MINNEAPOLIS - The only thing standing between the Minnesota Lynx and a fourth WNBA championship is the Los Angeles Sparks.
The Lynx are the defending champions and have won the league title three times in the last five years. The core group of players during Minnesota's dominant run -- Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus and Lindsay Whalen -- is back for more against a Sparks club that hasn't clinched a title since 2002.
It's an unusual matchup that pits two Western Conference teams against each other in the Finals. That's because of the new format that seeds the eight playoff teams regardless of conference. As a result, the top-seeded Lynx open the Finals on Sunday as the host to the second-seeded Sparks.
The first time the two teams met in the regular season was a battle of unbeatens. The Lynx were 12-0 at the time and the Sparks were 11-0. It marked the first time in professional American sports that two undefeated teams met with at least 10 wins and no losses.
Minnesota won that game by three to improve to a 13-0 en route to a 28-6 regular-season record.
After sweeping Phoenix in three games in the conference semifinals, the Lynx will have waited an entire week between games. Los Angeles last played Oct. 4 after winning Game 4 against Chicago to advance to the Finals.
"It feels like we finished the regular season a long time ago," Whalen told WNBA.com. "I think we've practiced more in the last however many weeks than during the entire rest of the season."
The matchup features plenty of star power on both sides. Moore and Los Angeles' Candace Parker are both former MVPs, and the Sparks' Nneka Ogwumike finished third in the league in points per game during the regular season (19.7).
Minnesota was 2-1 in the three games against Los Angeles this season. That record means little now, though, in this best-of-five series.
"There's history between us over the years and history of this season," Parker told WNBA.com. "I'm careful to call it a rivalry because we haven't held up our end of the bargain; they've beaten us. I think we put ourselves in the position to hopefully make it that now."
