Hello, hoopheads! I hope you weren’t too bored last night while the WNBA took one of just six scheduled days off outside of the All-Star and FIBA World Cup breaks built into the schedule (I was rather bored). One of the other off-days is coming up this Saturday, with another coming 10 days later, but there are just three the rest of the way, two of which surround the Commissioner’s Cup championship at the end of June. In other words, the previews and recaps will be coming hot and heavy as the WNBA keeps working its way down from 330 regular-season games. After tonight’s three-game slate, one of the rare ones this season without a national broadcast, there’ll be 316 to go.
For my money, the first game of the night is also the best one on the schedule as the Atlanta Dream (1-0) visit the Dallas Wings (1-0) (8:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) in a battle of teams coming off of thrilling wins to start the season. The Wings are looking to start 2-0 for just the second time in the last 18 seasons, a span which includes the franchise’s entire time in Dallas and Tulsa, as well as its last two seasons before moving to Tulsa from Detroit. The Wings’ only 2-0 start since 2007 came in 2023, which was also the last time they made the playoffs. They opened 2026 by holding off the Indiana Fever by a 107-101 margin in the first WNBA opener with both teams scoring triple-digit points and the fourth head-to-head meeting between Wings superstar Paige Bueckers and the Fever’s Caitlin Clark, who took an even bigger ‘L’ Saturday night when she joined Morgan Wallen on stage aka that country singer who’s best known for using a racial slur. Instead of linking to anything involving either of them, here’s a Hayley Williams banger that makes fun of that guy. Bueckers hit the 20-point threshold against Indiana alongside teammates Odyssey Sims and Arike Ogunbowale (who scored a team-high 22), one of only four trios to do that in a season opener, while the Wings made 59.1% from the field as a team. Azzi Fudd notably had the lowest-scoring debut for a No. 1 overall pick, which I share only so that I can say that I could not be less concerned. I could probably think of reasons not to worry for hours, but the two biggest reasons off the top of my head are that most No. 1 picks don’t join a backcourt with Bueckers and Ogunbowale and the game was on the road against a team with championship aspirations. If Fudd finishes the season averaging 3 points per game, then there might be some cause for concern, but that’s a long way away. A more immediate issue is the fact that Fudd showed up on Atlanta’s injury report yesterday, but she’s listed as probable with a knee injury.
Atlanta was also among the nine road winners in the season’s first 11 games, erasing a 19-point first-half deficit to stun the Minnesota Lynx on Saturday night. The Dream never led until Te-Hina Paopao’s game-winning jumper with 12 seconds to play put them up by the final margin of 91-90, with Allisha Gray and Angel Reese each recording a block in those final dozen seconds to help seal the deal. Gray led the way with 24 points and keyed the comeback effort with 14 in the third quarter, Reese opened her Dream tenure with her 50th career double-double (eight more than anyone else in WNBA history has had through 65 games) and all five Atlanta starters scored at least 11 points. Rookie Madina Okot also impressed, putting up 8 points and 4 boards in just 9:50 of action. According to Sports Reference, Okot is only the second player in WNBA history to put up at least those numbers while playing 10 or fewer minutes in her debut. Atlanta is looking for its first 2-0 start since 2022 and also for its fifth win in the last six meetings with Dallas. The lone loss in that span came by 13 points in Dallas last June during the one solid stretch of the Wings’ 2025 season, but the Dream won two subsequent meetings, including one in the Lone Star State.
After the Wings and Dream come a pair of games in the 10:00 ET window, which is great for night owls like me but inconvenient for most of my East Coast brethren. For my sanity’s sake, I certainly hope the 2025 WNBA semifinals rematch between the Minnesota Lynx (0-1) and Phoenix Mercury (1-1) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) is the more competitive of the late games. This is Phoenix’s third game in four days, which seems like a fucked up way to start a team’s season, but so it goes. The Mercury are coming off of a 95-79 loss at Golden State that was competitive until it wasn’t. Phoenix was within 73-70 with 7:30 to play against the Valkyries despite being on the back end of a season-opening road back-to-back, but will now be home for the next four games. Obviously, 28-year old first-year Mercury player Jovana Nogić will be going 4-for-5 from beyond the arc in each of those games and all games to follow after hitting that exact line in each of her first two WNBA contests.
Minnesota hasn’t played since Saturday’s letdown against Atlanta, but one thing I’ll have my eye on is how it fares on the boards after being outrebounded 46-25 in the opener. The Lynx will be missing the league’s second-best player Napheesa Collier for at least a few more weeks and still without an ascendant frontcourt player in Dorka Juhász tonight. They could be in for another rough night on the glass given they’ll have to deal with the likes of Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner and Natasha Mack. On more positive notes, the Lynx hit 50% from the field against Atlanta, and I’m already prepared to crown Olivia Miles the 2026 Rookie of the Year. Minnesota will be just fine, but there’s no denying it’s depleted up front for the time being.
The other late game features my New York Liberty (2-0) visiting the expansion Portland Fire (0-1) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). The Libs went 2-2 against the original Portland Fire, who played in the WNBA from 2000 through 2002, although this iteration isn’t adopting that one’s history or records. I, however, still think it’s fun that Hall of Famer and current Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon was the high scorer with 22 points for the victorious Liberty the last time New York played in Portland. New York, which will stay in the Rose City for another game on Thursday, is coming off of an overtime win at Washington on Sunday behind Marine Johannes’ WNBA career-high 25 points as well as 23 from Breanna Stewart. Johannes, who’s 11-for-22 from deep so far, is just the third player in WNBA history to make more than 10 triples over the first two games of a season. Johannes and rookie Pauline Astier, who has shined in her first two games, will likely see big minutes again as the Liberty will still be pretty shorthanded. Satou Sabally (cyst) and Rebecca Allen (leg) have both been ruled out, Leonie Fiebich and Raquel Carrera remain overseas, and Sabrina Ionescu’s earliest possible return from a foot injury isn’t until next week. Sabally didn’t make the trip to Portland, but her former Oregon teammate Ionescu appears to have done so based on Monday’s injury report, so the Ducks faithful in attendance should at least get a glimpse of one their school’s all-time greats.
The Fire are looking for their first win after falling 98-83 to the Chicago Sky on Saturday, although I don’t think the sellout crowd of 19,335 at Moda Center — the largest ever for a WNBA team’s first game — was as concerned with the final score as with having (a version of) its team back after 24 years. Young expansion draft picks Carla Leite (18 points, 3 assists) and Sarah Ashlee Barker (13, 6-for-9 from the field) were bright spots, but Portland will be moving on without another young player who played 11 minutes in the opener after waiving rookie former West Virginia guard Jordan Harrison on Monday. That was done to make room on the active roster for veteran Kamiah Smalls, whose contract had been temporarily suspended while she recovered from a knee injury that kept her out of training camp. Smalls has appeared in just 13 WNBA games since being drafted third overall in 2020, most recently getting some very brief run with last year’s Atlanta Dream (three total minutes in three games).