The Minnesota Lynx take a four-game winning streak into Thursday’s WNBA Commissioner’s Cup matchup with the Golden State Valkyries, and the night carries more than one thing on the line. A fifth straight win would keep Minnesota rolling and move the club another step toward a second Cup title.
That is why the search for Mn Lynx is spiking now: the league’s top team in net rating is facing the No. 2 team in that category, and the game could say a lot about where the West is headed. Minnesota opened Cup play by blowing out the Phoenix Mercury earlier this week, while Golden State arrives after a win against the Portland Fire.
The bigger reason Minnesota keeps drawing attention, though, is Olivia Miles. The rookie guard has given the Lynx a surge of production while Napheesa Collier remains sidelined with an ankle injury, and the burden has only grown heavier as the wins have piled up. Miles is averaging 15.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game while shooting 49.5 percent from the field, numbers that help explain why Minnesota has stayed so hard to slow down.
She has already posted six games with 20 or more points and assists, and she has cleared that line in three straight games. The No. 2 overall pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft has also become a headline player in a hurry, even if one part of her game has not caught up yet: she is shooting just 11.1 percent from 3-point range.
Minnesota has a clear prize in front of it. The Lynx won the Commissioner’s Cup in 2024 and are trying to become the first team in league history to win it twice, but Thursday also serves as a test of how much they can lean on Miles while Collier sits. If the streak reaches five, it will do more than pad the record; it will underline that Minnesota can still set the pace in the WNBA without one of its best players on the floor.
The next answer comes Thursday night in the Cup game itself, and it is a meaningful one. A win would preserve Minnesota’s place at the front of the league’s standings race and keep the path to a repeat Cup title open; a loss would put a little more weight on the question that has hovered over every game Collier has missed, which is how long the Lynx can keep this level without her.
