Lowbrow night for supper yesterday, and I spent most of the meal squinting across the room at the TVs behind the bar, trying to see how the Lynx were doing. Damn cataracts! Soon gave up and began gauging how things might be going by the cheering-to-quiet ratio of the people sitting at the bar (kids’ phones were without charge—shocking!—and I’d left mine at home). This method suggested that the Lynx were having some moments but probably losing, and then walking out past the bar I saw they were behind 69-81 with just over 4 minutes to play.
I wouldn’t have turned on the TV at home if one of the kids, having plugged in her phone, had not shouted that the Lynx were down by 3 with 40 seconds left. I hardly believed her, but we turned on the TV and saw the frenetic conclusion to regulation and then the overtime roller coaster. What a wild game!
After it was over, I used the “play-by-play” feature at espn.com to figure out what had happened while we walked to our car and drove four blocks home. Turns out that low ebb for the Lynx occurred about the time we were settling up with our waiter: the Liberty made a 3-point basket with 5:20 to go that put them ahead by 15, 81-66. According to espn, their win probability was 99.2 percent.
The Lynx then closed regulation on an 18-3 run to force overtime. Of the play-by-play details, the sequence that jumped out at me began with 2:31 left, the Liberty now leading by 7 and in possession, but the Lynx defense locked them down and forced a shot clock violation. Now it’s our ball, still down 7, 2:07 on the clock. Then:
1:55 Courtney Williams misses 25-foot three point pullup jump shot 76-83
1:53 Napheesa Collier offensive rebound 76-83
1:48 Natasha Hiedeman misses driving floating jump shot 76-83
1:46 Napheesa Collier offensive rebound 76-83
1:40 Napheesa Collier makes driving layup 78-83
The Liberty had chances to seal the win but:
24.1 Napheesa Collier blocks Jonquel Jones’s 3-foot layup 80-83
24.1 Liberty team offensive rebound 80-83
18.1 shot clock turnover 80-83
18.1 Lynx full time out 80-83
Collier had a basket, two offensive rebounds, and a game-saving blocked shot that led to a turnover—in about 90 seconds of scoreboard time. She’s pretty good. Eventually she scored the game-winning basket with 8 seconds left in the overtime period.
Beginning to think that, for Minnesota professional teams, lying down and dying in the clutch might be a trait that’s connected to the Y chromosome.