MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. -- One-half of the WNBA's fiercest competitor was in a kissing sort of mood on Saturday,. So, that other half, which you probably know as Angel McCoughtry, broke into Dream point guard Lindsey Harding's Media Day interview and planted one on her left cheek. "Angel's my special girl," said Harding with a laugh. That's the Angel that Angel McCoughtry would prefer you to know. But she knows -- because she hears it all -- that the person you know is not Angel...

The 2011 WNBA Finals features a debut appearance for the Western Conference champion Minnesota Lynx and a return trip for the Eastern Conference champion Atlanta Dream. The Lynx finished the regular season with a league-best and franchise-best record of 27-7 as they finished six games ahead of their closest competitors. After getting past the San Antonio Silver Stars in the Conference Semifinals for their first-ever playoff series win, the Lynx went on to sweep the Phoenix Mercury to a...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Seimone Augustus, her left knee sore and looking exhausted from an all-around effort, lifted the Minnesota Lynx to the brink of their first WNBA title. She's not ready to relax just yet. There's still some work to do. Augustus scored 36 points to lead Minnesota's second-half surge, and the Lynx beat the Atlanta Dream 101-95 in Game 2 of the league championship series on Wednesday night. "The legacy isn't complete until you're holding the trophy," Augustus sai...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) More than 15,000 fans walked into Target Center on Sunday night, hoping that the Minnesota Lynx could give them a little relief from the sports abyss the Twin Cities sit in at the moment. They waved white pom-poms and hollered at the top of their lungs, and Rebekkah Brunson and Co. made sure they didn't go home disappointed. Brunson had 26 points and 11 rebounds and Seimone Augustus added 22 points to lead the Lynx to an 88-74 victory over the Atlanta Dream in Gam...

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. -- A few months before the most successful season in Seimone Augustus's professional career, she got a letter from a fan. In it, the fan told her that if Augustus were to play as hard as she could on both sides of the floor, the Minnesota Lynx's star guard would be "truly unstoppable." Augustus took it to heart, much more than the average fan letter. Largely because it was sent by Tamika Catchings. "I stopped right there," Augustus said. "I'm thinking, lik...

Season Outlook One game. The Indiana Fever closed out 2011 one game short of their goal to reach the WNBA Finals, falling to the two-time Eastern Conference champion Atlanta Dream. According to Fever Head Coach Lin Dunn, this should serve as a powerful motivator heading into 2012, with that same goal in mind. "We were close, we almost got there," said Dunn. "And if we can stay healthy - and we're healthier now than we were by the end of that series with Atlanta - and if we can imp...

ATLANTA (AP) Seimone Augustus and the Minnesota Lynx turned up the defensive pressure on Angel McCoughtry and the Atlanta Dream. The result was the final entry in a near-perfect postseason as the Lynx beat the Dream 73-67 on Friday night to complete a three-game sweep of the WNBA championship series. Augustus had 16 points and Maya Moore, returning to her Atlanta home, had 15 - including a key 3-pointer late in the game - to lead a balanced scoring attack as the Lynx won their fir...

Season outlook Isn't everything supposed to be bigger in Texas? On the perimeter, San Antonio is one of the most talented and versatile teams in the WNBA, and that is only enhanced by the selection of do-it-all guard Shenise Johnson with the No. 5 pick in the draft. In the paint, however, San Antonio comes up a little short. The Silver Stars were outrebounded by a league-worst 5.7 rebounds per game in 2011, a margin 2.5 rebounds greater than the next worst team. San Antonio's...

Season Outlook After making it to the conference semifinals last season, the Liberty as a core are in strong shape to start the season. Coach John Whisenant is building upon last year's 19-15 season by emphasizing defense. Players during practice are getting acquainted with "White Line," Whisenant's defensive strategy, where he draws an imaginary white line up the middle of the court and tells players to focus on it. "He wants the whole defense to shift the offense away from ...

Season Outlook Let's be clear: You do not reach the WNBA Finals two years in a row without being an excellent team. Despite falling in both successive trips to the Finals, the Atlanta Dream are indeed an elite team, and with only a few changes to their roster, the Dream are once again gunning for trip to the Finals in 2012. We'll start with the changes: Center Alison Bales has retired after a solid six-year WNBA career, while fellow post-player Erika de Souza will be unavailable to th...

Season Outlook Nobody would be surprised if the hypercharged Phoenix Mercury led the league in scoring again this year. The system, as always, is in place, but this year they may also be tops in the league in what No. 6 overall pick Samantha Prahalis calls her "swag." After trading point guard Temeka Johnson to Tulsa for Andrea Riley, the Mercury drafted Prahalis, an in-your-face point guard, to run the patented, up-tempo system in Phoenix. At first glance, it seems like a perfect...

Season Outlook It's tough to reach your ultimate destination unless you can avoid potholes on the road. As the Connecticut Sun head into the 2012 WNBA season, overcoming travel obstacles is the first item on their itinerary. The only team to win more regular season games (21) than the Sun last season was the eventual WNBA champion Lynx (27), but the home-and-away breakdown of Sun wins vs. losses is a flashing red light on the squads desired path to WNBA supremacy. Connecticut was ...

NEW YORK, May 16, 2012 - The results of the 10th annual WNBA.com GM Survey are in, with the league's 12 general managers making predictions for the 2012 season. While 83 percent of GMs selected the defending champion Minnesota Lynx as the team most likely to win the WNBA Finals, it was the Phoenix Mercury that GMs picked for the third straight year as the team most fun to watch (55 percent). Minnesota, led by four members of the 2011 Western Conference All-Star Team, earned its first WNB...

We spent 2011 -- the WNBA's 15th year -- honoring the past. Celebrating the steps, the people and the moments that took the 'W' from a fledgling league in 1997 to the world's premier destination for women's basketball in just 15 years. But that doesn't mean the 2011 season didn't leave us with some new memories, too. From the rising crescendo of the Maya Moore Era to the history-obliterating run of the Minnesota Lynx to the scoring race between Angel McCoughtry and Diana Taurasi that bas...

The MVP is somewhere in between the most important individual award a player can attain ... and absolutely meaningless. Receiving - rather, earning - the award is a testament to a player's colossal contributions to her team. It signifies that her presence meant more to her team's win total than anyone else in the league. And yes, along with jaw-dropping stat lines and signature moments, team wins will play a critical factor in who climbs the MVP ladder this year. That said, if you talk t...