ARLINGTON, TX — Minnesota Lynx guard Courtney Williams stared Kaila Charles down, waving a three-fingered taunt all the way down the court, after nailing a 3-pointer with Charles’ hand in her face to put the Lynx up 81-66 on the Dallas Wings at the end of the third quarter on Friday at College Park Center.
That was the ultimate “find out” moment for the Wings in their season-opening 99-84 loss to the Lynx.
Dallas messed around and put themselves in trouble late in both the first and second quarters, but both times, with their backs against the wall, they battled back. In the first, the Wings fell down 15-8 to start the game before ending the quarter by outscoring Minnesota 13-4 in the final four minutes to take a 21-19 lead after one.
Late in the second, the Lynx began to assert themselves behind the pick-and-roll tandem of Williams and Napheesa Collier, grabbing their first lead of the second, 40-38, on a nifty find from Williams to Collier with 3:28 left before halftime. The tide appeared once again to be turning in Minnesota’s favor, but the Wings employed some full-court pressure in the half’s final two possessions. Wings guard DiJonai Carrington stole Merieme Badiane’s inbound pass with four seconds left before the break and fed Maddy Siegrist streaking to the hoop to tie the game, 46-46, at the break.
The Wings responded to that adversity with some of their best ball of the season-opener, but found out late in the third that they just couldn’t afford to keep backing themselves into a corner. The Lynx, WNBA finalists from the Western Conference a year ago, piled on for a 19-7 run to end the third quarter and left Dallas in their dust, waiving a three-fingered taunt all the way out of town.
“We showed some resolve and had a couple good responses there in the first half,” Wings head coach Chris Koclanes said. “Then in the third, I don’t know, maybe it was a little fatigue. We looked a little tired in a stretch. Once they got a little bit of distance, you saw a seed of doubt, and we couldn’t really recover from it.”
Minnesota Lynx v Dallas Wings Paige Bueckers #5 of the Dallas Wings drives to the basket during the game against the Minnesota Lynx on May 16, 2025 at the College Park Center in Arlington, TX.
Photo by Michael Gonzales/NBAE via Getty Images
Paige Bueckers scored 10 points on just 3-of-10 shooting from the field in her WNBA debut, but she grabbed seven rebounds while logging 30 minutes in the loss. Arike Ogunbowale led the Wings with 16 points in the loss but also had a rough go of things on the offensive end, shooting just 4-of-12 from the field. The pair combined to shoot 0-of-5 from 3-point range against the Lynx.
“Room to grow,” Bueckers said after the loss. “You’ve got to have a starting point. You’ve got to have a foundation to build on. We don’t want to overreact to the loss, but we also know we have a lot of things we have to clean up and get better at.”
Collier, who starred at UCONN right before Bueckers got there, absolutely torched a leaky Wings defense for 34 points on 11-of-21 shooting (2-of-3 from 3-point range) in the win. She’s a popular pick to contend for the WNBA MVP this year after winning the defensive player of the year award in 2024. Williams added 25 of her own points on 10-of-15 shooting.
The Wings and the Lynx will square off again, this time in Minneapolis, in just five days, but first, Dallas will host the Seattle Storm Monday night at College Park Center.