WNBA Heat Check: Minnesota Lynx Are Scorching (10-0 Last 10)

Form is the story the standings tell slowly and the last ten games tell fast. Right now the fast version of WNBA is easy to summarize: Minnesota Lynx are rolling, Toronto Tempo are reeling, and the gap between those two feelings is enormous.

Who's hot

Start with Minnesota Lynx. They have won 10 of their last 10, and they have not been sneaking past anyone: the points margin over that stretch is +106, which breaks down to about 94.4 scored and 83.8 allowed per game. That is the arithmetic of a team winning on merit, not on bounces.

The chase belongs to Atlanta Dream, who have gone 9-1 with a +135 margin of their own.

Indiana Fever (8-2) round out the warm end of the ledger.

Some context helps: across every club in the sample, scoring sits at 89.1 points per game right now. Minnesota Lynx are beating the league's own pace by 5.3 a game.

The cold end

Then there is Toronto Tempo. A 1-9 stretch is ugly on its own; pair it with a -126 points margin and it stops looking like bad luck. They are being outscored by about 12.6 points a game, and no scheduling quirk explains that away.

They have company at the cold end: Los Angeles Sparks, 1-9 over the same window.

In between the extremes it gets crowded, Las Vegas Aces at 5-5 and Chicago Sky at 5-5 are basically sharing a seat, and the next series either way will split them.

At a glance

For the fuller picture, the five best recent records in the league:

The fine print

Records fib a little and points margins fib less. When the two columns disagree about a team, trust the margin, it is the slower liar.

One to circle: Minnesota Lynx meet Golden State Valkyries in their next game, and we will find out quickly whether this stretch travels.