After not taking the court as a collective team for nearly a month, The Minnesota Lynx and the rest of the WNBA return to action this week following the Olympic Break. Minnesota, which last played on July 17, will resume the final stretch of the 2024 regular season on Thursday at Target Center against the Washington Mystics.
Before the final 15 games begin for Minnesota and as it prepares to finish with the best possible seed ahead of the playoffs in just over a month, let’s refresh you on what the Lynx did before the Olympic Break and what is yet to come for the Lynx.
Over the first 25 games of the regular season, Minnesota put itself in a great position entering the break in terms of its play on both ends of the court and the potential of obtaining one of the top spots in the WNBA standings. Coming out of the Olympic Break, the Lynx sit tied with the Seattle Storm for third place in the standings, with both teams sitting at 17-8 overall. Minnesota still has to take care of business down the stretch of the regular season while sitting just 1.5 games back of Connecticut and the second seed as well as a half-game ahead of Las Vegas for the fifth seed.
To begin the season, the Lynx got off to one of the hottest starts in the league, quickly shooting up the standings into a top three spot. They ended up hitting a slide entering the break — in part due to Napheesa Collier missing time with a foot injury — while going 5-5 over the last 10 games. Now back together again, the Lynx are once again fully healthy and are ready to use their top-ranked defense and sixth-ranked offense to hit the ground running over the final month-plus of the regular season.
“Every single night is a challenge,” Lynx assistant coach Katie Smith said Tuesday. “I hope that we’re excited about the position we put ourselves in, and take advantage of list last part to put us in a great position going into the playoffs.”
As mentioned, the Lynx have just 15 games and a little over a month standing between them and the start of the postseason, which begins Sept. 19. Six of those games will be at home at Target Center, while the other nine contests will be on the road.
“I am really excited because I knew when I got back, they’d be ready,” Cheryl Reeve said Wednesday about returning to the Lynx after the Olympics. “I can tell you that when I got back here, I was excited to be back with this Lynx team. It’s a very, very special team. What our possibilities are is exciting. ... We’re ready to go.”
Lynx's Remaining Schedule
Among the games remaining, one weekend many Lynx fans have circled since the start of the season is the Aug. 23-24 weekend in Minneapolis against Las Vegas and Indiana. Not only will Minnesota be hosting the defending champions on the first night of the back-to-back and welcoming in the heavily followed Fever on the second night, but the organization will also be honoring Lynx great Maya Moore on Aug. 24 by retiring her jersey following the game against Indiana.
“The whole weekend is going to be a celebration of Lynx basketball. We have the Las Vegas Aces that Friday night and then you come right back on the second night of a back-to-back against the Indiana Fever. And to put a cherry on top, we have Maya Moore’s jersey retirement happening postgame that (Saturday) night,” Wolves and Lynx Chief Operating Officer Ryan Tanke said on the Hitting the Hardwood Podcast. “It’s just going to be an electric weekend of Lynx basketball. We are expecting two great crowds both games, and certainly the Fever game we expect that to be a full house sellout as it was when the Fever made their first visit in. We are really looking forward to that.
“I think you are going to have a lot of people coming out to celebrate Maya that weekend, and it will be great to have her and other legends from our past in the house.”
According to Tankathon, the Lynx have the easiest remaining schedule among all 12 WNBA teams, facing teams while combine for a winning percentage of 44.1%, the lowest in the league. That is good news for Minnesota as it tries to better its seeding before the regular season concludes.
Looking Ahead to Playoffs
Following a strong first portion of the season and after nearly a month break from action, the Lynx and the WNBA are back. And the rest of the regular season should be interesting as teams fight for seeding in the postseason.
“The team has done such a great job. They came together quick this year,” Tanke said. “Cheryl and the coaching staff, they got out of the gates and clearly had a great training camp and chemistry that was established early. As we jump right back into it, I think that’s going to be a competitive advantage.
“We have this really great Lynx culture and chemistry that is there, and I think that’s going to help us get off to a great start. We have a homecourt advantage that I think is undeniable inside of Target Center — the crowds are growing and the atmosphere is electric. I think that is also going to play a big part as we go down the stretch here,” Tanke continued. “The team has done a great job, the coaching staff has done a great job of really setting us up for what should be a really fun finish and hopefully long postseason ahead.”
Lynx Players Reflect on Olympic Experience
Collier, who is now a two-time Olympic gold medalist, says ready to bring that same energy back to the Lynx but she also feels the weight of her win and being a member of Team USA.
“It comes with a lot of pressure and sometimes that is really unfair,” Collier explained. “But I think you do your best under pressure and the expectation of that allows you to become an even better basketball player.”
Coach Reeve says even with such a short turn around between their return and the Lynx' first game back, everyone is ready to go.
“I think what our, what our possibilities are is exciting, and we play tomorrow night and we're ready to go,” she says. “We're ready to go.”
The Lynx are set to play the Washington Mystics Thursday night at Target Center and are in good standing for their return to the season, tied with Seattle atop the Western Conference.
Reeve says even when she was over in Paris for the Olympics, she always had an eye on the team.
“All the practices were recorded, and so before I'd go to sleep, it was like reading a book,” explains Reeve. “I'd pop in our video and watch. I am really excited because I know that when I got back that they would be ready.”
In Paris Reeve lead Team USA to win its eighth straight Olympic gold medal. The team set a record with their win in the Gold Medal game against France with 61 consecutive Olympic victories dating to the 1992 Barcelona Games.
The weren't the only Olympians on the Lynx roster either. Australia’s Alanna Smith and Canada’s Bridget Carleton also returned to the Twin Cities after their Olympic experience. While Canada didn't make it out of group play, Smith proudly wore her bronze medal after Australia defeated Belgium.
Both of those players and Collier are expecting to be back from the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. As for head coach Cheryl Reeve, her status for LA in '28 isn't known. She is Team USA's coach through 2024 and no decision has been made beyond this year.
