Hello, hoopheads! Tuesday’s pair of WNBA games once again went the way of the road teams, marking the fourth straight day without a home win starting on the 4th of July. This nine-game skid has dropped home teams to 80-78 (.506) on the season, nearly erasing a 73-48 (.603) stretch heading into the 4th following a 7-21 (.250) start for home teams this season. Last night’s first and more notable home loss saw my beloved New York Liberty (13-9) fall apart in the middle quarters of their second home loss to the Dallas Wings (14-10) in 2026, albeit without the player who I’d most like defending Jessica Shepard (Leonie Fiebich) participating in either game. Shepard made WNBA history with a 22-point, 12-rebound, 11-assist effort, her third and the league’s third triple-double this season, tying my favorite hooper Sabrina Ionescu for second in WNBA history with four in her career. Shepard also joined the runaway all-time leader in triple-doubles Alyssa Thomas in having at least three triple-doubles in a single season (AT did it in each of the last four seasons, including the playoffs).
I mentioned yesterday that Fiebich’s potential absence would likely lead to fan-favorite — and I swear that includes me — Betnijah Laney-Hamilton’s first minutes in over a week, and expressed my hope that it would go better than her previous few outings if that came to pass. It regretfully did not, which I’m only bringing up because there was also some WNBA history made. I am not the sort of nuggetmonger who ignores WNBA history just because it’s dubious and made by a player I like. According to Across the Timeline and dating back to her appearance in last Sunday’s loss at Golden State, Laney-Hamilton just became the first player in WNBA history to have consecutive outings with 0 points, rebounds or steals and a -9 rating or worse in at least 10 minutes. She also owns two of just six such games in the WNBA this season. I am by no means blaming her exclusively for last night’s loss, which was a total team effort, but it’s not every day that players do things no one has done in this league’s 30-season history, either positive or negative. Telling you about it is something like half of this newsletter’s ethos.
Three teams will try to be the ones to snap the latest league-wide home losing streak tonight, starting when the Golden State Valkyries (15-7) cross the border to face the Toronto Tempo (9-11) (7:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass), although a Tempo win still wouldn’t change the fact that no American team has won at home since the country turned 250 — clearly, the country’s lost a step. Making shitty jokes is the other half of the ethos, if you hadn’t figured that out yet. The Valkyries enter on a league-best five-game win streak, which makes them either a bad candidate to be the first road team to lose in four days, because they’re hot, or the perfect candidate, because the longest win streak in the WNBA has been a pretty precarious thing to own lately. That said, this is a gnarly matchup for the Tempo on paper, particularly as they remain without Kiki Rice and Brittney Sykes, as Golden State ranks higher at both ends of the floor according to Her Hoop Stats. When Toronto has the ball, the league’s fourth-rated offense (107.7 points per 100 possessions) — without its point guard and one of its two primary scorers — faces Golden State’s second-rated defense (97.7 points allowed per 100 possessions). At the other end of the floor, Golden State sits eighth in offensive rating (103.6) while Toronto is 14th in defensive rating (109.2). Seeing that Tempo defense should be a welcome change for Golden State after Monday’s 62-49 rock fight “defensive struggle” against the Washington Mystics and the league’s third-best defense (99.5). Toronto, on the other hand, has lost two in a row and six of its last eight, with its only wins in that span coming against Connecticut and Los Angeles without Kelsey Plum (aka Connecticut West).
Tonight’s second game also doesn’t look like a great situation for the home team when the tied-for-first Minnesota Lynx (15-6) visit the detestable last-place Connecticut Sun (5-16) (7:30 ET, USA Network/local affiliates). Being a stubborn idiot who learns nothing from my mistakes, or perhaps a ball knower who refuses to believe it could happen again, I’m going to repeat exactly what I said heading into what became the Sun’s 90-89 upset of the Lynx on Monday in Minneapolis: this looks like ritual slaughter. In addition to being a matchup of the league’s best and the league’s worst, the Lynx are presumably coming in angry after getting beaten pretty handily on Friday night by my Liberty — thus ends me repeating myself from Monday — before losing again on Monday at home. Those two losses are the same number as the Lynx suffered over their previous 15 games while going from 2-2 to 15-4. The Lynx were notably without rookie sensation Olivia Miles for the first time this season on Monday, and she’s doubtful again tonight with a calf injury that forced her from the fourth quarter against the Liberty. They’ll also still be without Napheesa Collier, who has now officially missed the season’s first half as she works her way back from dual ankle surgery in the offseason, but whose return appears imminent. In better availability news, Dorka Juhász made her season debut on Monday and played 24 minutes and change, and she is not listed on the injury report overnight. The problem for the Lynx on Monday was that they allowed the Sun’s league-worst offense (96.3 points per 100 possessions) to post an offensive rating of 106.7. Minnesota fell to 3-6 when allowing opponents to put up triple-digit ratings, compared to 12-0 when holding them to offensive ratings under 100, and I just can’t imagine the Sun scoring that efficiently against the Lynx for the second time in three nights.
Finally, a third home underdog rounds out tonight’s schedule as the Indiana Fever (12-8) visit the Los Angeles Sparks (8-11) (10:00 ET, USA/CNBC/local affiliates). Truth be told, the Sparks look like the least likely of the three home teams to pull off a win tonight, because they have been woeful since Plum joined Cameron Brink on the sideline. Los Angeles has lost three straight games by at least 18 points, tying the fourth-longest such streak in WNBA history, although it’s the 13th streak to get to at least three games and second in franchise history. Only the 2018 Fever, 1998 Washington Mystics (five straight each) and 2023 Phoenix Mercury (four) have had longer streaks of 18-point losses, while the Sparks’ previous three-game streak was in 2022. Indiana’s looking for its third straight win after taking its last two games without the services of Caitlin Clark, the first of which was a 111-87 thrashing of the Sparks. Clark is probable to return tonight, which probably isn’t good news for Los Angeles.