Lynx win at buzzer, Spurs hire Hammon, Team USA makes cuts

A quick note to open:

Today marks two years to the day the world lost Tim Allen. Tim was an irreplaceable contributor to Canis Hoopus, and is still greatly missed by many. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts today.

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In what ended up being a wild and crazy finish, the Lynx were able to notch their 10th straight victory with a 66-64 victory over the Indiana Fever.

With the game tied at 64, Lindsay Whalen missed a mid-range jumper, only to be helped out by her fellow All Star Seimone Augustus with a tip-in with perfect touch to win it at the buzzer.

Even with the victory, the Lynx still stand 1.5 games behind the Phoenix Mercury (whose streak was recently snapped by the very same Lynx squad) for the top spot in the Western Conference. With 6 games remaining on the regular season, including one against Phoenix, the Lynx will want to act fast if they want to claim the top spot in the conference. With 10 straight victories and counting, it seems as though they're in the process of attempting to do that.

Elsewhere, the San Antonio Spurs made an extremely cool move yesterday, hiring Becky Hammon to join Gregg Popovich on the Spurs coaching staff. She becomes the 2nd woman to work as an assistant in the NBA, and the first on a non-volunteer basis.

Here's Pop's statement on the hire:

"I very much look forward to the addition of Becky Hammon to our staff. Having observed her working with our team this past season, I’m confident her basketball IQ, work ethic and interpersonal skills will be a great benefit to the Spurs."

Obviously, she wasn't hired because she's a woman. This wasn't a PR stunt. While this is her first coaching job, she apparently worked with Coach Pop throughout the summer, and more or less served as an unofficial intern during that span. This dates back to May.

Though it wasn't a PR stunt, the Spurs still deserve credit for being awesome.

Moving on, USA made three cuts recently, letting Wizards guards John Wall and Bradley Beal, along with Atlanta's Paul Millsap go for now. The cuts trim the roster down to 16 guys, and with just a few weeks remaining to get the roster down to 12, Jerry Colangelo and Coach K have some tough decisions to make. Exhibition games in Chicago and New York will likely help sort that out.

The guard pool for Team USA is absurdly deep, so seeing Beal and Wall go isn't shocking. I am, however, a bit surprised by the quick cut of Millsap. To be fair, I'm irrationally attached to his game, but a power forward (a position they're extremely weak at) who has a bit of range and some inside game getting cut that quickly perplexes me a bit.

Though, with the current roster makeup, it isn't crazy to think they were looking at him more as a center than a power forward. No matter what combo of 12 they end up with, Spain still remains the only team I see giving the Americans any trouble.

Lastly, a shameless plug. I wrote about my experience getting shocked with free tickets to the Paul McCartney show at Target Field, and wrote about it on Medium. For anyone interested, you can read it here.

To avoid too much McCartney (is there such a thing, though?), we'll change it up and do a musical birthday. Elliott Smith is one of my all-time favorites.