Lynx pull starters vs. Fever but clinch 1-seed with Valkyries' loss

INDIANAPOLIS -- Minnesota Lynx All-Stars Kayla McBride and Courtney Williams walked off the Gainbridge Fieldhouse court Tuesday evening with their warmup shirts still on. They hadn't taken them off since halftime.

The Lynx went into the second-to-last game of the season against the Indiana Fever with a chance to wrap up the No. 1 playoff seed with a victory. The fact that coach Cheryl Reeve didn't play her normal starters a single minute of the second half was a clue as to how things went in the opening 20 minutes.

Minnesota trailed by 29 at one point and 23 at halftime when Reeve waved the white flag in what ended in a 96-77 loss to Indiana. The two teams face each other again Thursday in Minneapolis.

"It's embarrassing," Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said. "We should be disappointed and embarrassed about the product that we put on the floor tonight. Not proud of what we did."

The Lynx ended up clinching the top seed later Tuesday night, when the Portland Fire beat the Golden State Valkyries 90-82 in overtime.

Collier, McBride, Williams and Natasha Howard all sat on the sideline the final 20 minutes. Olivia Miles, who leads the team in points and assists, and is expected to win Rookie of the Year, was scratched about 90 minutes before tipoff. She was listed as questionable because of a left calf injury and was tested by trainers before the game, and the decision was made to keep her on the bench. Reeve said Miles probably will be another game-time decision Thursday.

After the Lynx trailed 31-16 at the end of the first quarter, Reeve said she thought rest was more important than chasing a win that clearly wasn't going to happen. 

With the Lynx having lost three of the previous four games, McBride had insisted at the morning's shootaround that the team needed an attitude adjustment before heading into the postseason. Reeve, Collier and Williams all harped on the need for the group to reestablish their defensive identity, which had been the foundation of the season's success. That didn't happen, as Indiana put up 57 first-half points and seemed to break a stretch of having to rely on Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell to carry the offense.

McBride said she wasn't so much concerned about X's and O's, but she wanted the team to have an "F you" mindset toward the other team and "ripping people's hearts out, and taking momentum back."

That clearly didn't happen.

"Well, that's not my version of 'F you,'" Reeve said. "So, we'll maybe discuss that. Like, what does that mean to you? And so that would be great that maybe that might exist on Thursday."

Reeve added that she couldn't care less about playoff seeding, explaining that the Lynx are a "damn good road team."

The Fever held on despite a push from the Lynx reserves to ensure that Indiana will, at worst, be a No. 6 seed in the playoffs. A win by the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday night capped the Fever at No. 4, at best.

Clark finished with 27 points, nine assists, seven rebounds and four steals. Mitchell extended her WNBA record with 20 points for the 27th consecutive game. Fever coach Stephanie White had hammered on the fact that the team needed to get Aliyah Boston out of her slump, and that happened with 17 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.

"We're scary when we're clicking," Clark said. "Like, we're the best offensive team in the league, and we've shown moments where we can be really good defensively. I feel very confident in everything and everybody that we have in this locker room, and I think for us it's just finding a level of consistency."

Chloe Bibby led the Lynx with 15 points off the bench. Collier scored nine, Williams was held to two points and McBride went scoreless. Having now lost four of five -- their worst stretch of the season -- Bibby said they needed "a little bit punch in the face."

Collier said she addressed the team postgame.

"I said something," Collier said. "We know that what we did was unacceptable. I emphasized how proud I was of the group that came in and got us back to the game.

"I'm very proud of what they did, but we let them down tonight. So we apologize for that, and we just talked about like these things cannot happen. We had just met about the things we want to get done in the postseason, and we didn't do any of those things."