WNBA Finals preview: Can a founding stalwart dethrone the defending champs?

Back in May, when the league’s general managers were surveyed on which teams would win the WNBA Finals, the majority of them picked the Phoenix Mercury. Diana Taurasi’s return to the league after a season overseas was supposed to catapult the team toward its fourth championship, but save for the late-season push into the playoffs, the Mercury was nowhere close to contending. There were some other interesting teams in consideration: a Dallas Wings team with talent and energy of a new city and the Atlanta Dream, who seemed to be ready to break through with the game’s most athletic player, Angel McCoughtry. (Of course, the Wings had the league’s worst record while the Dream lacked depth to get over the hump.)

Yet, as the season began, it became abundantly clear that the league’s brightest minds were not only wrong (making predictions in sports is not an exact science), but like most observers were star-struck by the teams that separated from the pack at a historic pace. On Sunday night, those very teams — the defending champion Minnesota Lynx and the Los Angeles Sparks — will hit the court in what potentially could be the best Finals in the 20-year history of the WNBA.

About that historic pace: Here’s a quick primer for those previously unaware. Both teams set records with the best starts to a season in league history — Minnesota at 12-0, Los Angeles at 11-0 — when they first met on June 21 in L.A. A Renee Montgomery three with seconds left proved to be the difference as the Lynx walked away with their 13th win on the year. Yet, the two teams met again in Minneapolis for their next game, when the Sparks’ impressive two-player combo of Candace Parker and 2016 MVP Nneka Ogwumike pushed Los Angeles ahead early in the rematch. Eventually, the Sparks themselves actually tied the record for best start in league history with the 1998 Houston Comets (20-1), but the Lynx took back the league’s top spot for good with a close 77-74 win back on Sept. 6 thanks in large part to Maya Moore’s 12-point outburst in the fourth quarter (she finished with 20 in the contest).

In those three contests, you were able to see what separated the Lynx and Sparks from the rest all season long as both ranked at or near the top of multiple categories on both sides of the court.

Minnesota likes to push the ball, a rather easy feat with four members of the gold medalists from the Summer Games coming from the Lynx starting lineup. Having Moore and Seimone Augustus on the wings gives Lindsay Whalen not only some great assisting opportunities, but occasional help in ball handling as the veteran point guard doesn’t have to dictate the offensive pace all by her lonesome. With this year’s Defensive Player of the Year Sylvia Fowles and Rebekkah Brunson in the paint, they’re able to snatch some offensive rebounds to give shooters extra chances. Yet, there is also depth from the bench as Montgomery, Anna Cruz and Jia Perkins have given coach Cheryl Reeve solid options in spelling her starters for stretches.

Moore, in particular, was outstanding in the semifinals, with per-game averages of 25.7 points (making half her shots), six rebounds, two steals and 3.3 assists. As the rest of the world found out in Rio, she’s an impossible matchup because of her ability to run up-tempo or pick her spots in the perimeter in a halfcourt set.

Los Angeles’ success was predicated on its interior game. Parker’s numbers were down from years past, but it’s hardly a problem as Ogwumike’s fantastic season gave the Sparks a superb 1-2 combo in the halfcourt. They preferred to slow the game down and let the two bigs do work; Ogwumike has a knack for the rim with a fluid post game, and Parker can play facing the basket as well as she can with her back toward it.

Yet to just say that the Sparks have a two-woman game here would be unfair to the floor general Kristi Toliver, who also happens to be the team’s best three-point shooter. The Sparks’ third-leading scorer in the regular season (13.2 PPG), the eight-year veteran made 42 percent of her threes and doesn’t often miss from the charity stripe. In Game 4 of the semis in Chicago, Toliver didn’t miss a shot at all — 5-5 from the floor, including four three-pointers and 7-7 from the free throw line. Along with her defense (and that of Alana Beard) against the Sky’s backcourt, Toliver was a +20 on the floor. There is also the Sixth Woman of the Year in Jantel Lavender, who excelled well in her adjustment as a reserve. Having been a double-digit scorer as the team’s starting center in the previous two seasons, Lavender keeps to coach Brian Agler’s game plan of letting the offense start from the paint while either Ogwumike or Parker need a breather.

For those who look to the intangibles in sports, whether one believes in the power of experience or not, the battles of the postseason overwhelmingly favor the champs. The Lynx have been in five of the last six Finals and have made the Western Conference Finals (or now, the league semifinals) each of those six seasons. On the flip side, while the Sparks have made the playoffs in all but three of their 19 seasons, this is the founding franchise’s first Finals appearance since 2003.

If momentum matters to you, then the Lynx win here once again. Not only did they resoundingly usher out their Phoenix rivals in a three-game sweep after a double bye into the playoffs, but they came into the postseason winning seven of their last nine after returning from the league’s Olympic break. Conversely, Los Angeles needed to (pardon the pun) find a spark after the double bye with a 5-5 finish in the regular season. An outgunned Chicago Sky team was able to take Game 3 of the semifinals series from the Sparks to make things interesting, but Parker and Toliver combined for 50 points in a closeout rout on the road.

Yet, both teams have had a few days to rest some aching joints, study a season’s worth of tape and mimic each other’s tendencies to great anxiety for the first tip-off on Sunday. Like boxing or mixed martial arts, styles make fights, and the dueling approaches will make you wonder how both the Lynx and Sparks will react to the counterpunches. How does Los Angeles keep up with the defending champion’s fast-paced offense? Can Minnesota’s Fowles and Brunson stay with a deep Sparks frontcourt that features two present and former MVPs and a Sixth Woman for a series?

These weren’t the Finals some expected when the 20th WNBA season began. However, there couldn’t be a better representation of how much the league has grown over time than having the resurgence of a founding franchise in the Los Angeles Sparks clash with the dynastic Minnesota Lynx.