Hello, hoopheads! My Tuesday night started out great, with an outstanding show from Wednesday and Bleachers at the World’s Most Famous Arena, and then it just kept getting better, as one of that building’s former occupants went to Sin City and beat the house. I’m talking, of course, about my beloved New York Liberty, who led for basically the entire game in their 11-point win over the reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces last night in a preview of next week’s Commissioner's Cup final. Breanna Stewart led the way with 20 points, including 12 in the fourth quarter, Sabrina Ionescu had her first double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds in easily her best game so far this season, and Jonquel Jones had 14 points. The three of them each hit a 3-pointer to push the lead back to double-digits over the final 2:30 as the Aces tried to continue the trend of teams coming back against the Liberty, with Jones’ make in the final 30 seconds leading Las Vegas to dribble out the loss. As far as I’m concerned, Stewie should pull a George Costanza and go out on a high note by retiring from 3-pointers on a 2-for-3 night. That brought her to a still-awful 20.4% for the season and 131-for-522 (25.1%) since the start of the 2023 WNBA playoffs in all competitions (a framing device I use in the spirit of World Cup szn and by which I mean WNBA regular/postseason, Unrivaled, Olympic and overseas games). The last thing I want to see is this solid performance leading to even more possessions thrown away on a shot that I just don’t think is coming back on a reliable basis.
Last night’s win made the Liberty, who jumped back into fourth place in the standings, 2-0 against the teams ahead of them — Minnesota, Atlanta and Las Vegas — who also happen to be the other teams considered top-tier contenders to win the WNBA title. Before any Lynx fans yell at me, I know they haven’t played yet, but the Liberty have won by double-digit margins on the road in both Atlanta and Las Vegas in their lone encounters with those teams, and the thing I am going to tell you is that Las Vegas fell to 2-1 against other top contenders, Minnesota is 1-2 and Atlanta is 1-3. I can’t say I think this means a ton given it’s June and the WNBA title will be decided in October, but I certainly put more stock in those Liberty wins than I do in the admittedly annoying games they let slip away heading into last night. Las Vegas ultimately fell to 1-5 when allowing opponents to put up offensive ratings of at least 110 points per 100 possessions according to Her Hoop Stats (11-0 when holding opponents under that threshold), as the Liberty just barely got over that bar at 110.1. That said, I don’t think this was one of those nights when the Aces just didn’t show up to play, as they seemed to be fighting from start to finish (the Liberty had a slim 34-32 rebounding edge, and hoopers all agree rebounding is an effort stat). Mostly what happened was that the Liberty just shot the ball better, particularly from deep (13-for-31, 41.9%, compared to 8-for-27, 29.6% for Vegas) and also went to the line twice as often (16 attempts to 8). Whatever you chalk the loss up to, it was the Aces’ second in four games since a six-game win streak, with their next game coming against the Dallas Wings team that beat Vegas by 30 points to snap that win streak.
Tonight’s a busier night in the WNBA, although none of the matchups are quite as tantalizing as the season’s first Aces-Liberty showdown. One of them does, however, feature one of the top four teams in the standings against a team that will be in the next tier whenever I figure out what exactly I think that tier is — “teams I think are good enough to possibly beat one or or two of the title contenders, but not three in a row to win a title?” — and do a tier list post. That matchup sees the Atlanta Dream (12-4) visit the Golden State Valkyries (10-7) (10:00 ET, USA Network/CNBC/local affiliates), and I must say, Golden State is a team that I think could be a particularly annoying first-round matchup for my Liberty. They were certainly an annoying matchup when they whipped the Libs’ asses at Barclays Center last month. It’s hard to think of anyone as an annoying matchup for Atlanta right now, as the Dream come in having won a league-best four straight, but these teams are playing three times in their next four games so they’ll basically get a dry run on a first-round series.
The first three wins in Atlanta’s current streak were 100-point outings which saw the Dream tie the WNBA’s record 100-point streak, and it looked like they would likely break it after a 59-point first half in Monday’s win over the Toronto Tempo, but the Dream offense sputtered with just 35 points in the second half, including 13 in the fourth quarter. It’ll be interesting to see if that second-half sputter was an ominous sign for an offense that started the season slow but has ascended to fourth in offensive rating with a mark of 107.7 points per 100 possessions according to Her Hoop Stats. That’s particularly interesting because the Dream will be facing a Valkyries team sitting fourth in defensive rating at 100.8 points allowed per 100 possessions. The problem for the Valkyries is that their offense has also sputtered of late, putting up ratings under 100 in losses over the last two games and ratings of 101.3 or worse in four of the last five games. They’ve fallen to a tie for eighth with the Indiana Fever in offensive rating (105.2) at HHS, and Golden State is facing a defense that ranks slightly better than its own, as Atlanta is currently second with a defensive rating of 100.4 points allowed per 100 possessions at HHS. Both offenses will be facing elite defenses, but I’d have to give Atlanta’s offense the edge between the two given it’s been better for the season and hotter of late.
Starting off USA’s doubleheader is its second broadcast of a Phoenix Mercury (5-13) at Indiana Fever (10-7) (7:30 ET, USA Network/local affiliates) game this week, and that should really tell you all you need to know about programming executives’ addiction to Caitlin Clark. It’s very hard for me to envision another non-playoff scenario that’d see a network choose to air the same two teams playing in the same location twice in a three-night span, even acknowledging that the choice was made before anyone but me seemingly realized that last year’s Finals runners-up from the desert were going to suck. The Mercury do, however, suck, and have lost 13 straight games to teams currently at .500 or better since using their final 2025 bullet to paste the Aces by 33 points on Ring Day. Indiana, on the other hand, is 8-2 against the teams behind it in the standings and 2-5 against teams either tied with or ahead of it. The Mercury jumped out to a 19-6 lead after a quarter on Monday, but gave up 65 points in the next two quarters as the Fever ultimately cruised to an 86-77 win behind 24 points and 9 assists from Clark on 8-for-17 from the field while committing 3 turnovers.
I’m not saying you’d be a fool not to watch the other game starting at the same time as the Mercury and Fever, but I am certain that the Minnesota Lynx (13-4) and Washington Mystics (8-7) (7:30 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) will get more of my attention. That’ll be the case if only because I want to see if Minnesota comes out bearing the wrath of a vengeful deity after letting a home game slip away against this young Mystics squad on Sunday, when Washington stunned the Lynx with 12 straight points to turn a 6-point deficit with less than 3 minutes to play into a 6-point lead in the final minute. I’ll also be tuned in because it’s a better game and only a fool doesn’t tune in for the Olivia Miles Show, but the possibility of the Lynx performing ritual sacrifice is definitely a draw.
Last but not least and starting a half-hour after the Lynx and Mystics, the Portland Fire (8-9) visit the Chicago Sky (4-12) (8:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). The Fire are 3-6 since their 5-3 start, but a third win in four games tonight would get them back to .500 for the season and keep them in the thick of the still-too-early-to-matter playoff hunt. Chicago is coming off of a real bummer of a 29-point loss to the miserable Connecticut Sun, its sixth straight loss, after dropping the previous two games by a point each and the two before that by 15 points combined. Rookie Sydney Taylor has been a bright spot of late, however, despite going 2-for-12 from the field at Connecticut, and I hope that she bounces back and scores 20+ points again, because I enjoy watching her and would love to see her find a home in Chicago.