2012 WNBA Finals Game 3 story stream: Fever rout Lynx 76-59
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The Indiana Fever announced a marquee jersey sponsorship deal with athletic retailer Finish Line Friday afternoon and continued their good fortunes a few hours later with a lopsided 76-59 victory over the Minnesota Lynx in front of a sellout crowd of 18,165 fans at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
The Fever led by as much as 37, the largest margin by any team in WNBA Finals history. They now lead the best-of-five series 2-1. Shavonte Zellous had a career-high 30 points.
“I was fired up for this game,” said Zellous. “Game two left a bad taste in our mouths.”
Tamika Catchings scored 17 points and pulled down six rebounds for the Fever. Erin Phillips contributed 13 points and four rebounds. Erlana Larkins finished with 10 points and 15 rebounds.
“For three quarters, we probably played as well as any Fever team I’ve seen,” said Fever head coach Lin Dunn postgame.
The game was evenly matched for the first five minutes but the Fever began to break away and led 21-16 after the first quarter.
“I thought we started out with an enormous amount of energy on the defensive end,” said Dunn. “I mean, we were locked into the things that we wanted to do, the way we wanted to disrupt them, and then we turned some of that disruption into transition buckets down on the other end.”
At halftime Indiana led 45-27 and Zellous had 15 points. They continued to outscore the Lynx, outshooting them 25-11 in the third quarter. The Lynx tried to catch up in the fourth, outscoring the Fever 21-6 but it was not enough to overcome the large deficit.
Rebekkah Brunson led the Lynx with 12 points and nine rebounds. She was the only Minnesota player to score in double digits.
“They just played hard. They were aggressive,” said Minnesota’s Maya Moore. “They pretty much had the same game plan. I think it was more us not playing like we should have. They played exactly how they should have, and we didn’t.”
In uncharacteristic fashion, Moore only finished with eight points and one rebound.
Game four in the series is Sunday in Indianapolis at 8 p.m. on ESPN2. Dunn expects the Lynx to come out swinging.
“It’s going to be a real war on Sunday.”
She indicated her strong desire for the series to end at game four.
“We do not want to go back to Minnesota, do not”
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