Hello, hoopheads! Saturday’s three-game WNBA slate didn’t provide the home sweep that the oddsmakers predicted, but hosts did win two of three to bring the league’s collective home record to 85-85 this season, excluding my beloved New York Liberty’s win over the Las Vegas Aces in the Commissioner’s Cup final. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about both of those teams later on, as they’re each playing the second halves of back-to-back games tonight. The first order of business, however, is Saturday’s lone home loss, which was suffered by the Atlanta Dream (13-10) against the Portland Fire (10-13) by a 102-92 margin. Atlanta lost for the sixth time in seven games, letting a Fire team ranked 12th in offensive rating at Her Hoop Stats (100.5 points per 100 possessions) put up a mark of 122.7 points per 100 possessions while hitting 60% from the field on their floor. The Dream certainly missed Angel Reese and Brionna Jones, but this was the second time Atlanta has given up 60% from the field during its recent slide after it also happened in a 15-point loss at Seattle (another moribund offense, I might add). No other team has allowed 60% from the field twice so far this season.
The Minnesota Lynx (17-6) were the Saturday home winners who aren’t involved in today’s busy four-game slate, so let me quickly give them their due before we move on. Minnesota won its second straight after losing the previous pair, most importantly avoiding a loss on Cheryl Reeve Day in the state of Minnesota, thus named to celebrate her becoming the WNBA’s all-time regular-season wins leader earlier this week in the basement of Mohegan Sun. The Lynx led by 15 points in the first half but ultimately had to work until the final possession, holding off the Liberty 90-85 behind 25 points from Kayla McBride and 23 from Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles in her return from a two-game absence. That pair combined to go 9-for-18 from deep, pacing a 50% team effort from beyond the arc for the Lynx. Even Natasha Howard, who is an All-Star for the first time since making it as a member of the Liberty in 2022, got in on the long-range act, draining one with the shot clock about to expire in the third quarter despite entering 1-for-9 from deep this season. The win was Minnesota’s final game against a team with above .500 for a while, with five straight losing teams lined up before the All-Star break and most likely seven straight games against sub-.500 teams when it’s all said and done. That should give Napheesa Collier a fairly soft landing whenever she makes her imminent return, although if anyone can come back from a lengthy absence without the rust that’s been visible on peers doing the same lately, it’s Phee.
The second half of today’s four-game slate is something of a testament to how much the WNBA’s profile has changed in recent years, as the evening doubleheader will air first on ESPN (and Disney+) and then on NBC (and Peacock). The main event sees the Indiana Fever (13-9) visit the Las Vegas Aces (17-6) (9:00 ET, NBC/Peacock) on NBC’s resurrected Sunday Night Basketball, which would’ve seemed unfathomable five years ago for any number of reasons. It would’ve been quite a bit more fathomable seven days ago, however, when the teams met in Sin City on ESPN’s still brand-new Women’s Sports Sunday. That game featured neither Aces GOAT A’ja Wilson nor Fever megastar Caitlin Clark and turned into a one-sided win for the Fever. Indiana’s Kelsey Mitchell led all scorers with 27 points while Aliyah Boston added 18 points and 10 rebounds, both of them outdoing the Aces’ top scorer in the game (Jackie Young with 15 points). Indiana also had significant edges on the boards (39 to 30) and in turnovers forced (13 to 7). Tonight’s matchup could feature both superstars, although it’s not guaranteed either of them ends up playing. Clark is listed as probable with a back injury after returning from it earlier this week and then sitting out the second half of a back-to-back the following night while Wilson has played in two games this week in her return from a rolled and scored 53 points, but the Aces don’t have an injury report available because of their back-to-back. It’s certainly plausible that she sits out the second night of it the same way that Clark did so soon after an injury.
Obviously, the subplot of Aces guard Justine Pissott facing her former Indiana teammates is the most important thing going on in this game after the rookie scored 19 points in just 10 minutes yesterday in her Aces debut while going 5-for-6 from deep. The Fever never even got her into a game in two months as a developmental player, imagine how motivated she’s gonna be! I’m mostly kidding (as always), but Pissott certainly opened some eyes during yesterday’s franchise-record 48-point win for the Aces over last year’s Finals opponent the Phoenix Mercury (8-16), who might regret putting quite so much sauce on their own season-opening rout of the Aces at this point. Whether or not she plays tonight, and whether or not this streak is interrupted by a sprained ankle, Wilson extended a pretty absurd heater in yesterday’s blowout, although it’s become fairly common by her GOATly standards. Saturday was her fourth straight game scoring at least 20 points and making at least 50% from the field (the first three were 30-point games), with this run being the 11th time in WNBA history that a player has had at least 115 points and 49 rebounds in a four-game span in a single regular season while making at least 50% from the field. Nine of those 11 spans belong to Wilson since May 2024, while the other two were overlapping spans during Lauren Jackson’s 2007 season. Last night’s win saw the Aces improve to 16-0 when holding their opponents under 110 points per 100 possessions according to Her Hoop Stats, once again proving that this team is pretty close to unbeatable when it shows up to play any defense at all.
Indiana is looking for its second straight win, although it can’t be terribly happy with getting run out of Staples Center earlier this week in Clark’s return against a Los Angeles Sparks team that had previously looked dead in the water without Kelsey Plum and Cameron Brink. That loss is all that separates Indiana from having won four in a row and five of six, and was also the Fever’s second loss to a sub-.500 team in the last five games. The Fever have done a pretty good job of winning the games they’re supposed to despite those two setbacks, racking up a 10-4 (.714) record against the teams currently at .500 or worse while they’re just 3-5 (.375) against teams with winning records. Last Sunday’s win over the GOATless Aces was Indiana’s first win over that winning cohort in a little over a month, although the Fever only went 0-3 against winning teams during that skid. They’ll come up against just as many winning teams over the next seven days, with home games against Golden State (17-7) and New York (13-10) later this week (the latter being the second half of a back-to-back). Whether or not Clark plays tonight, the Fever will hope that Mitchell continues her own personal hot streak, as she’s scored at least 22 points in six straight games and at least 26 in five straight. The latter is tied for the second-longest streak of games with more than 25 points in WNBA history, three games behind Wilson’s record of eight straight early in the 2024 season and matching five-game runs by Maya Moore (2014), Arike Ogunbowale (2019) and Diana Taurasi (2013).
The Women’s Sports Sunday half of tonight’s doubleheader sees the Chicago Sky (7-15) visit the Dallas Wings (15-8) (7:00 ET, ESPN/Disney+), who have their second chance this season to earn their first five-game win streak since 2023. The previous four-game win streak ended in a deflating 24-point loss at Minnesota that precipitated a 4-5 stretch, but that’s a distant memory after the Wings just followed it with a perfect 4-0 road trip capped off by three straight double-digit wins. Paige Bueckers led the way with a career-high 34 points against the Toronto Tempo on Friday night in Montreal, her most points in a win thus far in her young WNBA career, while Jessica Shepard had her 14th double-double, which is one shy of Reese’s WNBA lead (Wilson is the only other player with at least 10 so far, having tallied 11 of them). The Sky are coming off of a 15-point loss at Los Angeles on Friday night, their third loss in four games and 14th in 21 games since a 3-1 start. They will once again be without Skylar Diggins, who hasn’t played since announcing she’d been moved to the bench. It isn’t as clear to me as it seems to others that she’s been exiled, as Reese memorably was for criticizing the team publicly, as opposed to choosing not to continue sacrificing her body (and ability to properly rehab from offseason knee surgery), something Diggins publicly said she’d consider this week, but my guess is that her brief tenure with the Sky is probably going to end pretty soon either way.
Before the big evening showcase are a pair of simultaneous afternoon tips. One of those games features my New York Liberty (13-10) visiting the Torontreal Tempo (9-13) (3:00 ET, NBA TV/local affiliates), who will look to set another WNBA regular-season attendance record after bringing over 20,000 fans into Montreal’s Bell Centre on Friday. The Liberty, like the Aces, don’t have an injury report thanks to their back-to-back, but Leonie Fiebich and Satou Sabally aren’t on the trip, so they won’t be back. Pauline Astier playing twice in 26 hours after stepping on a Dallas player’s foot earlier in the week also seems questionable at best. I hate to go back to the well I’m about to go back to, and I’ll note that I didn’t bring it up in yesterday’s Liberty-Lynx preview, but this may well mean that the “we want Laney” segment of the Liberty fanbase gets their wish again today. I am begging Liberty coach Chris DeMarco New Coach Man to do what’s best for both Laney-Hamilton and the team and ignore them. With at least three features on Laney-Hamilton penned by high-profile women’s hoops writers this week, it’s been a pretty hard story to miss if you’re a person who reads WNBA coverage, and being here is a pretty compelling piece of evidence pointing in that direction. Unfortunately, the part of the story that those features all missed — perhaps because it would jeopardize the access they rely on — is that Laney-Hamilton has been one of the worst players in WNBA history lately.
I didn’t say that hyperbolically or take any joy from it, but Laney-Hamilton’s last three games (including a seven-minute appearance yesterday confined to the first half) marked the longest streak in league history of games with 0 points, 0 rebounds and a rating of -9 or worse. There’s only one three-game streak in MNBA history, a run by journeyman Anthony Johnson in 2005 (as an aside, his Basketball Reference page would make his NFL journeyman “cousin” Josh Johnson blush). The consensus among folks profiling Laney-Hamilton seems to be that she played well in the Liberty’s first win against the Aces (she had 0 points and a -2 rating) in her first game back after receiving an injection in the surgically-repaired knee that kept her out all of last season, so I’ll be as generous as I can here and look at her last five appearances, starting with that one. We’re at least in precedented territory now, but according to Across the Timeline, Laney-Hamilton’s last five games were just the seventh time a player has had 3 or fewer points and a -44 rating or worse over a five-game span, and she attempted almost twice as many field goals (14) as any of the other players on this list (who topped out at eight). I truly hate seeing Laney-Hamilton struggle, and will always be grateful to her for coming to the Liberty as a free agent before it was cool and helping the team win its first championship a couple of years later, but I also feel like I’m taking crazy pills as I watch both fans and media act like it’s a mystery why she fell out of the rotation. I hope, for Laney-Hamilton’s sake and the team’s, that she doesn’t see the floor again until it no longer looks like she’s running with concrete shoes on, because every time she puts more of this version of herself on film it becomes that much harder to convince yourself that the once-excellent player is still in there.
Toronto does have an injury report, and it’s unfortunately no better than any of its others lately, with Kiki Rice, Brittney Sykes and Temi “every vowel is accented” Fágbénlé all ruled out while former Liberty center Nyara Sabally is questionable (and won’t get to visit with her injured sister, Satou, since she’s not with the Liberty). Toronto has lost four straight, eight of its last 10 games, and is 4-9 starting with a previous loss to the Liberty in the game in which Rice was injured. Marina Mabrey had her fourth 30-point game of the season in Friday’s loss to the Wings in the first Montreal game, but was held to 2 points as Dallas pulled away in the fourth quarter after scoring 32 in the first three.
The other of the afternoon games sees the Seattle Storm (6-18) visit the Washington Mystics (10-10) (3:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass), who have been off since being held to a miserable 66.2 points per 100 possessions by the Valkyries on Monday. The good news for the Mystics is that second-year Sonia Citron is probable to make her return after missing the last two games with knee soreness accrued during her heroic performance in the Mystics’ quadruple-overtime win over Portland two weeks ago. Seattle’s lost three of four since snapping its franchise-record 11-game win streak with back-to-back triumphs over New York and Atlanta, and has been held under 90 points per 100 possessions in three of those four games. The Storm are 0-13 when held to an offensive rating under 95 according to Her Hoop Stats, which is two more times than any other team has had a rating under 95 (the Sun have had 11 such games) and five more times than any other team except Portland.