Hello, hoopheads, and happy Lost Weekend release day to anyone like me who has been waiting six long years to celebrate! Thankfully, I was prepared for the emotional rollercoaster (and absolute masterpiece) that is Phoebe Bridgers’ third album by my beloved New York Liberty (21-14), who nearly matched the largest blown lead in WNBA history (28 points) in last night’s eventual 85-81 win over the Los Angeles Sparks (12-21). The Libs led 69-41 after scoring the first bucket of the fourth quarter and were seemingly on their way to extending their WNBA-record 90-point scoring streak to 10 straight games before giving up three straight touchdowns so fast that it was 69-62 before anyone on the Liberty sideline seemed to notice. The Sparks never quite came all the way back, but they did have a look at a potential game-tying 3-pointer before Sabrina Ionescu’s free throw set the final margin. Their 40 points in the final frame were a franchise record for any quarter, but they also became only the second team to score 40+ points in the fourth quarter of a loss in WNBA history. Teams scoring 40+ points in any quarter — which, as a reminder, have only existed in the WNBA since 2006 — are now 10-3 all-time, including 2-2 when it’s specifically the fourth quarter. Shouts to Basketball Reference/Stathead for making that easy to look up, but also be wary of getting duped by pre-2006 “quarters” on there which are, in fact, halves. Despite the brush with catastrophe, the Liberty won for the eighth time in 10 games, and were good enough for the first three quarters to hold just a third opponent in their last 11 games to an offensive rating under 105 points per 100 possessions, which is of course the new 100 points per 100 possessions. We just never need to speak of that fourth quarter again.
Thursday’s other matchup of playoff teams saw the Las Vegas Aces (24-11) pull away from the Washington Mystics (19-14) for the second time in three days behind Jackie Young’s season-high 32 points on 10-for-14 (71.4%) from the field. It was fortuitous for the Aces that “Agent 0” was at her best, because the GOAT A’ja Wilson (15 points, 5-for-14) and the “Point Gawd” Chelsea Gray (4 points, 1-for-10) combined for 19 points on 6-for-24 (25%) from the field. Part of that may have been my fault, since I wrote yesterday about how dominant Wilson had been against the Mystics’ outstanding young frontcourt (or perhaps they were just pissed about said dominance and fought back). Regardless, the moral of the story, as it has so often been for the Aces over the last five seasons, is that it’s pretty good to have three future Hall of Famers in their prime. Las Vegas’ win put it back within a game of the Golden State Valkyries (24-9) for the second spot in the standings, although it’ll need Golden State’s help to make that game up since it comes entirely in the loss column. Washington’s loss, combined with the Liberty’s win, put a game between those two teams in the standings, with the Liberty now in sixth and the Mystics sliding back to eighth. As they’re now tied in the loss column, it’s functionally a two-game lead for New York, which owns the head-to-head tiebreaker. I have complained many times about the season series between teams being over long before the season’s halfway point, let alone the stretch run — and I was right to do so, it is bad for competitive balance — but it sure does feel beneficial to my Libs in this case given how both teams have played since the Mystics snapped the Liberty’s eight-game win streak in their final encounter in mid-June.
The Liberty also moved a half-game up on seventh place, the occupant of which owns the tiebreaker over the Libs and will get a chance to pull back into a tie that functions as a one-game lead tonight. That team is, of course, the Dallas Wings (20-14), who visit the Indiana Fever (21-12) (7:30 ET, ION/League Pass), and while I don’t think I can bring myself to actively root for the Fever for the Libs’ benefit, I will definitely break out my (very real) “I hope both teams lose” t-shirt to watch this absolute banger of a Friday night matchup. This will be the second meeting of the season in a series which wasn’t given the speedrun treatment by the scheduling office (although it does conclude in less than a week), with Dallas having taken the first game by a 107-104 margin in an instant classic which opened the second day of the season and saw both Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell miss potential game-tying 3-pointers from almost the exact same spot in the final 10 seconds. As a result of that win, Dallas can clinch the head-to-head tiebreaker with a win tonight, which would pull it within a half-game of Indiana in the standings despite the teams entering seventh and tied-for-fourth in the standings. This should also be the fifth on-court meeting between Clark and Dallas superstar Paige Bueckers in either college or the WNBA, with the series tied 2-2 overall and 1-1 on each level. They each scored exactly 20 points in the game in May, which saw a trio of players on both teams score 20+ points, with Mitchell (30 points) and Aliyah Boston (23) getting in on the act for the Fever while Arike Ogunbowale (22) and Odyssey Sims (20) joined Bueckers. So many things were foreshadowed that day in hindsight: the leaguewide offensive explosion, Mitchell’s continued evolution into one of the league’s most prolific scorers ever and The Odyssey making a billion dollars at the box office, to name but a few.
Despite their boatload of stars, whose exploits I promise to weave into this paragraph and the next eventually, both teams have had their struggles playing against their playoff-bound peers. Dallas comes into the night having lost six straight and nine of the last 10 against playoff teams, with the lone win coming against a horrifically bad Liberty team with Geno Auriemma on the call last month in Brooklyn. The Wings are 6-13 (.316) against playoff teams overall after starting 5-4 (.556) against them, which makes Indiana’s 7-9 (.438) mark against playoff teams look solid by comparison. The Fever bolstered that record by routing the Liberty on Tuesday, and unlike the previous time that happened in Indianapolis and the Wings game two sentences ago, I didn’t think the Liberty had an effort problem. They just still have no defensive wings who have a prayer against Indiana without Leonie Fiebich (who increasingly feels like she’s being held out for the World Cup despite no one being willing to say it) and Satou Sabally (who is now officially stepping away from the team for “a little bit” while recovering from a second serious concussion in eight months). Mitchell scored 28 points to lead the Fever on Tuesday and set a new WNBA record with a 17th straight 20-point game (including both postseason games and multi-season streaks) while Clark had 22 points and 10 assists, her 19th career 20/10 game of that variety (seven more than anyone else in WNBA history). The Fever extended their single-season WNBA record with a 15th 100-point game, a count which of course started in that opening loss to the Wings.
Dallas is coming off of a 94-88 win over the Toronto Tempo on Wednesday behind 22 points from Bueckers, all of which came during the second half after she was 0-for-7 from the field before the break. That was her second straight 20-point outing, unlikely as that seemed for a while, after going three straight games without reaching 20 points. The Wings needed Bueckers to get going, and they will need her to keep going tonight, as they are set to again be without both Azzi Fudd (knee) and Jessica Shepard (ankle). Ogunbowale also stepped up with a 21-point effort on Wednesday, largely thanks to a 13-for-14 showing at the line (she was 4-for-12 from the field), and Alanna Smith did her best to fill Shepard’s void with 13 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists while adding a steal and a block and going 5-for-7 from the field. Given the fact that it came while snapping a three-game skid and that she only committed one foul, I think that was probably Smith’s best all-around game in a Wings uniform. The team’s beleaguered marquee free-agent signing also had a 21-point/11-rebound outing with five fouls in a loss a few games ago, but I’m guessing this one felt better. The previous double-double started a four-game streak in which Smith has scored at least 11 points, which was previously her Wings career-high, achieved twice, with one of those two instances coming six games ago. Smith certainly hasn’t had the season that either party hoped for, but the 2025 co-Defensive Player of the Year is at least starting to string some solid performances together at a time when her team really needs them.
Tonight’s second game, and the final game of Rivals Week, sees the Portland Fire (13-20) visit the Seattle Storm (7-28) (10:00 ET, ION/League Pass), which is such a good rivalry that it’s the second time the league has featured it during this seven-day charade. I actually do think that this is a perfectly valid pairing of teams for such a branding exercise, given their geographic proximity and the fact that there was a rivalry between the Storm and the original Fire from 2000-02, but it is pretty funny to do both Storm-Fire on the first night of Rivals Week (a 100-93 win for Portland) and now Fire-Storm tonight to choose it out. It’s particularly funny because tomorrow, which is no longer Rivals Week, opens with the last meeting between the Liberty and Sun and closes with the fucking Lynx and Aces on CBS. Anyway, this is a game, and I will be watching it because I am a sicko who loves this league more than anyone involved in its scheduling or marketing.