The WNBA had a busy Thursday night with four games on the schedule, but the first meeting this season between the top two teams in the Eastern Conference so far clearly stood out as the main event. While it might not have been a thriller (or within a single-digit margin in the fourth quarter), the New York Liberty and Atlanta Dream played a very high-quality basketball game that left no doubt who are currently the beasts of the East. Here’s what went down on Thursday:
New York Liberty 104, Atlanta Dream 90
The Liberty created some separation with a pair of unforgettable 3-pointers by Marine Johannes and Pauline Astier to close out the first half and then pushed their 7-point halftime lead to 16 thanks to a flurry to end the third quarter before keeping the Dream at arm’s length the rest of the way in the first meeting of the season between the top two teams in the Eastern Conference so far this season (as well as last season). New York won its sixth straight game since a three-game skid dropped it to 3-4 on the season, scoring 8 more points than anyone else has against the elite Atlanta defense so far. Only the league-leading Minnesota Lynx, who scored 90 in a loss to the Dream and 95 in a subsequent win, had even beaten 85 points against the Dream defense prior to the Liberty putting 104 on the board. New York’s offensive rating of 123.8 points per 100 possessions was their highest in a game so far this season and the highest Atlanta has allowed an opponent to post (only the second time Atlanta’s defensive rating has been higher than 105.1).
The Liberty are now assured that they’ll represent the Eastern Conference in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game on June 30 if they win either of their next two games (Sunday vs. Washington and next Wednesday at Chicago), as they have head-to-head wins over both of the Eastern Conference teams currently sitting on one loss in Cup play (Indiana and Toronto). Atlanta fell to 3-2 in Commissioner’s Cup play despite having the second-best point differential in the East at +29.
The Liberty players and head coach Chris DeMarco were evasive when asked if it was their best performance of the season postgame, but I don’t think that it necessarily was, taken as a whole. The Dream’s offensive rating of 108.4 points per 100 possessions was the highest mark a Liberty opponent has posted in their last seven games, for instance. What it was, by a wide margin, was their most impressive performance so far, given the opponent, location and quality of both teams’ play. Also impressive was how balanced the Liberty’s effort was, with Breanna Stewart and Satou Sabally each scoring 19 points on 5-for-9 from the field (Sabally’s effort coming off the bench) while Marine Johannes had 17 points on 5-for-6 from the field and both Pauline Astier (6-for-10 and Jonquel Jones (5-for-8) scoring 16 points. Both Stewart (11 rebounds) and Jones (10) had double-doubles, while Astier, Stewart and Jones shared the team-high with 5 assists each. The one nitpick for New York was that, as usual, there were too many turnovers — 20 this time, compared to just 5 for Atlanta. On the other hand, New York absolutely dominated the glass, outrebounding one of the WNBA’s best rebounding teams by a 40-24 margin on their home floor.
Indiana Fever 114, Chicago Sky 106 (OT)
If you’re a consumer of WNBA media — and given you’re here, that seems pretty plausible — then it’s likely you were at least aware of the existence of a story over the last couple days in which the Indiana Fever insisted that they’re not a mediocre team, despite all of the credible evidence saying that’s exactly what they’d been thus far (for starters, their record and offensive, defensive and net ratings). I say this because there sure were several of those sorts of features making the rounds. I am not the sort of WNBA media member who writes those stories, but I do write about what I see, and tonight I watched the Fever play a second straight game in which they let one of the league’s worst teams so far take them all the way down to the wire before escaping with a win. In this instance, it was a Chicago Sky team that really hadn’t shown signs of life on offense during a 1-7 stretch in which its only win was against the Connecticut Sun, and which trailed by 15 points in the first half. The Sky came to life against the Fever, however, posting an offensive rating of 108.2 points per 100 possessions, their best mark in their last eight games. To Indiana’s credit, its own offense came to life with a rating of 114 points per 100 possessions after consecutive games in the 80s, and the win was ultimately what mattered. Caitlin Clark led the way with 32 points and 10 assists, her third 30/10 game which is only one fewer than the rest of the players in WNBA history combined, and Aliyah Boston had 32 points, 12 rebounds and 3 assists. None of that, however, changes the fact that if Indiana needs efforts like this one and Monday’s to beat teams like Washington and Chicago, it’s still playing like the mediocre team that the numbers say it is.
Dallas Wings 85, Phoenix Mercury 70 AND Las Vegas Aces 105, Portland Fire 89
Tonight’s other two games weren’t particularly competitive, thus there isn’t a whole lot of storytelling to do with them, but here are a couple of notes:
Dallas won for the fifth time in six games and seventh time in the last nine behind 31 points from Paige Bueckers and 17 each from Azzi Fudd and Jessica Shepard, who had her seventh double-double of the season with 10 boards while dishing out 7 assists without a turnover. Phoenix lost a second straight and eighth out of its last 10 games, undoing the progress it made in consecutive wins last week.
Las Vegas got its standard massive night from the GOAT A’ja Wilson, who had 32 points on 10-for-20 from the field, while Chelsea Gray took Jackie Young’s recent spot as the red-hot fellow future Hall of Famer, pouring in 29 points on 10-for-15 from the field. Young had a great game in her own right, with 18 points and 10 assists, while the other two starters, NaLyssa Smith (12 points, 10 rebounds, 4-for-8 from the field) and Stephanie Talbot (8, 10, 3-for-6) combined for 20 points and 20 rebounds on exactly 50% from the field. Portland lost for the fifth time in six games since a 5-3 start.