Lynx clinch No. 1 seed despite 'embarrassing' loss to Fever, Olivia Miles dealing with calf injury
· Yahoo Sports
The Minnesota Lynx fell into the top seed in the WNBA playoffs on Tuesday night despite an “embarrassing” loss and their star rookie dealing with a calf injury at perhaps the worst possible time.
The Lynx fell to the Indiana Fever 96-77 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Tuesday, which was a game that would have secured the No. 1 seed in the playoffs had they won. But thanks to the Portland Fire’s 90-82 overtime win over the Golden State Valkyries at the Moda Center late on Tuesday night, the Lynx ended up securing the top seed anyways.
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That allowed the Lynx to head into Thursday’s regular-season finale without having to worry about playoff seeding. The bigger issue, though, may be what happens with Olivia Miles.
Miles was a late scratch in Tuesday’s contest due to a left calf injury. She had been listed as questionable before the game, and told ESPN that she sat out simply as a precaution.
The Lynx couldn’t get anything going in the first half in Indianapolis and ended up falling into their biggest deficit of the season. Before Tuesday night, they hadn’t trailed anyone by more than 20 points all year. But the Fever took a 29-point lead briefly before carrying a 23-point advantage into the locker room at halftime.
The Lynx finally responded, and opened the second half on a half 11-0 run to cut the game to 12 points before Sophie Cunningham hit a corner 3 to break the Fever’s dry spell. But in total, the Lynx ended up outscoring the Fever 30-14 in the third quarter to get within just seven points.
But their comeback ended up falling short. The Fever held Minnesota to just 13 points in the fourth quarter, as the Lynx rested their starters for much of the second half, to secure the 19-point win. Caitlin Clark led the way with 27 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.
“It’s embarrassing,” Napheesa Collier said, via ESPN’s Kareem Copeland. “We should be disappointed and embarrassed about the product that we put on the floor tonight. Not proud of what we did.”
The Lynx, now at 32-11 on the year, will run it back against the Fever on Thursday to close out the regular season. But it’s unclear if Miles will be able to play. Miles said that she was going to attempt to participate in practice on Wednesday before determining her status for the regular season finale.
Miles has been the clear frontrunner for Rookie of the Year all season. She has averaged 19.8 points per game this year, and she dropped 21 points in the team's 101-89 win over the Connecticut Sun on Sunday. That brought her to 790 points on the season andbroke Clark's rookie scoring record. Clark broke Hall of Famer Seimone Augustus' record when she dropped 769 points during her rookie campaign in 2024.
Regardless, the Lynx are still in a prime position entering the playoffs. They’ve been to the postseason in all but two of their seasons under longtime head coach Cheryl Reeve, who took over in 2010, and have won four titles under her watch. The most recent one came in 2017, though they reached the WNBA Finals in 2024.
But any deep playoff run they hope to go on this fall is going to be much more difficult to pull off if Miles is sidelined for any significant amount of time. Tuesday night’s outing in Indiana made that very clear.