Minnesota Lynx improve to 2-0 with familiar-looking victory at Los Angeles

Here are two ways to say the same thing about how coach Cheryl Reeve and her Lynx staff operated at halftime of a 89-75 victory at Los Angeles on Sunday:

“I mean, Cheryl always comes in at halftime and lets us know,” Courtney Williams said from Los Angeles.

Now, Reeve: “We have, you know, good, hard halftimes.”

In a game that looked very similar to Friday night‘s season-opening victory at Dallas, the Lynx were loose on defense in a tight first half and locked down in a one-sided second half. And Reeve’s message to the team at halftime Sunday was simple. She’s going to do whatever she has to do to get the problem fixed.

“Because it’s not a formula to let a team hang around and believe they can beat you,” she said.

On Friday, the Lynx let the Wings shoot nearly 50% while scoring 46 points in the first half, then just over 40% while scoring 38 in the second.

Sunday? The Sparks shot 48.5% in the first half, which ended with the Lynx leading 46-45. Los Angeles shot 8-for-27 while scoring 30 after halftime. So far, a dazzlingly efficient offense has enabled the Lynx to find time for their defense to come. No more.

Reeve and her staff usually let the players mainly do their thing in the first half and adjust from there. After she and her coaches spent the second half Sunday, in her words, coaching every play, every moment on defense in the second half, she vowed she would do that from the start of games if needed.

“Whatever we have to do, we’re going to do,” she said.

It’s not a problem of effort or willingness, Reeve said. It’s just being sharp in spacing and help. And not having Kayla McBride — still away from the team for personal reasons — for either game and not having Alanna Smith (quad injury) available for the first game isn’t an excuse.

“What Dallas saw in the first half and what L.A. saw in the first half was an open paint to drive into,” Reeve said. “We closed it up. We got better.”

Azura Stevens led Los Angeles with 21 points, but 14 of them came in the first quarter. Dearica Hamby had a 20-point, 10-rebound double-double.

Now it’s time to do it from the start.

“We don’t want to be a second-half team,” said Williams, who went 1-for-9 and scored two points in the first half, then scored 11 points in the third quarter. “The energy we’ve been bringing [on defense] in the second half, we want to bring for 40 minutes.”

The offense has been there from the very start of the season.

After scoring 34 points in the opener, Napheesa Collier scored 23 points Sunday. Williams (13 points, 10 assists) had her second double-double. Smith returned to the lineup to score 18 points. Jessica Shepard had 11 points and 10 rebounds.

BOXSCORE: Lynx 89, Los Angeles 75

WNBA standings

The offense is humming. Through two games, the team is shooting 50.4% overall and 37.8% on threes and averaging 94 points per game. Perhaps more impressive is the ball movement. Last year, the Lynx set a WNBA record in assists per game at 23. They have had 27 in each of the first two games so far, assisting on 78.3% of made field goals.

“This is how we want to play,” Reeve said of her offense. “We’ve got a great buy-in on how to be successful.”

Now it’s time to bring the defense along for the ride from the start of games.

“It’s just understanding we have to come out and be aggressive, punch people first,” Williams said.