The Minnesota Lynx missed out on a big opportunity to enhance their WNBA playoff chances Thursday night, falling behind 48-27 at halftime en route to a 92-87 home loss to the Dallas Wings.
Now 2 1/2 games out of the final playoff spot, Minnesota doesn’t have much time to mope about it. The Lynx are back in action Friday night with a visit to Indianapolis to face the struggling Indiana Fever.
Thursday was a far cry from Tuesday night, when Minnesota outlasted Phoenix 118-107 in double overtime and took advantage of losses by five teams directly ahead of them. The loss to Dallas dropped the Lynx a game further back with only 11 games left in the season.
While the Lynx (9-16) are definitely playing a better brand of basketball than they did in the season’s first half, their margin for error is expiring.
“We feel like we can compete with anybody,” said guard Kayla McBride. “We don’t think our record shows exactly who we are.”
Sylvia Fowles scored 20 points and grabbed 17 rebounds Thursday night, boosting her averages to 14.8 ppg and 9.4 rebounds in her final season.
Meanwhile, Indiana (5-20) returned from the All-Star break with an 89-81 home loss to Connecticut that simply wasn’t as close as the score indicates. The Sun established a 65-46 lead through three quarters, bothering the Fever with size and physical play.
“It’s still a mystery,” Indiana interim coach Carlos Knox said. “We’re trying to implement that style, that pace, that feel in the beginning of the game so that we can just consistently do it. For some reason, we came out and we didn’t have that today.”
The Fever got 21 points from leading scorer Kelsey Robinson, who averages 19 ppg. But they shot just 44.1 percent from the field, were stomped 38-26 on the boards and committed 16 turnovers in dropping their seventh straight game.
Indiana has won both previous meetings with the Lynx this year by a combined 10 points, including an 84-80 verdict on June 12 in Minneapolis.
