Olivia Miles put together one of the best games of her rookie season on Sunday. It still cost her money.
The Minnesota Lynx guard is facing a $500 fine from the WNBA after picking up a technical foul during the team’s 108-100 win over the Indiana Fever. It was her third technical of the season, and league rules charge a $500 fine for each of a player’s first three.
The technical came with 2:37 left in the second quarter. Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell had stolen the ball from Miles moments earlier and scored off the turnover. Miles believed she had been fouled on the play. She kept voicing her frustration to officials until she drew the technical.
The fine barely dented an otherwise dominant afternoon. Miles finished with 28 points on 11-of-14 shooting, adding six assists, four rebounds, and a block. All three of her misses came from behind the arc, a sign of just how well she got to the basket against Indiana’s defense.
Under WNBA rules, the fines climb fast after the first three technicals. A fourth-through-seventh technical costs $1,000 each. Anything past the seventh jumps to $1,500. Caitlin Clark is currently just one technical foul away from the suspension. Suspensions start at the eighth technical and repeat on every even-numbered one after that. Minnesota has 13 regular-season games left, so Miles has some room, but not much.
Olivia Miles’ Performance Was Bigger Than The Penalty
Sunday’s win pushed the Lynx to 25-6 and extended their winning streak to 10 straight games, their longest run since 2016. It also snapped Indiana’s five-game streak and handed the Fever their first home loss to the league’s top team this season.
Miles has quickly become one of the most important pieces on the WNBA’s best roster. The No. 2 pick in this year’s draft, she entered Sunday’s game as the front-runner for Rookie of the Year, and her performance against a Fever backcourt built around Clark and Mitchell did nothing to change that. She scored efficiently in transition and in the half court, forcing Indiana into difficult choices on defense all afternoon.
Playing in front of 16,505 fans, most of them cheering for the Fever, Miles said the atmosphere stood out.
“It was weird hearing fans cheer on the other team’s score,” she said. “But also when we would score, it was really loud as well. So both ways, there was cheering for both baskets, and it was just loud in there. That energy is what you want as a basketball player.”
Mitchell matched her with a 37-point outing of her own, and Clark added 19 points and 10 assists, but neither was enough to slow Minnesota down. The Fever have now scored 100 or more points in six straight games, yet their defense keeps giving up big nights to opposing guards, a pattern that showed up again against Miles.
Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve acknowledged the game came down to execution on both ends.
“We felt like we had to really fight to win, and glad we did that,” she said. “The next time we play them, each team is going to have a lot more information.”
That rematch is still weeks away. For now, Miles has a $500 fine to pay and a growing highlight reel to go with it. Indiana, meanwhile, heads into Thursday’s game against the Las Vegas Aces still searching for answers on defense, with the Lynx sitting comfortably atop the standings and showing no signs of slowing down.
