MINNEAPOLIS — Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve knew the stat before it was mentioned at the team’s practice Tuesday ahead of Game 3 of the WNBA Finals at Target Center.
Minnesota has held the lead for just 3 minutes, 17 seconds in the best-of-five series, all of it coming in Game 1. And only 4.7 seconds of that was in regulation, per ESPN, while the Liberty has held the lead for a dominant 81:43 of the series.
Nevertheless, in a series tied 1-1, the Liberty have had trouble holding that lead late in both games.
The Lynx have managed to dig themselves out of big holes in each game.
Though only one turned into a victory, they cut down an 18-point and 17-point lead down the stretch in Game 1 and Game 2, respectively.
Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello attributed those lead slip-ups to “little details” that need to be cleaned up.
“It’s a really good team. You’d wish you’d keep those leads, but you kind of know that you’re not going to blow a team out by 30 at this level,” she said Tuesday. “So they’re going to make runs at all of that. We just handled the runs better in the second game than we did in the first. … Every possession matters. Execution matters. Taking care of the ball matters. All of the little details matter in these moments because that’s the difference between winning and losing.”
The Liberty committed fewer turnovers than the Lynx in Game 2, and although it was three more than the 15 from Game 1, it still led to the same number of points (17) by the Lynx.
Limiting turnovers and momentum-shifting plays will be crucial for the Liberty, along with continuing to set the tone from the start. In Game 2, they forced the Lynx to “scramble,” as Breanna Stewart noted, and fight from behind while creating defensive mismatches to execute scoring opportunities in the final moments.
The Liberty held the best record on the road during the regular season (16-4) and Stewart said after Game 2 that they “embrace” being away. The Lynx, however, are an equally strong home team at 16-4 during the regular season.
The Lynx aren’t looking to have to rally again with an expected sell-out crowd to support them.
“We got to bring the fight to them. We can’t come out this game and be like ‘Oh we’re going to let the game come to us.’ We gotta take it. We gotta take it,” Minnesota point guard Courtney Williams said. “We can’t dig a hole for ourselves and use all our energy getting out of the hole to not have any left in the tank to win the game.
“Just start in that first five minutes just punching. Just punching.”
In the four regular-season meetings between the two teams, including the Commissioner’s Cup final, the Lynx managed to do just that, leading in two out of their three wins by as much as 13 in the first half.
“If we end up losing a game off of them just making plays. Cool, you can live with that,” Williams said. “But, it can’t be an energy and effort and aggressive type of vibe that loses us the game because that’s honestly what it was in Game 2. We let them punch us in the mouth, and then we were so busy trying to duck and dodge that when we was able to get little punches, they was able to just eat ’em. So, we gotta be able to come out and put the pressure on them.”