Hello, hoopheads! The Minnesota Lynx (31-7) are potentially one win away from clinching the No. 1 seed in the WNBA playoffs after their own 10-point win last night over the Washington Mystics (21-15) as well as the Golden State Valkyries (25-11) losing a stunner to the Chicago Sky (15-22). Those results mean that the Lynx will lock up the top spot with five games to play should they beat the Valkyries on Monday and finish off a four-game sweep in the season series. As I’ve explained several times here recently, the top spot was all but locked up with the Lynx’s win over the Valks on Wednesday, but not even the world’s greatest optimist wearing a pair of Valkyrie Violet-colored glasses could see a path for the Valkyries after last night’s loss. The Lynx are going to win two more games, which is all it will take, even if they lose on Monday. You can quote me on that, I am less scared than I have been while referring to Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles for the last 2.5 months. Since I mentioned her, I should mention that Miles was the best player on the floor, as she frequently is, while scoring a game-high 24 points on 10-for-22 (45.5%) from the field to go with 3 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals and a couple of turnovers just two nights after a scary fourth-quarter ankle roll. She’s scored 20+ points seven times in eight games this month, and is now averaging 20.0 points per game this season as a result, which would make her the third genuine rookie (aka not 34-year old Cynthia Cooper during the inaugural season) to average at least 20 points per game. Only Seimone Augustus (2006) and A’ja Wilson (2018) have done it previously, and viewed in that light it’s hard not to notice the “once a decade” aspect to Miles’ remarkable season.
Golden State’s loss was stunning in a literal sense, because they lost on a buzzer-beater by Chicago rookie Sydney Taylor, who has now done it to the Valkyries and Las Vegas Aces after very nearly beating my beloved New York Liberty at the buzzer earlier in the season. That finally gave Chicago a three-game win streak after four failed attempts, but Taylor turning out to be a diamond in the rough continues to be not just the best thing about this season, but probably the best thing that has happened to the Sky in several years. If she hadn’t burst onto the scene, there’s no doubt that the Sky’s biggest need this offseason would’ve been a bucket-getter in the backcourt to develop alongside Kamilla Cardoso, Gabriela Jaquez and the injured Rickea Jackson, and they can now cross that need off the list. The other reason the Valkyries loss was stunning was that they’d previously been 25-4 (.862) against teams other than the Lynx and Aces, but by the time they started playing like themselves last night, they were doing it to get back into the game as opposed to creating separation. They’d probably insist that they didn’t experience the letdown following Wednesday’s loss that I wondered if they might in yesterday’s newsletter. I would insist that human nature and their 26 first-half points in the loss suggest otherwise. Ultimately, it’d be impossible for either side to prove our case, but the Valks still have a two-game cushion over the Aces (25-13), Indiana Fever (24-13) and Atlanta Dream (23-13) in the loss column, so even a loss on Monday wouldn’t put them in danger of letting the No. 2 seed slip away, as long as they don’t lose to anyone else.
Tonight’s three-game slate is headlined by a game that I’m not quite as dreadful of as I was 48 hours ago, as my beloved-but-bolstered? New York Liberty (22-15) host the Indiana Fever (24-13) (7:00 ET, Prime Video). My newfound optimism is a result of not just a Liberty injury report which lists both Jonquel Jones, who rolled her ankle on Tuesday, and Leonie Fiebich, who hasn’t played since July 3 due to foot soreness, as questionable, but also because Liberty beat writer Jackie Powell’s report that both players said they plan to play at yesterday’s practice. Given that reporting, I’m going to work under the assumption that both Fiebich and Jones are playing tonight. While I’ve complained joked bitched sarcastically quite a few times about the Liberty’s obfuscation regarding injuries, the gist I had gotten was that Fiebich has been healthy enough to play for a little while, except for the fact that it’s a World Cup year (she’s come about as close to saying so as one can without saying so). The fact that she appears to be making her return with three games left before the World Cup is thus somewhat surprising, but this is also a huge game for the Liberty’s hopes of improving their position in the playoff bracket. A win would leave New York just a game behind Indiana in the standings and split the series at 2-2, sending a tiebreaker to their records against winning teams. The Liberty would be 9-9 (.500) after tonight’s win, while Indiana would be 9-11 (.450). A Fever win, on the other hand, would give them a three-game cushion and the head-to-head tiebreaker thanks to a 3-1 record in the series. With the Liberty’s next game being on Thursday at home against Golden State, and their last two games of the regular season coming at home against Atlanta, there’s no doubt they have both a tough remaining schedule and a real opportunity to make a move. It was hard not to take the news of Fiebich’s expected return as the team recognizing that opportunity and saying, “it’s go time.”
New York’s opportunity exists in part because the Fever came up short on Thursday in Dallas, losing for only the third time in their last 13 games and falling to 6-4 against playoff-bound squads after a 3-6 start against them. I’m going to risk the ire of the Caitlin Clark diehards here and come right out and say that the biggest reason for that loss was that she shot the ball like utter dogshit. If they want to ignore the last couple months (and years) of me saying that people who call her a bad basketball player are crackpots, then so be it. Clark also had 9 assists against 3 turnovers, so she wasn’t the total waste of space that her bigoted benchwarming buddy has between her ears was on the court while putting up a big fat goose egg in points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks in her 15 minutes of action on Thursday. A foul and four misses from deep were all that kept her from recording a 15 trillion. If the benchwarmer is reading, she should know that Bestie and I will be the ones wearing the seafoam-colored “trans rights are human rights” t-shirts in the 200 level diagonally across from her seat on the bench tonight. She should have plenty of time to look for us. As for players who spent the majority of the game on the floor, Clark’s 4-for-15 (26.7%) effort from the field and miss in her lone trip to the free throw line were more than enough to spoil a 50% shooting night from the rest of the starting five in the 91-85 loss. Leading the way was Kelsey Mitchell, who scored 37 points on 9-for-18 (50%) from the field while dishing out 5 assists and extending her WNBA-record 20-point scoring streak to 21 straight games. Aliyah Boston (14 points) and Makayla Timpson (11 points) also outscored Clark while combining to hit 50% from the field and adding 21 rebounds. Clark hasn’t had many bad games lately, with the last one snapping a six-game 20-point scoring streak of her own while she’s had at least 7 assists in 13 straight games, the fifth-longest such streak in league history. Thursday, however, was an undeniably bad performance, and a diehard who can’t admit that is no less a crackpot than a hater who denies the good ones.
The Liberty are coming off of their third loss in a 12-game span, which is a different way of saying it took them one less game after the All-Star break to lose three times than it took Indiana. I’m not entirely certain that anyone would get that impression from the way the teams are covered in the mainstream media. There are valid reasons to be skeptical of the Liberty’s surge — primarily the softness of some of their wins and largely horrific defense — but I think we all know that the main reason for the divergent coverage is that the Caitlin Clark Industrial Complex has been absolutely dying for her to play at the level she has this season and it has kicked into high gear now that it’s happened. All that matters, as far as the Liberty are concerned, is that they strung together enough wins over the last month to be in a position to make a move in their remaining games against playoff teams. Wednesday’s loss at Chicago definitely stung, but the Liberty showed a lot of fight to overcome Jones leaving after just 6.5 minutes, followed by a miserable second quarter, and briefly led 84-83 before Chicago finished on a 10-3 run. If Fiebich and Jones are on the floor and play like themselves, there’s no reason that this team can’t still be a threat to beat anyone and win anything. It’s 11-4 with Fiebich on the floor this season, if you include the Commissioner’s Cup final against the Aces, and the last time we saw her she was playing exactly the kind of world-class defense in a win over the Lynx that the Liberty have sorely missed since then. I’ve spent so much time waiting for a healthy Liberty team to play to its capability over the last two seasons that I’m not holding my breath, but it looks a lot more likely than it did on Tuesday night.
The second half of tonight’s BezosVision doubleheader features a game worthy of that platform, because it should be one of the least aesthetically pleasing contests of the season when the lowly and detestable Connecticut Sun (9-26) visit the Los Angeles Sparks (12-24) (9:00 ET, Prime Video/local affiliates), who have lost six straight since a 2-1 start to the month and are coming off of a 124-88 humiliation at the hands of the Atlanta Dream to open their current four-game homestand. Among those six losses was one in a visit to Connecticut on Monday, since which time the Sun took their own 23-point loss at Las Vegas. The night’s final game at least features a playoff team, as the Atlanta Dream (23-13) visit the Phoenix Mercury (13-23) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass), whose record I feel compelled to mention is the exact inverse of Atlanta’s. The Dream have won four out of five and 10 of their last 13, with an overtime loss to Indiana on Sunday the only thing separating them from being alone in third place. My preseason picks to win the WNBA title (whoops) have, like the Liberty, enjoyed a relatively soft and largely ignored surge, but like the Liberty’s it also counts all the same. The Mercury have lost four out of six since a three-game win streak which may have given them just enough false hope to go out and trade for Kelsey Plum, and given the price they paid, I don’t think letting her walk this offseason is an option if they are experiencing buyer’s remorse. That’s not to say they should be, as Plum is obviously an excellent player, but I continue to think Phoenix is a team being rapidly left behind by a WNBA that is likely to continue getting younger, faster and less physical. Investing further in this iteration of the team just doesn’t strike me as a great plan, but it’s kinda the only option Phoenix has left itself.