FanPost

Pass The Lynx on the Left Hand Side

Kevin C. Cox

The Minnesota Lynx are good. Really, really good. They've won 11 straight games and Maya Moore is cashing in points like they are expiring vacation days. But there is one thing the Lynx are doing that are pushing them above the rest: passing.

Before last nights win over the Chicago Sky, the Lynx lead the league in assists with 592. That number is almost 40 assits over the second best assist team, the Phoenix Mercury. Lindsay Whalen leads the team with 5.5 assists a game, followed by Maya Moore with 3.6 and Janel McCarville with 3.1 rounds out the top three. McCarville's 3.1 assists leads all centers in the league by almost an entire pass. Jayne Appel of the Stars has 2.2 and Tina Charles of the Liberty has 2.3 but many of the other centers in the league barely scrape over 1.0 in that department.

The ability to have that kind of movement in the post will draw defenders who think the that passing is over and will set up to defend a shot rather than defend the whole floor. McCarville subverts that and takes advantage of a defender that is in the air and therefore less able to do any real defensive damage. With offensive weapons like Moore, Whalen and Seimone Augustus being able to receive those passes, the hoop will be the size of a lunar gulch.

This kind of Point-Center has been used in Europe and has been all the rage in the NBA for the past ten-plus years. But it has had mixed results in actual play. In the best scheme it is not a focal point of the offense but a part of an offensive plan that can be used if there is an opponent with a weaker interior or a weaker defense. The Lynx don't have to worry about making McCarville a point-center with the likes of Maya Moore's shooting, but on a given night where the shots aren't falling, an ability to transform the paint into an offensive starting point rather than an offensive ending can kick start a team.