Hello, hoopheads! It’s been just over a month since the WNBA had a day off, with today marking the 32nd straight gameday dating back to May 27. That streak will finally come to an end tomorrow, however, with 13 of the 15 teams set to enjoy at least a three-day break while the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty take the spotlight for Tuesday night’s Commissioner’s Cup final. That’ll also end my streak of consecutive days hitting your inbox, but I’ll be back on Tuesday to preview the big game in Brooklyn. It’ll probably be a tier list on Wednesday, unless some other off-day framing device grabs my interest before then.
Six teams wrapped up their June grinds during Saturday’s three games, which included the last two Pride celebrations of the month. The Toronto Tempo started the day by becoming only the third team to lose a Pride game after Marina Mabrey was a last-second scratch due to neck spasms for what would’ve been her encore to tying the WNBA’s single-game scoring record, but Seattle made teams hosting Pride games 11-3 this season when it jumped out to a 12-0 lead on the Atlanta Dream and never relinquished it. The Dream, losers of three Pride games and two in a 24-hour span this weekend, have lost three straight games overall. It’s the first time that’s happened to their head coach Karl Smesko since the final days of the Before Times, with his last three-game skid coming in November 2016 when he was at FGCU. In between those two Pride games, the Indiana Fever throttled the Los Angeles Sparks, who were also on the wrong end of Mabrey’s 53-point night and just allowed the most points in a two-game span (236) in WNBA history. The Fever notably did not have the services of Caitlin Clark due to a back injury that has cost her two games this season (five weeks apart), but they’ve now got until next Sunday to get her right after playing six times in the last 12 days.
What today’s four-game slate lacks in Pride, it more than makes up for with punch, as there are two marquee matchups and two others that should be plenty interesting in their own right. Up first, the Minnesota Lynx (14-4) visit the Dallas Wings (11-7) (2:00 ET, CBS/Paramount+) looking to improve to 3-0 in the season series, although the first two wins were about as different as can be. The Lynx improved to 2-1 on the young season in a very entertaining and tightly-contested 90-86 game in their previous trip to Texas, outscoring the Wings 11-3 over the final three minutes. That game-ending run followed a script that’s become all too familiar over the last couple months, as Natasha Howard scored six of the first eight points while Olivia Miles had the bucket in between Howard’s layups and assisted on two of them. Kayla McBride salted it away at the free throw line, with the only surprising part of the whole sequence being that she missed one of her four attempts in the final 20 seconds. The second meeting required no such closing kick, as Minnesota jumped out to a 30-18 lead after a quarter and cruised by a 100-76 margin when the Wings visited Minneapolis on June 9. Miles (24 points, 7-for-10 from the field), Howard (22, 7-for-10) and McBride (21, 8-for-10) became the first trio in WNBA history to score 20+ points while hitting at least 70% from the field in that blowout.
The Lynx are looking for their second straight win after stealing one on the Mystics’ Pride night three days after Washington had done the same thing to them. This would also be the league-leading Lynx’s 13th win in 15 games since a 2-2 start to the season. Minnesota comes in with the league’s second-rated offense according to Her Hoop Stats (108.8 points per 100 possessions) and by far its best-rated defense according to HHS (95.0 points allowed per 100 possessions). That balance is what separates the Lynx from the Wings and most other teams, or at least has up to this point. The Wings are sitting in sixth in offensive rating at HHS, but they’re part of a group of teams that’s been shifting around quite a bit behind the Aces (110.0) and Lynx in the top two spots. That amorphous blob of teams is currently headed up by the Toronto Tempo (108.3), Indiana Fever and New York Liberty (107.7 each), but they’re all perfectly capable of going bucket for bucket with anyone. The problem comes when the Wings need to make stops, as they’re sitting ninth in defensive rating at 104.1 points allowed per 100 possessions and have allowed triple-digit ratings in 13 of 18 games so far. Dallas is 6-7 in those 13 games while it’s gone 5-0 when holding opponents to ratings under 100, but only Los Angeles, Portland and Toronto have done that less often.
Today’s other top-flight matchup closes out the night when the New York Liberty (12-7) visit the Golden State Valkyries (12-7) (7:00 ET, ESPN/Disney+) for the final tip of Act I of the regular season. The teams with the league’s two best mascots have met once already this season a 17-point Valkyries thrashing of the Liberty at Barclays Center on May 21 behind a 13-for-35 team effort from deep (37.1%) while holding the Liberty to 6-for-24 (25%). New York was notably rather shorthanded at that point, as Sabrina Ionescu, Leonie Fiebich and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton were all unavailable while hardship signing and Valkyries legend Julie Vanloo played just shy of 16 minutes (and had 8 assists). The two mascots have also met once, as Violet was a guest at Ellie’s birthday party earlier this month. The Liberty are healthier this time than the first time they saw the Valks, but Satou Sabally will miss the game in concussion protocol and New York comes in having dropped three of the last four games while allowing four offensive ratings of at least 108.9 points per 100 possessions in the last five. They certainly seemed to signal that they cared a lot more about winning this game than Friday’s loss at Seattle when they gave Breanna Stewart the night off despite Sabally entering the protocol, but in retrospect it might have made more sense to have her on the floor in her old stomping grounds to potentially avert that loss while resting her tonight ahead of Tuesday’s trophy game.
The Valkyries are looking to finish off a perfect three-game homestand after sweeping a pair against Atlanta on Wednesday (an 11-point rout that felt more like 22) and Friday (a 3-point game that felt exactly like a 3-point game), and can secure their second three-game win streak of the season if they’re successful. That would make Golden State 7-2 since a 6-5 start and push them into third place in the standings (whoever wins will, in fact, take sole possession of third, as the teams are currently in a three-way tie along with Atlanta) while they’re second in defensive rating at 99.4 points allowed per 100 possessions. The thing that holds Golden State back from being a real title contender, in my estimation, is that it remains the league’s worst field goal shooting team (41.0%) and worst team inside the arc (45.5%) while sitting 12th in effective field goal percentage (49.0%). The Valkyries are a solid 3-point shooting team and very tough to beat when they’re making 3s, but have fallen from an early perch atop the 3-point percentage list to sixth making 35.4%. That is still plenty good enough to justify their league-high 39.9% 3-point attempt rate, but it all makes them very dependent on hitting from deep — they’re 10-2 when making at least 33% of their attempts and 2-5 when not. It’s not impossible to win a title this way, but it’s an uphill battle, particularly in an era when the game is significantly more offense-oriented than it was over the WNBA’s first couple of decades. About half of the WNBA’s champions actually had effective field goal percentages under 50% (15 of 29, to be exact), but it’s only happened once in the last decade (2021 Chicago Sky). Five teams have won titles making worse than 46% inside the arc, but that hasn’t happened in 14 years (since the 2012 Indiana Fever). All of that having been said, my toxic trait is that I continually expect Golden State to suddenly start making its damn layups, and if that ever happens consistently, the Valkyries are plenty good enough to join the top tier of contenders.
It becomes likelier with every passing day that there’s exactly one playoff spot up for grabs among teams that aren’t Minnesota, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Golden State, New York, Dallas or Indiana. I would already put the likelihood of that being the case at something like 99.9%, but it’s probably a bit lower in reality. Still, if those teams do indeed stay above the fray and lock up the top seven spots in some order, games like today’s between the Portland Fire (8-11) and Washington Mystics (8-9) (3:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) could be very important, as the head-to-head matchups between these teams, Toronto and Los Angeles may well determine which of them ends up with the last postseason berth. The Fire have dropped two in a row and seven of their last nine games, having briefly had the dubious distinction of passing Los Angeles for the league’s worst defensive rating after giving up a mark of 142.5 points per 100 possessions their second straight loss in Chicago on Friday. The Sparks reclaimed their rightful throne thanks to last night’s blowout at Indiana, but it’s never good to be in this conversation. Washington followed up two toe-to-toe battles with the Lynx by sleepwalking through Friday’s 11-point loss at Connecticut. It was about as unsurprising, given how young this Mystics team is, as it was disappointing, given they have enough of a talent advantage to be able to sleepwalk past this Sun team to a win. A truly miserable offensive rating of 75.0 points per 100 possessions took that off the table.
Third on the schedule and last in today’s newsletter, but genuinely not least, the Las Vegas Aces (13-5) visit the Chicago Sky (6-12) (4:00 ET, CBS/Paramount+) in a matchup of the two franchises Candace Parker helped win NBA titles after she left the Sparks. They’re also the last two teams to employ Chennedy Carter, who was briefly absent from Las Vegas’ injury report yesterday but has since been listed as questionable due to the unspecified illness that has kept her out since June 13. That’s still a significant step in the right direction after she was preemptively ruled out of the last several games and Carter making her return today would inject quite a bit of juice into what looks like a one-sided matchup on paper, given her Sky tenure in 2024 ended unceremoniously following a similar absence. It would also be a big boost for the Aces ahead of Tuesday’s game in Brooklyn, as they’ve missed Carter’s scoring and ballhandling off the bench in her absence. Chicago has won consecutive games for the first time since starting 2-0, with an assist going to the Fire’s abominable defense. Kamilla Cardoso will look to continue being perfect after going a WNBA-record 13-for-13 from the field on Friday while rookie Sydney Taylor tries to stay hot after tallying her third 20-point game in the last six outings (including her first five starts) and fourth this season. Only Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles has more 20-point games among rookies, with seven.