Minnesota Lynx, after a first quarter not like the others, roll against the Washington Mystics

Midway through the second quarter Thursday at Target Center, with the Lynx trailing by seven, right after Napheesa Collier had passed up an open shot, a timeout was called.

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve walked onto the floor to Collier. She was not happy.

Shoot the ball.

“I knew I should have shot that shot,” Collier said after the Lynx shook off a first-quarter hangover from Tuesday’s Commissioner’s Cup loss to beat Washington 92-75. “That’s what she was yelling at me about. So I shot the rest of the shots.”

And now Reeve: “Sometimes Phee needs a reminder. I can’t necessarily explain it. But obviously it’s better for our team if she was a little more aggressive. And she got back into that mode.”

Yes she did, and she pulled the Lynx along with her.

At the point of that tête-à-tête, Collier had taken five shots, made just one, scored two points. After that timeout she made 10 of 16 shots, made all five of her free throws — she has now made 34 straight — and scored 26 points.

How the Lynx responded to Tuesday was important. As was atoning for a loss in Washington on June 24 — a game Collier missed because of a back injury — in which the Mystics turned 19 Lynx turnovers into 26 points. Ten of those turnovers came from point guard Courtney Williams. Reeve has nicknamed Williams “Dory” after the cartoon fish with no short-term memory, referring to Williams’ ability to forget about bad games and move on.

But Williams remembered that one.

“I had 10 turnovers and we had our highest turnovers of the season,” she said. “That was a point of emphasis.”

After Collier’s 28 points, Williams, Alanna Smith and Kayla McBride all scored 10 points. Smith had four assists and three blocks. Williams had eight assists, six rebounds, five steals and just one turnover.

This time it was the Lynx who feasted on turnovers, using those takeaways to score 28 points and get a full 20 more field goal attempts. But there are more reasons the Lynx improved to 15-2. After being outscored 16-6 in the paint in the first quarter, Minnesota dominated there the rest of the way, 46-20. The Lynx’s six turnovers were a season low.

It’s just that it took a little more than a quarter to get there. Reeve said experience told her to expect a start like this after the way the team lost to Indiana on Tuesday. But she loved how her team responded, persevered, kept running the offense, finally started making shots.

Or, in Collier’s case, taking and making.

Out of that timeout, while the Lynx were finishing out the half on a 19-7 run, Collier made three of four shots and had two and-ones, scoring eight points. Then she ended the half with a pass to Smith for a buzzer-beating three that put the Lynx up five.

Then she scored nine points as the Lynx opened the second half on a 14-4 run to go up 18. Collier scored 10 in the second quarter, nine in the third, then nine more in just four-plus minutes in the fourth.

“I knew it was going to start dropping,” she said. “Maybe I should stop shooting threes [she was 1-for-5], but I kept going. We knew we were going to push through that. We just kept going.”

Minnesota outscored Washington 54-28 in the second and third quarters. That’s the best way to ease the pain of Tuesday’s loss.

“Losing the game is one thing,” Collier said. “But the way we lost we weren’t happy with it. We just weren’t the team we wanted to be. We wanted to come in and be the team we know we can be.”

BOXSCORE: Lynx 92, Mystics 75

WNBA standings

The victory locked in the coaching assignments for the July 19 All-Star Game in Indianapolis: the two coaches with the highest winning percentage — Reeve and New York’s Sandy Brondello (12-5).

Reeve called it a tremendous honor, said she hoped other Lynx players would go to Indiana with her and Collier. As the coach of the team atop the standings, Reeve will coach the All-Star team captained by the highest vote-getter. That means she will coach Team Caitlin Clark while Brondello will coach Team Collier.

“Well,” Reeve said, jokingly. And we repeat, jokingly. “There’s transacting that can happen. It’s been done before.”