Injuries are always a concern and obviously can have an affect on the teams power rating.
However, I have not seen anything from the Lynx to indicate they are in Phoenix's league.
In the 1st power rating Phoenix is better than the best Lynx team of the past 3 years.
They are not better in the 2cd power rating than the Lynx's teams of the past 3 years which is a bit more rebound heavy, in this case, history still slightly favors the Mercury, but that is....if..... the best Lynx team of past 3 years were playing Phoenix.
This Lynx team is not close to those other 3 Lynx teams even with the starters back. The Lynx have actually player worse after the all-star break with all the starters back then they did before the break.
Lynx berfore the all-star break .... 6.8.............after... 3.84
Lynx before the all-star break......52.66.......after...... 53.09......here they are a bit better but not close to Phoenix.
Add the 2 power ratings together and the Lynx were better by a good amount before the starters returned.
And game 1 does not tell us a different story, Lynx out-shot by 3.5% to the worst team in the playoffs.
SA was out-shot by 4.4% this season, that'd be by far the worst team in the playoffs.
Don't make the mistake of backing a team because they won last year and went to 3 straight finals, back the best team this year and the evidence all supports that it's Phoenix.
The Dream/Sky are far different because according to all the "key stat battles" this is the closest match-up, and when you consider all the time lost by their leading scorer and leading rebounder and they are still the closest match-up is incredible.
The match-up between Phoenix and Lynx is not even remotely close to as evenly matched as Dream/Sky..........in other words even if Lynx are better than the power raitng they would have to be way better to be even with Poenix where as Sky only need to be slightly better to be even with the Dream which I'm quite sure they are.
Good Luck............................................