WNBA
Pat Borzi, Contributor, espnW.com 8y

Lindsay Whalen, Lynx right at home in Xcel Center in Game 1 win

WNBA, Phoenix Mercury, Minnesota Lynx

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- It's a Minnesota father-daughter tradition. Every March, if Lynx point guard Lindsay Whalen is home instead of playing overseas, she and her dad, Neil, take in an early day of the state high school hockey tournament at the Xcel Energy Center.

A scheduling conflict at the Target Center forced the Lynx to shift the first two games of their WNBA semifinal series with Phoenix to Xcel, the NHL arena 10 miles east of Minneapolis, across the Mississippi River. So when Whalen took the court for Game 1 on Wednesday night, with Minnesota facing archrival Phoenix in this round for the fourth consecutive season, the surroundings were more familiar to her than her teammates.

It helped that the Lynx shipped their home court from Target Center rather than using Xcel's. Whalen and Maya Moore quickly made themselves comfortable, standing out in a game featuring 11 Olympians from Rio and virtually no defense.

Moore scored 13 of her 31 points in the runaway second quarter, and Whalen had 19 points and seven assists as the top-seeded Lynx won easily, 113-95, setting a WNBA record for points in regulation playoff game. Game 2 of the best-of-five series is Friday (ESPNews, 8 p.m. ET).

"They pretty much dominated every facet of the game," said Phoenix guard Diana Taurasi, one of the Mercury's six Olympians. "There are a lot of things we have to prioritize, and we didn't do any of them today. We didn't limit anyone. They got what they wanted, when they wanted. That's just a lack of team defense, which the last couple of weeks we've been pretty good at."

Six Lynx players scored in double figures, including reserves Renee Montgomery (11 points) and Natasha Howard (10), as Minnesota shot 63.9 percent from the field. Center Sylvia Fowles had 16 points and 10 rebounds. Taurasi finished with 25 points and Brittney Griner had 16 for Phoenix, which lost despite shooting 53.5 percent from the field. Minnesota owned a 38-20 rebounding edge, limiting the 6-foot-8 Griner to two rebounds, none offensive.

Things were so out of hand by the end of third quarter that Mercury coach Sandy Brondello gave Taurasi, Griner, Penny Taylor and Candice Dupree the rest of the night off. "Down by 20, there's no use trying to beat a dead horse," Brondello said.

The teams hadn't met since June 7, playing their three-game series in the regular season's first three weeks (the Lynx swept). The eighth-seeded Mercury won back-to-back single-elimination games in the WNBA's new playoff format to reach the semis. But they were no match for the Lynx, rested and fresh after 10 days off and aiming to become the first WNBA team since the 2001-02 Los Angeles Sparks to repeat.

Whalen, one of Minnesota's four U.S. Olympians (plus Anna Cruz of Spain), delivered the signature moment in a 14-0 second-quarter run that put the Lynx up 39-25. She finished a fast break with a behind-the-back dribble in the lane and a hesitation layup, wowing the boisterous crowd of 9,013. She waited for a late-arriving Taurasi -- an Olympic teammate in Rio last month -- to sail past before banking it in.

Phoenix never came closer than 12 points the rest of the way, and trailed by 25 in the third quarter.

"I was just trying to push the tempo," Whalen said. "Coach [Cheryl Reeve] worked me a lot this year on getting in there, making a move, changing directions. I was able to get it done that time.

"I almost lost it. Another inch one way and it would have been a turnover and they would have been running the other way. I was a little bit good and a little bit lucky on that play."

Said Taurasi: "I want to act surprised and I want to act like, 'How did she do that?' But I'm not. I've played with her and against her for so long. She has the ability to do things that no one else in the world can do, especially when she's engaged like that.

"She's one of the best players in the world. Sometimes, they're better than you. Today she made a lot of those plays where she was just better than us."

Lynx players wore purple sneakers to honor the memory of Prince, their highest-profile fan who hosted an impromptu victory party at Paisley Park last season after the Lynx won their third WNBA championship in five years. Designated fashionista Seimone Augustus generally picks the color for the Lynx playoff sneakers, but players said this was a team-wide call.

Minnesota's home away from home

Relocating playoff games because of building conflicts is an unfortunate fact of life in the WNBA, something the Lynx managed to avoid until this season.

Several months ago, Target Center officials pushed back a five-day appearance by Cirque du Soliel, originally slated for the Olympic break, to install a new scoreboard as part of the building's $130 million renovation. Rescheduling Cirque to Sept. 28-Oct. 2 forced the Lynx to find another venue for Games 1 and 2, abandoning an arena where the Lynx posted the league's best home record since 2014 (43-8).

The Lynx already contracted to play next summer at Xcel, the home of the NHL's Minnesota Wild, during the final stage of renovations. Xcel officials agreed to host these playoff games as well, with the Wild shifting three days of training camp to another location.

Xcel general manager Jack Larson said the building hadn't hosted a basketball game since the 2001 state high school boys' tournament. So most Xcel workers had no practice experience assembling a basketball floor.

The Lynx shipped their court across town on three semi tractor-trailers. Target Center operations director Tom Renner supervised a crew of 20 that put it together in time for the Lynx to practice last Monday. They broke it down for a Wild preseason game Tuesday night, then restored it for Wednesday's shootaround.

"We could take a second and bemoan it, but it really doesn't do us any good," Reeve said. "The mindset is, we are very fortunate we have a beautiful facility in St. Paul. And we said we don't care where the game is played. It's about us being together, and our fans. If we're all there, that's our home court."

The Lynx, and Whalen, certainly made it feel like home Wednesday night.

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