Winless Stars face tall task at league-best Lynx (Jun 24, 2017)

By AP
Published

Sunday's game between the visiting San Antonio Stars and Minnesota Lynx pits the WNBA's worst team against the best.

On Friday, the Lynx (10-1) bounced back from their only loss of the season the week before and defeated the Washington Mystics. Maya Moore scored 22 points and MVP candidate Sylvia Fowles added 21 in the victory.

"I told the team that we came out with exactly the focus that I was hoping for in our defensive effort," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve told the team's website after the game. "We just lost a game here at home after scoring 93, so I was hoping we would respond the way we did and that we'd be incredibly hard to play against."

San Antonio (0-13), which is off to the worst start in franchise history, lost for the 15th consecutive time on Friday, falling to Dallas after trailing by three points heading into the fourth quarter.

"Start of the fourth quarter I thought we played OK," Stars coach Vickie Johnson told mysanantonio.com. "Then we just fell apart defensively."

Skylar Diggins-Smith led the way with seven 3-pointers and a game-high 30 points for the Wings.

"She was just shooting behind the screen and we weren't going out and meeting her, contesting or making her uncomfortable with the shot at all," San Antonio center Isabelle Harrison lamented. "We tried to adjust, but it was a little too late."

The Stars will have their hands full as it seems that Minnesota's Moore is finally hitting her stride. She went for 22 points, 11 boards and seven assists in Friday's win.

"Tonight was fun, because we knew we'd come in with a defensive challenge," Moore told the team's website. "Whenever we can lock in defensively, usually our offense is right up there and we can play off of our defense like we did tonight."

In the teams' first meeting of the season back on May 28, Moore and Fowles did most of the damage in an 80-66 Minnesota win. Moore scored 13 while Fowles chipped in 14 and hauled down 12 rebounds. She also blocked three shots.

In that game, the Stars pushed the pace and led after the first period. Kayla McBride topped San Antonio in scoring with 18 points.