The Minnesota Lynx were operating on an entirely different level when they faced the Los Angeles Sparks on August 6. At 25-6, the Lynx owned the WNBA’s best record and had established themselves as one of the league’s most complete and formidable teams. The Sparks, by contrast, were struggling at 11-18 and had already lost both of their previous meetings with the Lynx. So when the Sparks pulled off a massive upset, snapping Minnesota’s 10-game winning streak, head coach Cheryl Reeve couldn’t let it slide.

As the Sparks beat the Lynx on their home court at Target Center in Minneapolis with an 89-82 victory, Reeve was furious. Former Las Vegas Aces player Chiney Ogwumike’s recollection of Cheryl Reeve’s reaction in the aftermath makes the loss even more telling.

“The one game that they lost, I know it was to the Los Angeles Sparks, out of all the teams. But it was funny because, you know, the Sparks, they were on the struggle bus. They went into Minnesota, a game that most people did not think they would do the thing. They did the thing. And I watched Coach Reeve’s postgame press conference. She was livid.”

“Once you have those types of moments with Coach Reeve, you’re going to be set on a direction of getting things correct,” Ogwumike said on Tuesday’s episode of the Chiney Today podcast.

In the postgame press conference, Cheryl Reeve was harsh in her assessment when a reporter attempted to steer the conversation toward the offensive side of Minnesota’s game.

“So, you want to talk about offense? You sound like the players, I guess,” Reeve said sharply.

“Defensively, I mean, what was it there tonight? 46 points in the paint. 46 points in the paint. Literally, a team can get whatever they want on us. Doesn’t matter the action. Doesn’t matter which personnel you go against. They get anything they want. That’s what I watched for 40 minutes…” 

“Every player, at every position, was terrible. Every player that played in the game, at every position,” Cheryl Reeve told the media.

Beyond the general expectation that a coach will be unhappy with a defeat, losing to the Sparks at that moment of the season, with that record, was genuinely difficult to process.

Because at the time Minnesota faced them, the Sparks were not just struggling; they were in freefall. Starting from their 96-87 loss to the Lynx on July 15, the Sparks had won just one of their next six games before the August 6 rematch. In fact, the slide went even deeper, as the Los Angeles Sparks had won just four of their last 15 games before their stunning win against the league leaders.

In a particularly striking twist, after defeating Minnesota that night, the Sparks promptly lost their next six games and lost any hope of making it to the 2026 playoffs.

Meanwhile, as Ogwumike pointed out, Cheryl Reeve’s outrage appeared to have exactly the effect it was intended to have on the Minnesota Lynx. They responded with a six-game winning streak, defeating the Valkyries, the Wings, and the Las Vegas Aces twice in that run. However, the League leaders have struggled to secure the No. 1 seed after qualifying for the playoffs.

Although the Minnesota Lynx still lead the league, they’ve lost their last two games. Their first loss came against the Golden State Valkyries and then the Atlanta Dream. In fact, the Valkyries held the Lynx to just 66 points, which was their lowest offensive output this season.

So while Cheryl Reeve’s reaction to the Sparks loss helped the Minnesota Lynx put together another six-game win streak, the recent losses have shown that they may still need to make some more adjustments.