Napheesa Collier poured in 33 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Minnesota Lynx downed the Seattle Storm 104-93 in Minneapolis on Tuesday.

Kayla McBride and Diamond Miller supplied 18 points apiece, while Lindsay Allen contributed 11 points and nine assists. Dorka Juhasz added 10 points and pulled down 12 rebounds for the Lynx (5-9).

Ezi Magbegor and Sami Whitcomb led the Storm (4-10) with 20 points apiece. Jewell Loyd had 14 points and nine rebounds and Ivana Dojkic contributed 14 points and nine assists. Joyner Holmes added 11 points and eight rebounds and Kia Nurse chipped in 10 points.

The Lynx dominated the paint, outscoring the Storm 54-32 inside. Minnesota led most of the way, with Seattle’s biggest lead being two points.

The teams will have a rematch on the Storm’s home floor on Thursday.

The Lynx finished the first quarter on a 19-4 run to take a 35-20 lead. McBride sparked the outburst with a pair of 3-pointers.

Trailing by 17 with seven minutes left in the half, the Storm rallied with 11 straight points. They hit three 3-pointers during that span, capped by Loyd’s 25-footer.

Collier answered with a 3-pointer, kicking off a 9-0 Minnesota spurt. Juhasz made two layups to cap it off.

Seattle then finished the half on a 9-0 run, including four points from Dojkic. That cut Minnesota’s advantage to 53-47 at the break.

The Lynx pushed the lead to double digits again at 68-56 with a Collier 3-pointer. The Storm whittled Minnesota’s advantage to five two minutes later on a Loyd 3-pointer.

Holmes made a layup in the final minute of the third as Seattle trailed 80-74 heading into the fourth.

The Storm failed to get closer as the quarter unfolded, however. Collier hit the 30-point mark with 7:38 left on a fadeaway jumper to make it 91-79.

Collier followed that up with a three-point play. Whitcomb cut the Lynx’s advantage to single digits again on a layup with a minute to go, but by then it was too late.

–Field Level Media

Breanna Stewart totaled 24 points and nine rebounds as the New York Liberty squandered a 16-point lead in the third quarter before earning an 89-81 victory over the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday night in Uncasville, Conn.

The Liberty (10-3) earned their fourth straight win and got help from the supporting cast down the stretch after blowing a 12-point lead with about 6 1/2 minutes left. After allowing 13 straight points, New York scored the final nine points.

Courtney Vandersloot’s layup gave the Liberty a seemingly safe 80-68 lead, but DiJonai Carrington hit two threes and Alyssa Thomas converted a layup to give the Sun an 81-80 lead with 3:39 left.

Two free throws by Vandersloot put New York up 82-81 with 3:27 left, and it was 87-81 after Kayla Thornton made a 15-footer with 40.4 seconds left. After Tyasha Harris had a jumper blocked by Jonquel Jones with 34.9 seconds left, Thornton sank two free throws to ice it with 16.8 seconds to go.

Vandersloot added 17 points and nine assists as the Liberty shot 48.6 percent from the field. Betnijah Laney contributed 16 points, while Jones collected 14 points and 11 boards.

Carrington scored 23 points off the bench, but the Sun (12-4) saw their four-game winning streak end. DeWanna Bonner added 12 points and Thomas finished with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for her fifth career regular-season triple-double.

Thomas and Bonner combined for 17 points in a competitive opening quarter that ended with the Sun up 29-28.

Stewart hit a 15-footer for a 37-31 New York lead with 6:36 remaining in the second, and the Sun countered with a 12-2 run to take a 43-39 lead on a basket by Carrington. New York then scored the final eight points of the first half and held a 47-43 advantage at halftime after Vandersloot sank a 3-pointer with 48.4 seconds left.

Stewart hit two threes as the Liberty pushed the lead to 58-45 with 6:43 left in the third quarter, and Vandersloot connected with Jones for a layup that turned into a three-point play that made it 65-49 less than two minutes later. The Sun ended the third with a 16-5 spurt to get within 70-65 going into the fourth.

–Field Level Media

Washington Mystics starting center Shakira Austin was diagnosed with a left hip strain and will be re-evaluated after sitting out for three weeks, the team said Tuesday.

Austin was carried off the court after injuring the hip during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 89-88 overtime loss to the New York Liberty. She grabbed a steal and tried to get out in transition but stumbled and grabbed her left hip area.

According to the Mystics, surgery won’t be necessary for the No. 3 overall pick in the 2022 draft.

Austin, 22, leads Washington in rebounding (7.8 per game) and blocks (13 total) while ranking second on the team with 11.4 points per game through 13 games, all starts. In 49 career games (45 starts), she has posted 9.4 points and 6.8 rebounds per contest.

–Field Level Media

The Atlanta Dream will try to end a two-game slide on Wednesday against the host Washington Mystics before the teams meet again two days later in Georgia.

The Dream (5-7) are coming off a 110-80 loss to the visiting Liberty on Friday, while Washington (8-5) saw a three-game winning streak snapped in an 89-88 loss in overtime at New York on Sunday.

Atlanta fell behind 10-2 and never recovered. The Liberty led by eight after the first quarter and by 19 at intermission before cruising in the second half. Atlanta struggled to defend the perimeter, which helped the Liberty go 17-of-35 from 3-point range.

But Dream coach Tanisha Wright was more critical of the referees than her team’s performance in its most-lopsided loss of the season.

“Officiating has been notoriously bad all year,” Wright added. “I’ve never sat up here and blamed officials and I won’t blame the officials. But we’re expected to play at a high level every single night. These athletes — on both sides — put in a lot of work to perfect their craft and the officials need to rise to that same occasion. They should be held to that same standard.

Allisha Gray averages a team-high 17.8 points to go along with 5.5 rebounds per game, while Rhyne Howard averages 17.3 points and 5.1 rebounds. Cheyenne Parker averages a team-high 7.3 rebounds to go along with 15.5 points per game.

Meantime, the Mystics jumped out to a 23-6 lead against the Liberty before falling apart down the stretch. Washington took a 77-72 lead on Natasha Cloud’s driving layup with 1:04 left before the Liberty rallied to force overtime, where Breanna Stewart’s three-point play with 19.7 seconds proved to be the difference.

“I thought we controlled most of the game,” Washington coach Eric Thibault said. “It was in our hands to close it. And you find out a lot about yourselves in games like this.”

Mystics center Shakira Austin — the team’s leading rebounder (7.8 rpg) and second-leading scorer (11.4 ppg) — was carried off the court after injuring her hip early in the fourth quarter. Thibault said Tuesday that Austin would be re-evaluated in three weeks but doesn’t need surgery.

Washington is led by Elena Delle Donne, who averages a team-high 18.1 points to go along with 6.3 rebounds per game, while Ariel Atkins chips in 11.3 points per game. Cloud averages 11.3 points and a team-leading 6.0 assists per game.

–Field Level Media

The Chicago Sky team that won five of eight games to begin the WNBA season has all but vanished in the past two weeks.

Sloppy offense, a decaying defense and a lack of team-oriented play have Chicago (5-9) in the doldrums of a six-game losing skid ahead of its matchup with the visiting Los Angeles Sparks on Wednesday.

“Our mindset is not very altruistic,” Chicago coach James Wade told the Chicago Sun-Times after Thursday’s 80-59 home thrashing at the hands of the Washington Mystics. “We’re not playing selfless. We’re shooting bad shots, and we’re not working their defense.”

Sunday’s outing against the East-leading Connecticut Sun started out promising, but the Sky’s 27-26 lead after the first quarter deteriorated into a 96-72 defeat that replaced Thursday’s setback as Chicago’s most lopsided loss of the season.

The Sky have committed 57 turnovers against 56 assists throughout their past three contests and have not posed a threat from distance during that span, shooting a frail 25 percent from 3-point range. Opponents, meanwhile, have shot 47.6 percent from the floor during Chicago’s longest losing streak since 2021.

“All of the turnovers are with good intentions,” guard Kahleah Copper said, per the Sun-Times. “We have to continue to play together, learn where everyone’s spots are and know how they want it. Some people want the bounce off the curl. Some people want it in the chest.”

Copper energized the Sky with a career-high 29 points against Connecticut. She leads Chicago with 16.6 points per game, while Marina Mabrey contributes 16.2 points.

Alanna Smith led Chicago with 19 points in the team’s first loss of its current losing streak, a 77-62 final at Los Angeles on June 9.

The Sparks (7-7) cruise into Chicago after sweeping a pair of home dates with the Dallas Wings.

All-Star Nneka Ogwumike dazzled in both contests, following up her 20-point effort in Los Angeles’ 76-74 comeback win on Friday with a 27-point, 12-rebound display to lead the Sparks to a 93-83 win on Sunday.

Destanni Henderson, meanwhile, has been splendid since signing a hardship contract on June 16. She notched a career-high 18 points off the bench on Friday and supplied nine more in Sunday’s win, which pulled the Sparks back to .500 after they dropped the first three games of their five-game homestand.

Ogwumike and Henderson have perhaps overshadowed the season Jordin Canada is having for coach Curt Miller’s squad.

The guard’s 13.5 points per game are a career-high, as are her team-leading 5.8 assists. Canada’s been a stout defender, too, racking up 1.9 steals per game while keeping opponents’ top scorers at bay.

“Defensive players of the year are always going to be the shot blockers and the defensive rebounders and they get all the votes,” Miller said, per the Los Angeles Times, “but if there’s a little guard guarding better than Jordin Canada right now, I need to see it on film.”

–Field Level Media