Wenesday Practice Report
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The Lynx seemed more driven than ever today at practice as they prepared for the first of six home games.
The team focused on conditioning, working on their free-throws and offensive plays, and there was nothing but tremendous effort and positive attitudes from all the players. Coach Cheryl Reeve said there's no better feeling than playing on home court.
"It's great to be back home," Reeve said. "We've had a couple practices here, but it's nice to actually play games here and get back in the Target Center and get back in front of our fans. We're anxious to progress as a team and we know that July is a big month for us."
Minnesota will spend the whole month of July playing at home, and the team knows they need to step up and use their schedule to its full advantage. With Candice Wiggins out, players like Rebekkah Brunson, and Seimone Augustus have shined in her absence. Reeve said their defense has been fairly solid, but the opposite end of things still needs work.
For their next game they face off against San Antonio who is currently second in the Western Conference Standings. Reeve said their offense will really need to excel in order to be successful against the Silver Stars.
"San Antonio is playing well," Reeve said. "We played them down there a couple games ago and we felt like we defended things fairly well, we just have a problem right now on the offensive side of things. So we've worked to clean some things up so we don't put so much pressure on our defense and make teams have to guard us a little hard then what they have been."
This also gives the Lynx a good chance to improve their standings in the Western Conference and declare themselves as a contending team for the playoffs.
"This is a really critical part of our season," Reeve said. "We keep saying our best basketball is ahead of us, well, ahead of us is here. We recognize that and this is the opportunity that we've kind of had circle for awhile. We've weathered the storm and things didn't go great for us in the first 16 games, but we recognize the opportunity that we have being at home and we're gonna try to make some progress and try to make some headway in the conference."
Reeve said the team knows their playoff hopes are still alive and well, and they realize how important these next games will be if they want to turn their season around.
"Those hopes are still intact it's just not been pretty," Reeve said. "We're just fortunate. We're fortunate to be 5-11 and to have 18 games left, to have a chance to really accomplish our goals that's what our players are talking about. We're not talking about feeling sorry for ourselves, or about the injuries, or that the play hasn't been what it's supposed to be. We've got 18 games left and we're going to try and make the best of it and be a good basketball team going forward."
The Lynx face off against the San Antonio Silver Stars Thursday July 8 at 7:00PM.
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