Lynx bracing for win-or-else showdown with Sparks

Lynx players knew, all season, that this summer was going to be a conclusion. A coda.

This was going to be a final run for the Lynx as both they and the fans have come to know them for most of the last decade.

This was before a condensed schedule took its toll, before Lindsay Whalen made official her intention to retire. Before a frustrating, up-and-down season relegated the Lynx to the WNBA's seventh seed, requiring them to play Tuesday in a single-elimination first-round playoff game against archenemy Los Angeles in Staples Center.

They knew.

"We had that perspective all year,'' center Sylvia Fowles said. "We knew that, after this, things would be different. So you have to make sure you cherish these moments, cherish these times.''

Whenever this season ends the 36-year-old Whalen will coach the Gophers women, full-time. Coach Cheryl Reeve knows that there are at least questions surrounding other players on the team. Rebekkah Brunson's season has been shortened by injury; concussion symptoms could keep her out of Tuesday's game. Will she want to play another season in 2019 at age 37? Seimone Augustus (34) is the franchise's most tenured player. What are her plans?

With the Lynx on a run that included six appearances in the WNBA Finals and four championships in seven years, Reeve and her core players had an understanding. The band would be kept together until the run ended. It was a pact.

It could be very short. If it isn't, it will only get harder. A win Tuesday would send the Lynx cross-country to either Washington, D.C., or Connecticut for another single-elimination game Thursday. A win there and the Lynx would begin their best-of-five league semifinals on the road Sunday.

The run could be short. It could be protracted. Either way it will be difficult.

"We want to fight to the end and send people off the way they should,'' Augustus said after Sunday's regular-season finale. "We did a great job last year. It's not going to be easy this year. But we know we have what we need in this locker room to make this happen. We're going to do what Whalen would do. We're going to give everything. We're going to throw the kitchen sink at everybody we play, starting Tuesday.''

This matchup was supposed to happen later. But the two veteran teams have paid the price for the condensed season.

"It's different,'' Whalen said of the single-elimination format. "We've done it one way for years. We've never been the one-game situation since college. But we have to embrace it, have fun with it.''

Despite a season that had three losing streaks of at least three games, the Lynx have confidence. The team has seven seasons' worth of playoff muscle memory. They have played in big games and know how to win them; the team won an elimination Game 4 in L.A. in last year's finals, forcing the return to Minnesota for the fifth game and a fourth title.

After Whalen's strong performance Sunday, Reeve is considering moving the veteran back into the starting lineup. She was encouraged by the bounce-back game Cecilia Zandalasini had against Washington. If Brunson can't play, the Lynx will struggle to replace her defense and rebounding, but the spacing Zandalasini provides will make it harder for Candace Parker to double down on Fowles.

Whalen has been saying it for a while, and her teammates have begun slipping into interviews, too: Never underestimate the heart of a champion. This is a savvy, proud, playoff-experienced team. They should not be counted out, Fowles said.

"It would be foolish to do so,'' she said. "For a team like Minnesota, which has been so successful over the years, sometimes you have to take a different route.''

They will start driving that route Tuesday. Win or out, knowing that the end of this season will bring change. The Lynx have known that for months.

The cohesion the Lynx showed on offense Sunday was encouraging. Can the Lynx carry that with them to Los Angeles — and beyond?