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                   Taurasi, Mercury look to turn up heat vs. Lynx The defending champion Minnesota Lynx will face the Phoenix Mercury in a rematch of last year's Western Conference finals on Wednesday in the opener of a best-of-five semifinal series at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. Minnesota and Phoenix are meeting with a trip to the WNBA Finals on the line for the fourth year in a row and the fifth time in six years. The Lynx swept the Mercury last season under the old playoff format and went on to defeat the Indiana Fever in five games to win their third WNBA championship in five years.                              Minnesota went 28-6 during the regular season to win the Western Conference with the best record in the WNBA. Under the league's new playoff format, the Lynx secured the No. 1 seed and received a double-bye to the semifinals. They won seven of their last eight games but have not played since defeating the Atlanta Dream 95-87 in

                            The post-Olympics run to the WNBA playoffs was anything but kind to Los Angeles, but those struggles easily could be forgotten it the team achieves success in the postseason. The Sparks begin the playoffs Wednesday at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, Calif., with the opener a best-of-five semifinal series against the soaring Chicago Sky. The Sparks, the No. 2 overall seed in the postseason after a 26-8 regular season, went 5-5 after the league took a month-long break for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro but won their final two games. "I think Coach (Brian Agler) understands we have to get better but also prepare our bodies physically," said Los Angeles forward Nneka Ogwumike, who on Tuesday was selected the WNBA's Most Valuable Player. "There's more focus on small things, and I wouldn't say that we're going as hard as we were before." Ogwumike shot a WNBA-best 66.5 percent from the field thi