The Lynx are two days away from the season opener and coach Cheryl Reeve isn't pleased. She doesn't feel her team, filled with new faces, has become connected as a group. She is disappointed in the way the team is responding when things don't go well.

After Thursday's practice ended, Reeve and co-captain Seimone Augustus spent a good while discussing how to change all that.

"I don't know if it's a case where we're three weeks in training camp, that sort of thing," Reeve said. "We still have a lot of work to do. We have some people thinking about themselves. Feeling sorry, maybe, for how they're playing. ... We can't beat ourselves, and that was what we were seeing today."

The biggest problems in practice? A lack of defense and rebounding as well as how players and the ream responds to mistakes. "How to stop the bleeding when things aren't going your way," Reeve said. "That takes time and maturity, things we don't have yet as a group."

KENT YOUNGBLOOD