With two games before the WNBA regular season ends on Sunday, the Minnesota Lynx earned a massive victory on Thursday night, beating the Phoenix Mercury 86-77 on the back of a strong fourth quarter where they outscored the Mercury 27-17.
Minnesota was led by 16 points from Sylvia Fowles, while Aerial Powers finished with 14 points, 10 of of them coming in the big fourth quarter.
The win over Phoenix didn’t come without some help as the Mercury announced 30 minutes before the start of the game that leading scorer Skylar Diggins-Smith would miss the game for personal reasons.
The victory puts the Lynx (14-20) in a four-way tie for seventh place with Atlanta, New York and Phoenix. Minnesota has a huge game at home against Seattle Friday and then wraps up the regular season Sunday against Connecticut.
Connecticut is third in the WNBA and Seattle is fourth, so neither game will be easy.
The Minnesota #Lynx have gone from a 3-13 start and at the bottom of the #WNBA standings to rattling off 11 wins over their next 18 games to get back into a playoff seed with two games remaining.
You really can't make this stuff up.
— Mitchell Hansen (@M_Hansen13) August 11, 2022
The top eight teams make the playoffs, so the final two spots are all still within reach for Minnesota, Atlanta, New York, Phoenix and Los Angeles (13-21).
Note: Jessica Shepard had 15 points and 12 rebounds for Minnesota, and Moriah Jefferson had a career-best 12 assists.
