Kayla McBride Keeps It Ethical

The first text that Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve received after the team drafted Olivia Miles this spring was from a prescient Kayla McBride: “I’m going to be wide open.” The stats are bearing that out to an extent; the veteran sharpshooter is putting up some of the most efficient numbers of her career this year, and the Lynx offense is humming. After Minnesota’s 103–90 win over the Dallas Wings on Sunday afternoon, McBride told reporters that sharing a backcourt with Miles has made her feel like “a kid in a candy store.” Was she selling herself short? What strikes me about watching McBride this year is not how easy her job is, but how easy she’s made a difficult job look. Without Napheesa Collier around for the first few months of the summer, McBride drew frequent doubles and was left to pick up the extra defensive slack. All season long, she’d quietly kept the Lynx rolling with all her hard work. 

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, she decided to do it a little louder. She’d played 35 minutes against the Aces the day before, and was handed the Paige Bueckers assignment in this game. She still had the legs to hit 10 of her 14 three-point attempts, setting a WNBA record for most made threes in a game. She finished with a career-high 43 points on 16-for-21 shooting (and only one attempted free throw—as ethical an outing as they come).