Kayla McBride ties WNBA record with 8 3s in one half; Lynx record largest road win in league history

Yahoo

2 hours ago

Kayla McBride scored 24 points Wednesday in a win over the New York Liberty. The sharpshooting Minnesota Lynx guard matched that total before intermission Saturday in Las Vegas.
During a 67-point Minnesota first half, McBride tied a WNBA record with eight 3s.
McBride didn't make another triple the rest of the way, but she still headlined a 111-58 domination of the Aces, the largest road victory in league history. The Lynx's 53-point margin of victory topped a 45-point road win by the Houston Comets in 1998 during the league's second year of competition.
Minnesota, which has now scored 100-plus points in three of its last four games, put on an offensive clinic in Vegas. Unfortunately for head coach Cheryl Reeve, it came at a cost.
Five-time All-Star forward Napheesa Collier went down with a right ankle injury late in the third quarter. She rolled the ankle of her right foot, which collided with the left foot of Lynx forward Alanna Smith while they were both hunting an offensive rebound.
Eventually, Collier slowly walked off the court under her own power, granted she had an arm around the shoulder of a Minnesota staffer as she made her way to the locker room.
Collier came into the day as the favorite at BetMGM to win WNBA MVP, leading the league with 23.8 points per game.
McBride and Collier were two of four Lynx players who scored at least 17 points Saturday. The others were forward Jessica Shepard, who tallied a season-high 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting and 14 rebounds, and guard Natisha Hiedeman, who added three 3s and notched 17 points.
As a team, Minnesota shot 13 of 14 from beyond the arc in the first half.
McBride didn't miss in the opening two quarters, and three of the five-time All-Star guard's long-range splashes took place in the span of 53 seconds late in the second frame.
"I was trying to just kind of be in the moment in the first half," McBride told ESPN in her postgame interview. "You never know when stuff that like that is going to happen. So letting it go, letting it fly, that's what I do. So I was just really having fun out there."
That late-first-half sequence saw McBride come off a screen and drain a 30-foot triple, a shot that would have probably been good for four points in this year's All-Star Game. Immediately after that, she stole a pass from three-time league MVP A'ja Wilson, dribbled down the court and hit a 27-foot 3 over the outstretched arm of the 6-foot-4 Wilson. McBride finished the trifecta of 3s with a 29-footer, making the Aces pay from way downtown after Las Vegas was late on another defensive rotation.
Fellow Lynx and All-Star guard Courtney Williams kept Minnesota's foot on the gas with a contested triple late in the shot clock, and the Lynx finished the first half with a 67-33 lead.
Collier had only four points by the break, but she added 14 more before she sustained her injury. Her first-half stat line did, however, feature four assists. Minnesota rounded out the day with 32 assists on 42 field goals.
Not only were the Lynx moving the ball around with ease, but they also were turning defense into offense in transition. Minnesota outscored Las Vegas 29-2 in fastbreak points Saturday. The Lynx cashed in on 23 points off 16 Aces turnovers.
"It's always about our defense," McBride told ESPN. "That's what we're built off of. We just had a four-game home stand. We want to bring our defense on the road. I thought we did a great job from the jump, just coming out with the intensity that we need to play with to win every possession. I thought it was a great game for us."
The Aces led the W in scoring each of the previous five seasons but entered the weekend eighth in that department. Then they shot 34.3% and fell way short of their 81.6 points per game.
Head coach Becky Hammon had her starters out of the game midway through the third quarter.
McBride starred against the franchise that drafted her in 2014. The Lynx set a single-game team record with 17 made 3s, McBride tied the single-half league record with 8 triples and Minnesota left Vegas with the largest road win in WNBA history.