Hello, hoopheads! With just the sixth leaguewide day off in the books, the long grind that was the first half of the WNBA season is just hours from its conclusion. But if the first half — which will really be the first 61.2% by the end of the 202nd game of 330 tonight — felt like a grind, the remainder will likely be even more taxing. There’s not a single day without a WNBA game from the resumption of play next Tuesday until the leaguewide break for the FIBA World Cup begins on August 31, and that will be anything but a break for most of the league’s stars. Following the World Cup is an eight-day sprint to the finish line featuring 30 games (9.1% of the season). Tonight’s six-game schedule tonight either a rather lengthy roundup or some pretty quick previews for someone (like me) on a mission to acknowledge all 330 regular-season games. I think the slate at hand lends itself to the latter, with five of the six games featuring at least one team with a losing record and the games including winning teams all having point spreads of at least 5.5 points.
The closest spread actually isn’t even the one game between two winning teams, which sees the Las Vegas Aces (18-7) visit the Washington Mystics (13-12) (7:30 ET, local affiliates/League Pass), although they’ll get the first of today’s looks before we go in chronological order the rest of the way. This will be the first of three meetings between the teams in a fairly short span, with the Mystics set to visit Sin City for a pair of games on Aug. 11 and 13 to close out the season series. They split a four-game series last season, with Las Vegas winning the first and last meetings while each team had a one-possession home win and a double-digit road win. This could very well be a playoff preview by the end of the regular season, but it can’t quite become one tonight despite, because while Washington would leapfrog my beloved New York Liberty (14-12) for the No. 7 seed with a win and Liberty loss, the Aces would fall behind the idle Golden State Valkyries (19-8) for the No. 2 seed in that scenario. If all of that happens, it’ll set up a rematch of a game we’ve seen the Mystics play a few times lately against Golden State, most recently and most notably on Monday when they snapped the Valkyries’ nine-game win streak, which was the longest in the WNBA so far this season.
Washington’s win over the Valkyries was a surprisingly high-scoring game between teams ranked first in defensive rating at Her Hoop Stats (Golden State, 97.4 points allowed per 100 possessions) and tied for second (Washington, 99.3 same as Minnesota) according to Her Hoop Stats, with the Mystics winning 90-82 and putting up an offensive rating of 111.1 while Golden State had a rating of 103.8 which surely looked more like Washington’s before going several minutes without a bucket down the stretch. Kiki Iriafen led the Mystics with 23 points and 12 rebounds while Shakira Austin had 15/15 and the pair combined to hit 14-of-22 (63.6%) from the field. With all due respect to the Valkyries frontcourt, the Mystics’ fantastic young bigs will face just about the toughest test the WNBA can provide for them tonight in the GOAT A’ja Wilson and her fellow starter up front NaLyssa Smith (with all due respect to the Aces’ other starting forward, Allstate). Wilson and Smith were a handful and then some following eight days off in Monday’s thrashing of the Toronto Tempo, with Wilson tallying 26 points on 11-for-14 from the field while Smith had 18 on 9-for-10, making them 20-for-24 combined (83.3%). That was Wilson’s 18th 20-point game this season, which is tied with Kelsey Mitchell for the league lead, and the 211th of her career, second-most all-time including playoffs (she has 92 to go to tie Diana Taurasi).
The closest point spread of the day comes in the game between two losing teams, which is also one of the two Western Conference camp day games tipping off simultaneously at noon out west. It’s also the one that’s getting burned off real quick in the next paragraph, because the more notable early game is the one between the first-place Minnesota Lynx (21-6) and last-place Seattle Storm (6-22) (3:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) is probably going to feature the season debut of Lynx superstar Napheesa Collier, who was the runner-up for MVP the last two seasons. Phee’s listed as probable after missing the first 27 games of Minnesota’s season while recovering from separate surgeries on each of her ankles, which means we will probably see the first dime she receives from Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles later today. Miles became just the second rookie in league history to have 30 points (she had 32), 8 rebounds and 8 assists in a game during Monday’s 105-102 thriller between these teams, joining Candace Parker (it’s always Candace Parker). Miles and Kayla McBride (33 points) also became the second pair of teammates in WNBA history to have 30 points in the same game twice in a season, joining Wilson and Jackie Young last season, with one of those two games coming in the playoffs. Minnesota is only the third team in WNBA history to have any combination of players score 30 in a game twice in a season (as opposed to the same pair of players), joining last year’s Aces and this year’s Indiana Fever (who’ve had one such game each from Caitlin Clark and Mitchell/Aliyah Boston). There have been six total games this season with teammates scoring 30 points in a game — both four and five such games were already WNBA records for a season. I have never once been kidding about the offensive explosion this season.
While I’m probably mostly paying attention to Phee, the Phoenix Mercury (9-18) and Los Angeles Sparks (10-15) (3:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) will be playing their own nooner. It’s getting late early for the Sparks, who have at this point played more games without Kelsey Plum (13, 3-10) than they have with her (12, 7-5), which is a really tough deal for a team whose entire offense was pretty much built around Plum. They’re returning home from an 0-4 road trip during which the one double-digit loss was the one game which didn’t come against a playoff-bound team (Friday at Chicago), and as badly as the Sparks needed to win that one, they need this one even more. Phoenix snapped a five-game skid on Sunday night against Connecticut, salvaging a split in the desert portion of the Alyssa Tbomas/Brittney Griner Derby, and is looking for its first win in three meetings with the Sparks this season. Plum had 43 points in the last one, which went to overtime in June, and 16 in the first one in May.
The first evening tip sees my beloved-but-bouncing-back? New York Liberty (14-12) host the Chicago Sky (9-17) (7:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). The Liberty are looking to go into the break on a high note after snapping a four-game skid in Monday’s overtime win at Dallas despite playing perhaps the worst third quarter I’ve ever seen. They’ve been outscored 51-21 in their last two post-halftime frames. The 30-12 disaster on Saturday at Indiana was technically more lopsided, but I think the Wings left a good 12 to 15 points on the floor in Monday’s third quarter and easily could’ve done a lot worse to the Liberty than the eventual margin of 21-9. The good news is, I figured out the secret to Liberty success, which is simply that Bestie and I need to agree that the deficit they face is insurmountable. It worked in May when we sparked the 23-0 run against the Mercury that begat an eight-game win streak, and it worked again on Monday, when we “agreed” that a 75-64 fourth-quarter hole was too much…
I’m not superstitious, but clearly this won’t be the last time I employ this maneuver
…only to watch the Liberty come out of a media timeout, go on a 19-8 run to force overtime. They eventually held on for dear fucking life when Arike Ogunbowale missed a potential game-winner for, I’m pretty sure, the first time in recorded history (don’t fact check, just roll with it). All is not well by any stretch and I still intend to boo them during intros tonight on principle, but they desperately needed a win no matter what it looked like. This one had the potential to be particularly galvanizing, especially if they can play every minute with the defensive intensity and offensive cohesion they found for those final 10 against Dallas. The Sky are coming off of a 93-91 loss at Atlanta on Sunday, falling to 0-3 in attempts to win a third straight game this season. It was, however, another strong showing for rookie Sydney Taylor, whose half-court buzzer-beater at the half sparked Chicago’s comeback from a 22-point deficit before eventually falling on Jordin Canada’s buzzer-beating layup at the end of regulation. Taylor nearly beat the Liberty at the buzzer the only other time these teams played, which would turn out to be the last win in the Liberty’s eight-game streak (and the last one before a 2-8 stretch that I’m gonna optimistically say ended on Monday).
As it happens, the two games left on the schedule are the two that are on national television tonight, the first of which sees the detestable Connecticut Sun (7-19) visit the Indiana Fever (16-10) (8:00 ET, USA/local affiliates), who won their second straight game thanks in large part to that third-quarter annihilation of the lifeless Liberty on Saturday. This is the first of a three-game stretch for the Fever against teams with losing records, as they open the second half with visits to Seattle and Portland, a trip that will conclude with a game at Minnesota which should be a bit tougher. Mitchell torched the Liberty with 33 points on 10-for-14 from the field on Saturday, but in lieu of repeating a whole bunch of Kelsey Mitchell facts, I direct you to Sunday’s post. The Sun have won five of their last nine games despite losing on Sunday and I hate it. Stop doing that.
Last but not least, the Dallas Wings (17-9) visit the Portland Fire (11-15) (10:00 ET, USA/CNBC/local affiliates) looking to avoid a second straight loss after their five six-game win streak since moving to Dallas was snapped on Monday. Paige Bueckers is listed as questionable (rest) after missing Monday’s game, which, can we be real for a second? The entire world saw Bueckers take a whole entire Nneka Ogwumike directly to the knee and then hit her head on the floor on Sunday before sitting out on Monday. The Wings aren’t the first team to make a mockery of the injury report — Caitlin Clark is probable (back) tonight, by the way — but it strains credulity to call this a rest game for Bueckers and not an injury-related absence. No one wants to see Bueckers, who I believe to be the best young player in the league in addition to one of its most popular, but who also has a history of knee injuries and at least one diagnosed concussion, on the injury report with a knee or head injury. But again…we all saw it. Portland has gone 5-10 since starting 6-5, but split the four games on a just-completed road trip which included wins at Atlanta and Washington.