Hello, hoopheads! I hope all of you who celebrated the 250th birthday of these United States of America yesterday had a better time than my picks to win the WNBA title, the Atlanta Dream. The Dream’s 4th of July turned into something of — wait for it — a nightmare while suffering their fifth straight loss, with this one their third to the Golden State Valkyries in the last 11 days. The skid is a bit of a head-scratcher, given that it comes immediately after a four-game win streak during which the Dream tied the WNBA record with three straight 100-point outings and came within a cold fourth quarter of setting a new standard. They remained cold for pretty much the entirety of the 20 quarters they’ve played since then, however, and it’s an objective fact that Karl Smesko’s squad has been one of the WNBA’s biggest disappointments thus far. Atlanta’s one of only two teams to see its offensive rating decline from 2025 to 2026 according to Her Hoop Stats, ranking 12th of the 13 teams that existed last season with a decline of -1.8 points per 100 possessions while 11 teams’ offensive ratings have gone up. Only the Seattle Storm (-3.2) have declined more, and the Storm’s expectations couldn’t have been more different than the Dream’s this season. Atlanta is also second-worst with a year-to-year decline of -7.0 net points per 100 possessions at HHS, from a net rating of +9.6 last season (which was second-best during the 2025 regular season) to +2.6 this season (6th), with Seattle once again the only team to decline more (-8.6).
Today’s schedule features a pair of games, as have the last three, before a busy week begins tomorrow with 21 games over those seven days and at least three games on all but one of them. Tonight’s headliner between the Indiana Fever (11-8) and Las Vegas Aces (15-5) (7:00 ET, ESPN/Disney+) has unfortunately been hit with a powerful one-two punch of injuries as both A’ja Wilson (rolled ankle last Sunday) and Caitlin Clark (lingering back injury) will miss the game. It’ll be Wilson’s third straight missed game if you count Tuesday’s Commissioner’s Cup final loss to my beloved New York Liberty, and her second missed regular-season game in a row after the Aces won their third straight regular-season game in overtime against the Chicago Sky on Friday. Clark will be missing her second straight game since making an early exit from the Fever’s June 24 loss to the Phoenix Mercury due to a back injury which also caused her to miss a game in May and had her listed as probable for every game after it. Indiana hasn’t played since throttling the Los Angeles Sparks last Saturday by a 111-87 margin, another opponent who notably did not have their best player due to Kelsey Plum’s extended absence (the Aces have a lot more talent behind Wilson, of course, than the Sparks do behind Plum).
Las Vegas improved to 14-0 when it holds its opponent under 110 points per 100 possessions according to HHS in the latest win over Chicago. It’s a testament to the reigning champs’ machine-like offense that they’re near-unbeatable when they slow their opponents down at all on the other end. The Aces lead the league with an offensive rating of 110.9 points per 100 possessions, on pace to top that category for the sixth time in seven seasons dating back to the Wubble. The only exception was last year, when their now-infamous slow start led to a fifth-place finish with an offensive rating of 103.8. That mark would rank 10th this season, by the way, right in between the Dream (104.1) and Mercury (102.8). NaLyssa Smith scored 29 points to lead the way on Friday, one shy of her career-high, while making a sparkling 11-of-14 (78.6%) from the field and adding 8 rebounds. That was only two points shy of what she’d scored over her previous four regular-season games combined (including three straight single-digit regular-season outings going into Friday night) and her third time scoring 20+ points this season. Jewell Loyd also snapped a streak of three straight regular-season games under 10 points with a 19-point outing, her second-highest scoring of 2026.
Indiana is looking to avoid a fourth loss in six games, although a win would also be its third in its last four. More importantly, however, the Fever are looking to knock off a team that’s either ahead of or tied with them in the standings for the first time in a month and a day. Indiana has lost three straight to that cohort since a 12-point home win over Atlanta on June 4. It currently sits with a 2-5 record against the Dream (1-2), New York Liberty (0-1), Dallas Wings (0-1) and Golden State Valkyries (1-1) while this will be the Fever’s first game against Las Vegas or Minnesota — who’d be the top two seeds in the playoffs if they started today. I’ll save you the standings math and tell you that Indiana is 9-3 against the teams behind it in the standings, but it’s going to have to beat the top six teams with regularity if it’s going to be the title contender it purports to be. Like the Aces, the Fever have options other than Clark, most notably fellow All-Star starters Kelsey Mitchell (who’s actually slightly ahead of Clark with 21.6 points per game to Clark’s 21.2) and Aliyah Boston (17.0 points, 8.6 rebounds per game). Mitchell was the Fever’s high scorer with 26 points on 9-for-13 from the field in the rout of Los Angeles last weekend while Boston was the team’s second-leading scorer with 17 points on 5-for-6 from the field and 6-for-6 at the line.
Today’s first game sees the Dallas Wings (12-8) visit the Toronto Tempo (9-10) (3:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). The Tempo are also missing a couple of stars, although it isn’t a new development as both Kiki Rice (last played on June 3) and Brittney Sykes (June 16) have both been out for a few weeks now. Dallas is at full strength after getting Odyssey Sims and Alanna Smith back in its win over the Connecticut Sun in Hartford on Thursday. The Wings trailed by seven points entering the fourth quarter, but put up 31 points in those 10 minutes to steal the win after topping out at 20 in the first three frames, delighting the UConn faithful who’d showed up to see Paige Bueckers (25 points) and Azzi Fudd (4). Shouts are due to Smith, who had her first double-digit outing as a Wing with 11 points on 4-for-6 from the field in 13:40 while making her return from a concussion which cost her a couple of weeks. Toronto’s had eight days off since a nine-point home loss to the Mercury last Saturday, but tonight will hopefully see Marina Mabrey give us a delayed encore to her WNBA-record-tying 53-point outing last Thursday after missing the Mercury loss due to neck spasms.