September 26, 2011 - 5:35am
Going small came up big for the Atlanta Dream Sunday. As a result of Atlanta coach Marynell Meadors decision to return 6-0 wing Iziane Castro Marques to the starting lineup the Dream are very much alive in the WNBA best-of-three Eastern Finals.
The Dream boast two members of the Brazilian National Team on their roster. The first, starting center Erika de Souza, answered her country's call, leaving after Atlanta's loss in Thursday's Game One of the Eastern Conference Finals to join the Brazilian National Team at the FIBA Americas Championship for Women in Neiva, Colombia, where she helped Brazil take two steps closer to a berth in the 2012 London Olympics, putting up 18 points and pulling down eight rebounds in Brazil's 117-34 pounding of Paraguay on Saturday, before suffering foul trouble and settling for a far less dominant five-point, five-board performance in Brazil's 56-39 win over Canada on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Atlanta's other "Girl from Brazil," Castro Marques, who has been coming off the bench for the Dream since early July, opted to remain with Atlanta to assist in its quest for a return to the WNBA Finals. Meadors passed over several taller post players to tap Castro Marques to fill de Souza's place in the starting line-up in Game Two and Castro Marques thanked her by scoring a season-high 30 points Sunday in Atlanta's Philips Arena.
And though their victory was not quite so lopsided as Brazil's pummeling of Paraguay, the third-seeded Dream made a statement that, as a team, they are not ready to return home, as they avoided elimination with a 94-77 rout of the top-seeded Indiana Fever. The Dream win sends the series back to Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for Tuesday nights decisive Game Three.
Two hours later, the Minnesota Lynx, who led the league in the regular season with a 27-7 record, eliminated the Phoenix Mercury in the Western Conference Finals Sunday with a 103-86 victory in Arizona for a 2-0 series sweep and their first-ever trip to the best-of-five championship series.
The Lynx will host the winner of Tuesday's Atlanta-Indiana duel for the first two games of the WNBA Finals, which tip off Sunday at the Target Center in Minneapolis. In regular-season play, the Lynx swept Atlanta 2-0 on a mid-June weekend and split with Indiana 1-1, with each team winning in the other teams arena.