Lynx cream Stars behind maestro's masterful play

San Antonio, TX -- A 24 and 22-point game by Maya Moore and Lindsay Whalen helped propel the Lynx to an 81-57 victory over the Stars this afternoon at the AT&T Center.

"I thought it was a good game for us in terms of being able to stop runs," said Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve. "I thought that San Antonio, they’re hard to play against, they’re hard to score against and I think just having the mindset that if we’re not really locked in every possession then we’re going to lose the possession. And San Antonio brings that out in you.

It was a slow start between the Lynx and the Stars this afternoon. The Lynx allowed the 5-16 Stars to hang around in the first quarter, only to hold an eight-point lead going into the second, 25-15.

The Stars made it difficult to tell who the real underdog was throughout the first half. At one point, the Lynx had its biggest lead of the first half with 16-points from easy opportunities from San Antonio turnovers. However, the Stars buckled down at the end of the half and was able to cut the 16-point lead to a nine-point game going into the second half.

Minnesota's Moore and Whalen, closed the first half with 14 and 12 points, respectively, while San Antonio's Moriah Jefferson heated up at the end of the half with 11 points.

A complete shift in the second half happened, as the Lynx came alive and put on a show in the AT&T Center, after a play from Moore to Whalen, then back to Moore for an alley-oop one-handed shot that spiced up the game. The Lynx increased its lead to 17 at the end of the third quarter, after Whalen and Moore added to the board with 20 and 18 points, respectively.

"We didn’t finish a few shots that we ordinarily do, so just a higher level of focus to finish and were able to stay in our defense," Moore said.

San Antonio tried to make a comeback in the fourth quarter and snap its two-game losing skid, but the Lynx were on a roll that couldn't be stopped. Moore took control of the floor and closed out the game with 24 points, followed by Whalen with 22 points. The Stars were led by Jefferson and Monique Currie, who scored 14 and 10 points, respectively.

"I thought we were competitive one quarter," said Stars coach Dan Hughes. "You look at the two aspects that we just didn’t deal with well and one was their offensive rebounding and second chance points, they had 26 we had 1. We turned it over 15 times but we had to counter for 30 points. Those two things against a good team are just too much separation for what they’re doing.

"Give Minnesota credit, both times we’ve played them they’ve been very aggressive and we’ve been coming off of a schedule that hasn’t left us nearly as aggressive and they took advantage of it."

The San Antonio Stars fall to 5-16, while the Minnesota Lynx improve its record to 17-4.