Team Heat Check: Minnesota Lynx Run Hot, Toronto Tempo Run Cold (WNBA)

Ten games is not a season, but it is a mood, and moods decide a lot of games. The current mood around WNBA: Minnesota Lynx keep winning, Toronto Tempo keep losing, and everybody else lives somewhere in the weather between.

Who's hot

Minnesota Lynx own the league's best recent ledger at 10-0, and the +102 points margin underneath it says the record is earned. Per game the numbers read 98.7 for and 88.5 against, a gap that does not happen by accident across 10 games.

The chase belongs to Indiana Fever, who have gone 8-2 with a +96 margin of their own.

And do not sleep on Golden State Valkyries, quietly 8-2 across their last 10.

The whole league is averaging 89.2 points a game in this stretch, which makes Minnesota Lynx outrunning that number by 9.5 per night the loudest stat on the page.

The deep freeze

At the bottom of the temperature map sit Toronto Tempo: 1-9 in their last 10, -145 on points margin. That is about 14.5 a game in the wrong direction, and no lineup shuffle fixes it overnight.

Seattle Storm are not far behind on the misery index at 1-9.

The middle of the table is where the real congestion lives: Las Vegas Aces (5-5) and New York Liberty (5-5) are separated by almost nothing, and one good weekend reshuffles the whole neighborhood.

At a glance

The top of the ledger, at a glance:

One more thing

One reading tip before you go: points margin travels better than record. A fat margin with a modest record usually means the wins are coming; the reverse usually means they are not.

The schedule cooperates, too, Minnesota Lynx face Portland Fire next, so this story gets its next chapter almost immediately.