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With the league's best record and a pair of MVP candidates, defending champion Minnesota is the favorite when the 2012 WNBA playoffs open Thursday.

Despite leading the Dream to back-to-back WNBA Finals the past two seasons, Marynell Meadors was fired Monday. And now we know who's really in charge in Atlanta: star player Angel McCoughtry.

Saturday's Lynx-Dream contest is a WNBA Finals rematch that was supposed to pit the league's top scorer against the league's top team. But right now, Angel McCoughtry's puzzling absence is taking center stage.

WNBA commissioner Laurel Richie hopes the U.S. women's basketball team winning gold means more eyes will be on her league in the second half of the season and into the playoffs.

The WNBA just had a month-long break, but the playoff push will be intense from the get-go when games resume Thursday.

Every team in the WNBA's Eastern Conference has some definite positives. But it's unclear who really might be the best.

The start of any WNBA season hinges on how quickly teams jell with new combinations and how players perform after their overseas experiences. But which teams deal best after the monthlong break for the Olympics might have the biggest impact this season.

Jen Gillom has entered an exclusive club.

Doug Bruno, Marynell Meadors and Jennifer Gillom will serve as assistant coaches with the U.S. women's basketball team at this summer's London Olympics, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press.

Atlanta lost all three games in the WNBA Finals, but only by a combined eight points. The young franchise and its young stars will only build off the experience going forward.

Just two years ago, Iziane Castro Marques had to keep telling herself that basketball should be fun. This season, as Atlanta inches toward its first WNBA finals appearance, no one needs any reminders.

The WNBA's Atlanta Dream will face the British women's national basketball team in the American league's first move into the European market.