Lynx/WNBA

“It was amazing. We know we care about each other but you can’t say it too much,”said Moore. “This is a team that really cares about each other. We want to be there for each other. It shows when we play.”

“It was 18,000 people?” asked Seimone Augustus, when told of the franchise-record sellout crowd to watch Minnesota win its first pro basketball championship at home since the NBA’s Lakers back in the ’50s. “I’ve been here 10 years [and] I never seen the [arena’s] upper deck full of people in my career. It means a lot to be the longest tenured Lynx and see this amazing environment that we created over the last few years.”

Not since 2009 has the WNBA championship series gone the distance. But what a fitting conclusion for America’s longest running women’s pro league, “a very long and definitely exciting series,” proclaimed President Laurel Richie.

Maya Moore perhaps has swished two of the biggest shots in her illustrious career. The second one, a game winning three at the buzzer of Game 3 Friday that lifted the Lynx to a 80-77 victory over the Indiana Fever.

For those who originally thought this year’s Minnesota-Indiana WNBA Finals would be a rematch of 2012, the last time the two clubs met for the championship, we borrow one of the top all-time movie lines: “Rematch? We don’t need any stinking rematch.”

Game Two of the WNBA Finals was different than Game 1: Unlike Sunday’s contest, where the home team were seemingly looking for a jump start — as well as a jump shot — the Minnesota Lynx on Tuesday found something a bit more lasting — intensity.

If it was up to her, Carolyn Peck would be in Minneapolis in person for Game 2 of WNBA Finals on Tuesday.

“I would love to be at the game,” admitted the ESPN studio analyst Monday in a MSR phone interview. “Are you kidding me?”

It’s not so much what happened in Game 1, but instead what adjustments the team — now down a game in the best-of-five championship series — will do for Game 2.

From 1969 to 1977, the Minnesota Vikings played in four Super Bowls. In 1987 and 1991, the Twins won two World Series Championships thanks to Hall-of-Famer Kirby Puckett. Lately, it’s the Minnesota Lynx showing the big boys how to get it done.

This year’s West finals, based on the first game played Thursday in Minneapolis, is Ali-Frazier like. “[Like] two heavyweight fighters going blow by blow,” remarked a relieved Seimone Augustus after Minnesota’s 67-60 win over Phoenix to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three semi-finals series.

The MSR got a quick analysis from two coaches in the closing seconds of Minnesota’s two-point win over Los Angeles Friday in Game One of the Western conference semifinals.

The fourth-seeded Sparks are playing well, as opposed to Minnesota, who have struggled through a brutal August schedule (6-6) and lost their starting backcourt to injuries for much of that stretch while trying to incorporate new players into the regular rotation.

The MSR assembled an experts’ roundtable to discuss this week’s WNBA Playoffs. This year’s matchup: East: New York vs. Washington; Chicago vs. Indiana — West: Minnesota vs. Los Angeles; Tulsa vs. Phoenix.

Since Indiana only plays Minnesota here once a season, as does each Eastern Conference club, Tamika Catchings this week will make the first of her two final visits to Minnesota. The 6’-1” 14-year veteran forward plans to retire after the 2016 WNBA season.

Tayler Hill now understands there’s no statute of limitations on being a hometown favorite.
“I think it is a blessing to be able to come back and give to the community,” noted Hill, the only Minneapolis native presently playing in the WNBA. She seemed taken aback, however, that after all these years, locals still embrace her whenever she’s in town.

Cue up John Sebastian, who wrote and sang the Welcome Back, Kotter theme song — two of the three Minnesota Lynx’s midseason acquisitions are being welcomed back from previous stints with the team. The MSR recently talked to both of them.