Lynx, on seven-game win streak, resume WNBA play Sunday against Liberty

Four Lynx players and coach Cheryl Reeve were in Tokyo for the Olympics. But that doesn't mean the rest of the team wasn't working.

After a short break, the Lynx who stayed behind, under the tutelage of assistant coaches Katie Smith, Plenette Pierson and Rebekkah Brunson, spent their Olympic break working on individual skills, offensive execution and defensive schemes.

This week, with the league having OK'd the return of men practice players, the reassembled Lynx are healthier, deeper and ready to pick up where they left off, having won seven consecutive games into the break. Given some extra time off, Sylvia Fowles and Napheesa Collier (Team USA) and Natalie Achonwa and Bridget Carleton (Team Canada) rejoined practice later in the week.

"We don't want to take a game or two — or three — to get our wheels moving again," Smith said.

After an 0-4 start to the season, the Lynx won 12 of their next 15 games and, at 12-7, are in fourth place in the WNBA into the final 13 games of the regular season. Minnesota is 2½ games ahead of fifth-place Chicago, two games behind second-place Las Vegas. A top-four finish gives a team a first-round playoff bye. Finishing in the top two would give a team another bye into the league semifinals.

Even without backup center Achonwa (knee) and guard Aerial Powers (thumb) — and with guard Crystal Dangerfield out for a game because of an injured shoulder — the Lynx were able to go 7-0 into the break, including two victories each against Phoenix and Las Vegas.

They did it by narrowing the focus on offense, dictating who would take the shots and where they would come from. They also did it with an improved defense. With all five starters shooting 49.2% or better and averaging between 11.7 and 16.7 points, the Lynx were third in scoring (86.6), second in offensive rating (107.3) and first in both shooting percentage (50.6) and in points in the paint (45.4) during that run. At the other end the Lynx were second in both points allowed (75.0) and opponents field goal percentage (39.6).

Achonwa — who returned from a sprained knee to play in Tokyo — is back. So is Dangerfield. The key now is to keep the positive trends the team showed entering the break while concentrating on areas of needed improvement:

"Defensive rebounding, and defense in general," Dangerfield said.

"Turnovers, which have plagued us all season," guard Rachel Banham said.

The Lynx open the final stretch of the regular season against New York at Target Center on Sunday, the first game this season in which COVID-related limits on attendance have been lifted. The Lynx will need to hit the ground running, as they have back-to-back games with third-place Connecticut after that. Then after a game with Chicago, the Lynx host first-place Seattle.

"I don't think if it's about carrying over momentum as it is just continuing to get better," Brunson said. "We had some really good days in practice [during the break], starting with individual workouts to five-on-five. We wanted to get better defensively. We also wanted to make sure our flow offensively was a little better than it was."

Sunday will be their first game against the Liberty since the Liberty — behind Sabrina Ionescu's triple-double — beat them 86-75 at New York in the second game of the season.

A lot has changed since then.