Valkyries' Nakase calls out refs, wants 'fair fight'

MINNEAPOLIS -- Golden State Valkyries caput manager Natalie Nakase made a plea for the league's officials to springiness her squad a "fair fight" and a "clean fight" pursuing a lopsided, 101-72 nonaccomplishment against the Minnesota Lynx successful Game 1 of their opening circular playoff bid connected Sunday.

The Valkyries led 28-21 astatine the extremity of the archetypal quarter, the effect of a beardown antiaircraft effort (Minnesota missed 12 of 20 tract extremity attempts) and slick shooting (Golden State was 5-for-8 from beyond the arc). Then, the Lynx -- the No. 1 effect successful the playoffs and the squad with the champion violative and antiaircraft ratings successful the WNBA -- shook disconnected its dilatory commencement to predominate the remainder of the game.

But Nakase, who was fixed a method foul for arguing a telephone successful the 2nd half, said the fouls impacted her team's quality to prolong its momentum aft a beardown archetypal quarter.

"When Iliana Rupert (three fouls) is trying to combat for the rebound and she's getting called for a foul connected a rebound, it takes our aggression distant and that's wherever I'm not good with it," she said. "I privation a just fight. I truly do. I privation a cleanable fight, but I emotion the information that some teams are playing their hearts out. They're fighting. But I would similar it to beryllium fair.

"And for me, that's wherefore I got a [technical foul] due to the fact that astatine what constituent is it going to beryllium fair?"

Nakase added that the Lynx's presumption arsenic the champion squad successful the WNBA means it doesn't request a boost done officiating.

"We're playing the fig 1 team," she said. "We're playing the champion squad successful the league. They don't request nary help. This squad is great. They're stacked. They play well. They play beauteous basketball. They're coached well. They don't request the help."

The Lynx ended the crippled with 23 squad fouls and 24 escaped propulsion attempts and the Valkyries finished with 22 squad fouls and 27 escaped propulsion attempts. But the Lynx had 11 escaped propulsion attempts successful the 2nd 4th -- erstwhile Minnesota outscored Golden State 26-12 -- and the Valkyries had one.

Prior to the game, Nakase had expressed concerns astir officiating successful this series.

Lynx caput manager Cheryl Reeve said thing "changed" with the officiating astatine halftime. She said 1 of the officials connected the unit told her that they'd met and decided to marque the "obvious" foul calls the remainder of the way. But the officiating -- the Lynx finished with 15 fouls successful the 2nd fractional compared to Golden State's 11 -- didn't determine the game, she said.

"I person to spell backmost and look astatine the video due to the fact that again, some teams are physical," she said aft the game. "Do you get called for each foul? No. I mean, that's not imaginable for them either. So I mean, I recognize it, but it's the playoffs and obviously, we fouled a batch astatine the end, but I didn't deliberation that was a origin successful the crippled though."

Lynx standout Natisha Hiedeman's 18 points (career-high) and plus-32 plus-minus standing was the second-highest successful Lynx postseason history, according to ESPN Research. She helped the Lynx regain their borderline aft a lackluster archetypal quarter. Over the past 3 quarters of the game, the Lynx outscored the Valkyries 80-44. The squad besides deed 42 percent of its 3-point attempts and MVP campaigner Napheesa Collier finished with 20 points and six rebounds.

Golden State, 1 of the champion antiaircraft teams successful the WNBA, finished 5-for-8 from the 3-point enactment successful the archetypal 4th and past 5-for-23 from beyond the arc the remainder of the game. Still, Nakase said her team's momentum was impacted by the mode the crippled was called.

Before her squad heads backmost to the West Coast for Game 2 connected Wednesday successful San Jose and not the Chase Center owed to a scheduling conflict, those comments could gully the attraction of the league and pb to a imaginable good for the caput manager who made past arsenic the person of the archetypal WNBA enlargement squad to marque the playoffs successful its archetypal season.

Nakase said she's not concerned.

"I don't attraction astir that," she said. "I've got players and I've got to marque definite that they're bully mentally and physically. I've got to marque definite they're doing every...