MINNEAPOLIS -- Cheryl Reeve can't wait for Sunday night.
Even the highly tedious, detail-oriented Minnesota Lynx coach says she's done everything she can to prepare for a WNBA Finals appearance that's become as much a sign of autumn around the Target Center as the changing of the leaves at nearby Loring Park. A second two-game playoff sweep gave her veteran-centric group plenty of time to taper, reenergize, analyze and prepare for a third straight shot at a championship.
Film and scouting reports have been devoured. Game plans have been inserted. Someone just give Linday Whalen the ball and blow the whistle.
"They're bored out of their minds," said Reeve, who has overseen this franchise's stark turnaround from its outset. "I think if we'd have started a little bit sooner, they would've been OK with that. And really us coaches, too, because there's only so much you can do.
"We're ready to see each other in game setting," Reeve added, her voice changing subtly from friendly to fiery. "Let's put it all together."
But a full week since Minnesota clinched a Western Conference finals three-peat also afforded the 47-year-old supervisor a little time to reflect. When she struts out of the Target Center tunnel Sunday around 7:30 p.m., it'll mark the culmination of a series of events that began some 2 ½ years prior.
"Every year is its own journey" has been Whalen -- the Lynx's unquestioned emotional epicenter who also happens to play point guard -- and her comrades' mantra ever since training camp began.
But the sojourn to this moment began in 2011, Reeve said.
"I think each year gave us something different that we're taking that's kind of shaped this journey here in 2013," Reeve said.
First, the ascent. With Reeve's philosophies firmly implanted during her second year on the job and rookie Maya Moore proving her invaluable worth, the Lynx of two years ago played the no-respect card all season, racing to the WNBA's best record and sweeping Atlanta for their first league title.
Minnesota hadn't even made the playoffs since 2004.
"2011 was just about the climb," Reeve said. "Nobody believed in us. Everybody thought the Minnesota Lynx would collapse. The climb was relatively easy."
Especially compared to the defense.
Winning a championship is hard enough. Reclaiming it is even tougher. The Lynx learned that the hard way last year when they fell 3-1 to Indiana in the Finals after once again earning home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
"Getting back in 2012, the challenge, the weight of being a defending champion and the things that go with that" proved insurmountable, Reeve said.Then came May 2013.
Minnesota brought back four of its five starters from those first two finals teams and added center Janel McCarville to the mix. There were highs -- a league-best 14-3 record heading into the All-Star Game, which Reeve and four of her players participated in -- and lows -- four losses in five August games that threatened to topple the Lynx from their perch atop the West.
But it wasn't the first roller coaster this core group endured.
"Everything always prepares you for the next thing," said Whalen, a first-team all-WNBA selection along with Moore. "You don't want to think about it too much, yet you lean on those things and you lean on what you can get better at."
And here we are, the day before the WNBA Finals, with the Target Center decorated in orange Boost Mobile-sponsored insignia and players from both the Lynx and Atlanta Dream posing for pictures at the Finals' media day Saturday.
Reeve has the last three seasons to thank for it.
"It keeps you hungry," Reeve said.
The Dream have their own sources of recent motivation from which to draw. This is their third finals berth in four years.
They've yet to win a game.
"You always want to knock on the door, have an opportunity," Atlanta coach Fred Williams said. "The past finals is great. That's great, but that's history. Just like the games we played last week is history."
The same is true for Minnesota. But drawing upon that history has the Lynx back in a familiar spot.
No sense stopping now.
"We've picked up a little bit of the fun in 2011, bringing that back to this year, and also that focus that we didn't have last year as far as completing our season," said shooting guard Seimone Augustus, who won the 2011 Finals MVP. "We have that this year. So now you've got the fun and the focus all together. Hopefully that makes for a good recipe for success in these playoffs."
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