The Minnesota Lynx were staring at possibly losing a second consecutive championship to the Los Angeles Sparks, and guard Lindsay Whalen wasn’t having it. The relationship between the two teams was frosty and it had been a physical series — both times.
It was about to become more physical.
Early in Game 4 of the 2017 WNBA Finals in Los Angeles, Sparks guard Odyssey Sims was going for a breakaway layup, and Whalen was determined to stop it. Later that night over Thai food and wine, she told her teammates what she was thinking at that moment.
“It was premeditated,” said Whalen, who will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the 2022 class on Saturday. “I wasn’t going to hurt her or be ejected, but I knew I’d probably pick up a flagrant because I was going to foul hard. I wanted to see how the Sparks would react.
“I knew my team had my back. We were down 2-1; in Game 3 we had just gotten pummeled out there. You looked at the two rosters: They had a lot of players in their primes. A lot of us were nearer the end of our careers. I thought at that point, they were more talented. But I was gonna send a message with that foul: ‘Hey, we’re here all night, you’re going to have to go through us to win.’ And the rest is, well, history.”
Whalen got the flagrant foul but the tone was set. The Lynx won the game and the decisive Game 5 back in Minneapolis to clinch the franchise’s fourth title.
A year later, Whalen retired and now will be the first of the Lynx championship core to go into the Hall of Fame. A native of Minnesota, a state known for its American folklore, Whalen was the women’s basketball version of Paul Bunyan, except she was 100% real. And it’s why she was so beloved by teammates and fans.
She led Minnesota Gophers…
Source : espn
