Minnesota at Phoenix

The Minnesota Lynx and Phoenix Mercury will open their Western Conference Championship series tonight in Phoenix. The winner of this series will be a long favorite to win it all come the Finals. Phoenix took the reign as the best team in the WNBA this season, but Minnesota has won two championships in three years, and have a full compliment of players for this series, after missing some key players for a period of time. The Lynx swept the San Antonio Silver Stars as expected, running their playoffs win streak to nine straight games. While those were high-scoring games, this series will be a different animal, as Minnesota knows that to defend their crown it will happen on the defensive end of the court. Minnesota owns a 10-6 mark to the UNDER in their last 16 WNBA playoffs games that are beyond round one. After scoring 80+ points in 17 of 20 games, Phoenix has been slowed down, as their last 13 games has seen them at 80+ in just four of them, and those 13 games have seen the Mercury go 10-3 to the UNDER. This series has also seen the UNDER prevail to an 8-2 mark in the last 10 meetings, and with so much at stake and both teams capable of getting after it defensively, this one will stay UNDER.