MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Lynx turned a meeting of the best teams in the WNBA into a mismatch.
Monica
Wright, playing in the place of injured star Seimone Augustus, scored a
season-high 22 points to help the Lynx rout the Atlanta Dream 94-72 on
Tuesday night. Lindsay Whalen added 20 points for Minnesota (9-3), which
never trailed and extended its home winning streak to 15 games.
"(Wright)
was great and it's not a surprise to us when she steps into the
starting lineup and does this for us," said Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve.
"She was really pleased with her defense and her overall game. And this
game was for Seimone."
Angel McCoughtry scored 16 points to lead
Atlanta (10-2), which was playing for the first time in July. The Dream
had a night filled with uncharacteristic defensive lapses, losing for
the first time since June 9. They entered the game as the league's top
defensive team only to see Minnesota shoot better than 60 percent in the
first half. The 94 points were the most surrendered by Atlanta this
season.
"It must have been (rust). We missed a lot of shots,"
McCoughtry said. "It's just one of those things where we'll get it
again. We'll be all right. We're still number one in the league, and you
can't take anything away from this team with the way we've played so
far."
Augustus suffered a sprained left ankle in Minnesota's home
win over Phoenix on Sunday. Reeve said Augustus will travel with the
team on their four-game road trip to Indiana, Tulsa, San Antonio and
Phoenix, but gave no timetable for her return to the court. In the Lynx
locker room, the message was clear that this win was for Augustus.
"Any
time one of our teammates goes down, we take it upon ourselves to do
more," Wright said. "Those are tough shoes to fill. We wanted to make
sure we got that win for her tonight."
Minnesota got 17 first
half points from Moore and another 16 from Whalen to lead 56-39 at the
break. Moore hit six of her seven shots in the first 20 minutes,
including a trio of three-pointers as Minnesota led by as many as 19.
The 56 points was the most allowed in a half by the Dream this season.
Sancho Lyttle led Atlanta with nine points in the first half, as the
Dream shot just 38 percent before halftime.
"I told the team
before that this would be a game where we'd have to learn from some
experiences, and that's one," Dream coach Fred Williams said. "You had a
playoff-type atmosphere with the crowd, and with our younger players,
they're getting some experience dealing with that. We're just going to
build on it and keep on moving."
Atlanta, which had won six in a
row coming into the meeting with the Lynx, had not played a game since
June 30. There was some debate on Tuesday about whether the layoff would
be extended, as a water main break adjacent to Target Center left the
arena with no water until just a few hours before the game.
