CHICAGO — In the moments after Minnesota’s 86-79 loss to the Chicago Sky at Target Center in Minneapolis on May 17, Lynx head coach and president of basketball operations Cheryl Reeve didn’t mince words assessing her team’s performance.
“Chicago’s a better team than we are right now,” Reeve said. “When I watched the video, I was struck by their cohesion, their identity defensively, very, very strong. Give them credit. They got us sort of out of sorts and sort of unaware how to play against it.”
Reeve’s immediate assessment wasn’t without good news. She credited the Sky with providing Minnesota with the toughest defense they’d faced so far in a young season. A type of challenge that provides an opportunity for growth for a team in search of establishing an identity.
“It was good for us,” Reeve added. “It was good for Olivia Miles. It was good for all of them. It’s not easy. This is not a game where we’re going to sit there and go ‘referees, referees,’ sure, there was physicality, but it was legal, and we’ve got to figure out how we can do the same thing. We’re just not quite there in repeating possessions, good possessions, repeatedly [doing] little things well, over and over again.”
In the week since taking the loss to Chicago, the Lynx have responded with their two best defensive performances of the season: a 100-72 win at home against the Tempo, and an 85-75 road win against the very same Sky who flummoxed them just six days earlier. A game in which the Lynx held Chicago to 23-of-73 shooting from the field, outrebounded them 54-28, and won the points in paint battle 42-30, all things the 2026 Lynx want to be hallmarks of what’s to come.
“We went back and watched film on the little things that we needed to do,” Natasha Howard said Saturday after matching her season high with 26 points, 22 of which came in the first half. “I felt like this time we knew what we needed to do to stop them. They’re a paint team, they want to get into the paint, that’s one thing we focused on in practice, and we did it tonight.”
Both teams will have the opportunity to correct the mistakes that pop out on the film and how to exploit them against each other one more time. In less than a week, the Lynx will be right back in Chicago for the rubber match, the third and final meeting of the season with their Midwestern counterparts. A meeting with the Atlanta Dream — the only other team to defeat the Lynx so far this season — in Minneapolis on Wednesday separates the two tilts with Chicago.
“Our defense has really gotten to the place that we feel like we can really rely on it to help us win real games,” Reeve said. “So I’m happy with that.”
The past two games have provided evidence of Minnesota’s defensive labors in practice coming to bear fruit. The 31.5% they allowed the Sky to shoot from the field marks a season-low. The gulf in the 54-28 rebounding advantage is another
“These are all the things that we have been just on them about,” Reeve said. “I’m really, really happy with the time that we’re spending there, and that they’re getting that chemistry as well.”
For a team still evolving and integrating several new pieces, chemistry is essential. It can’t be built overnight, and there’s no fast-forward switch to get there either. Veterans Kayla McBride and Courtney Williams both expressed optimism that the Lynx were on their way in the moments after their loss to the Chicago Sky, and Williams expressed similar sentiments after their win against the Chicago Sky six days later.
“I mean, we still learning, right? We’re glad it looked that way,” she said when asked about how the team has been able to click so well. “Every day we’re stacking days and building that chemistry. We got a great foundation, so I think us leaning into that foundation, I think that’s what you’ve seen.”
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Coming off a strong defensive effort, the Lynx’s identity on both ends of the floor has taken significant steps forward since the first day of training camp, when many players were introducing themselves to each other for the first time. Though that identity is still very much a work in progress, and the Lynx have their share of things to work on, as Reeve explains, working through such an evolution is much more fun when it involves winning games at the same time.
“We cleaned up the fouling in the second half, and then we increased our turnovers,” Reeve said after the game Saturday. “Happy to get a win. Always, always happy with a W on the road and then knowing there’s lots to work on, but we’d rather have it after a W.”
