn't stop when everyone else does. Instead, for the past full year, she has adopted a new routine with the purpose of adding to a game that already impresses with tenacious rebounding and defensive intensity.
Brunson is the fourth member of the Lynx's "The Big Four" -- the one who didn't go to the Olympics with Lindsay Whalen, Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore. But as the team heads into the first game of a four-game homestand Tuesday against Western Conference contender San Antonio, the 30-year-old Brunson has continued to show she is just as critical a part of its success.
"She just has the 'it' -- whatever 'it' is -- to be great," said Petersen, who called the 6-2 Brunson the hardest-working power forward in the game. "She could have easily been an Olympian. We could have had four Olympians on that team, really because she's just as good as anybody on the Olympic team, really."
Brunson was one of 21 finalists in Team USA's pool but didn't make the cut of 12 to go to London, staying instead in Minneapolis with a team that did everything from yoga to Zumba to paddleboarding to break the monotony of the five-week break.
"No frustration at all," she said. "I just do what I do on the court and I continue to play. ... I've just been blessed to be in that pool."
But her coaches say she would have fit right in. Petersen said because Brunson knows she is not the kind of player that can naturally "roll out of bed and score 30," she works harder than anyone to force her game to the next level.
