Lynx look to long homestand to show their improvement, boost playoff hopes

The Lynx played their best game in a very long time in a 92-64 victory over Dallas on Tuesday at Target Center in the first of six straight home games.

The Lynx tied a franchise high with 53 rebounds, getting 25 second-chance points, their most since 2017. The Lynx set season bests with 12 made threes, their biggest halftime lead, and held Dallas to less than 30% shooting.

Moriah Jefferson had the first triple-double in franchise history.

Minnesota has won three of four games. Over the last seven, though the Lynx are 3-4, those four losses came by a total of 10 points. But overall, they are 6-14 and 11th in the 12-team league. The Lynx are 2 ¹⁄₂ games out of the final playoff spot in the league with 16 games remaining.

After the victory over Dallas the talk was about how much the team had improved, how the chemistry was finally coming together. Coach Cheryl Reeve said the team was finally at a place where it was jelling.

Now the Lynx have an excellent chance to show just how much better they are. Their next three games come against the top two teams in the league. Minnesota hosts Las Vegas both Friday and Sunday, then hosts Chicago on Wednesday heading into the WNBA All-Star break.

Reeve, though, said she's not thinking about that, about back-to-back games against the Aces. She's thinking about her players finally being interested in each other, something that might not have been the case at the beginning of the season.

"Every game is a test," she said. "But, for us, we're so locked on ourselves to see if we can keep improving."

A process, Reeve said, that makes working on themselves most important.

"When you find success when you do things the right way, you hope they go, 'Oh, I like that feeling, let's do that again,' " Reeve said. "We're so self-aware now of things we're good at and things we need improvement upon that we're inching closer on those areas of improvement. Now they're catching themselves, as opposed to waiting until the next day to see it on video."

As Jefferson was about to talk to the media, center Sylvia Fowles loudly announced Jefferson's new nickname. "It's 'Triple-double now, not Moriah,' " Fowles said.

"Please," Jefferson said, "can we just move on?"

Not yet. Jefferson still hasn't gotten back to all the calls and texts she received after becoming the first Lynx player with a triple-double.

"That was a special night," she said. "Obviously I'll never forget that, the way my teammates celebrated me and my success. How much they wanted me to get that last rebound meant the world to me."

About that new nickname?

"We're not going to do that," she said. "We're going to let it die."

Reeve said Napheesa Collier — who gave birth to her daughter Mila Sarah Bazzell on May 25 — could arrive shortly. But don't expect her on the court soon.

"I know Napheesa plans to come to town soon, to kind of begin seeing where she's at, seeing what she needs and just being around the team," Reeve said. "That's our focus right now, that first step. Getting her back in. I know she misses basketball. She wants to get back in the gym."