The Minnesota Lynx have played two games since they wrapped up the No. 1 playoff seed with a win against the Connecticut Sun on Aug. 30. Those were the first two of a five-game stretch where the Lynx must try to balance ensuring players’ long-term health with keeping the momentum going to carry them through what they hope is a deep playoff run.
The Lynx blew out a team at the bottom of the standings when they hosted the Dallas Wings on Monday. Then they lost to the hottest team in the league, which is desperately fighting for the No. 2 seed, when they fell to the Las Vegas Aces 97-87 on Thursday at T-Mobile Arena.
They were wildly different games, but they shared a common denominator: Reserve guard Natisha Hiedeman taking center stage. Hiedeman entered the week having yet to register a 20-point game in almost two full seasons in a Lynx uniform. She scored 20 on Monday and 22 more on Thursday. Her career high in assists had been stuck on nine ever since her rookie year in 2019. But she dished out 10 on Monday to notch the first double-double of her career.
“It means everything,” Courtney Williams, Hiedeman’s backcourt mate and fellow StudBud, said when asked what it means to have Hiedeman playing at the level she is at this time of the season. “It’s what I say all the time: We’ve got to trend in the right direction going into the playoffs. And that’s exactly what she’s doing. She’s making it hard to not have her on the floor, and that’s what she’s supposed to do.”
Hiedeman has played a massive role in Minnesota’s success this season and has improved in just about every category since her first season as a Lynx in 2024. This season, she is averaging 8.5 points, 2.8 assists and 1.9 rebounds in 18.4 minutes per game.
Her jump in production has netted her more than three full minutes more playing time per game than she got a year ago. And she has teamed with fellow bench player Jessica Shepard to give Minnesota two legitimate WNBA Sixth Player of the Year candidates.
Williams added nine assists to go with 15 points in Monday’s win, making the StudBudz just the fifth duo in WNBA history to register 15-plus points and nine-plus assists in the same game, per Across the Timeline.
“Wow, that’s fire,” Hiedeman told reporters when she heard that statistic after the game. “I feel like me and Court are just a dynamic duo, so just to be able to do that and distribute the ball, that’s fire. Shoutout [to] my StudBud.”
Seated beside Hiedeman at the podium on Monday was Napheesa Collier. Collier credited Hiedeman at the beginning of the 2024 season as a big reason that group was able to build meaningful chemistry in a short amount of time despite the addition of a lot of new parts. Over a year later, the labor of building that chemistry continues to bear fruit.
“T’s been huge,” Collier told reporters on Monday. “Just what she gives us is so different than anyone else on the team, the way that she’s able to push the pace, get into the lane, finish, distribute. T gives us so much, and especially having her be that spark as our sixth man off the bench is huge. I think it’s like the most important part of our team. The depth of the team is so important, and having that head off with T puts us in such an amazing position.”
Hiedeman was a solid and reliable veteran for the Lynx last season, but her ascension this year has pushed the team to another level. It will make her an undeniable X factor in whatever playoff matchups await the Lynx.
“I think what T’s really evolved into, that’s really been helpful to us,” Lynx head coach and president of basketball operations Cheryl Reeve told reporters after the Lynx defeated the Wings. “We learned about each other last year, and this year trying to get her in these great spaces where she’s just so fast in her ability to attack the rim. [And] using that to be able to get easy scores, efficient scores, and then also when you get the help be able to find shooters, and she did that for us.”
Reeve added, “She was really locked in, playing early in the offense, so I was really happy for T. … Obviously, it came at a good time when we lost [DiJonai Carrington], so we didn’t have much going perimeter-wise. We were a little small against their big lineup that they were playing, but T just fought tooth and nail.”
Hiedeman’s play as of late shouldn’t surprise anyone who has watched the Lynx this season. After a hot start in 2025, she never showed any signs of cooling down and is now playing her best basketball at the best possible time for the Lynx.
Hiedeman verbalized these types of expectations for herself months ago, so the 41 games since then have merely been her words coming to fruition.
“I just feel like I’m kind of at that point in my career where I’m taking a big step,” Hiedeman said during training camp. “Not just physically, but mentally. My mom always told me this: ‘As you get older, you get wiser.’ And I feel like I’m real wise right now. I think that’s going to carry over to basketball, but just having that confidence, just being confident, knowing who I am as a player, not holding back, and shine away.”
Hiedeman’s shine may have started when she first stepped foot in Minnesota as an official member of the Lynx. But it’s only gotten brighter the longer she’s been there.
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