Hello, hoopheads! The second night of Commissioner’s Cup play was a lot like the first, at least as far as the one-sided nature of the final scores was concerned. All four of last night’s games were decided by at least 10 points, making it six straight double-digit margins to start the tournament. Home teams have come out on top in four of those six games, including three last night, bringing the league’s collective home record within 10 games of .500 at 30-39 (.435). That includes a 23-18 (.561) record since road teams won 21 of the season’s first 28 games. One thing that was notably different about last night, however, is that I was recording a podcast appearance while the early games were wrapping up, after which I was physically incapable of putting my phone down without taking one more crack at going 82-0, and thus I’ve got no recaps to link to.
Commissioner’s Cup play rolls on with a pair of games tonight, although I’m not sure the Cup is going to be the headline when Sandy Brondello’s Toronto Tempo (5-4) visit the New York Liberty (5-4) (7:30 ET, USA Network/local affiliates), who Brondello coached for four seasons, including the team’s lone WNBA title run in 2024, before being let go last fall. I had mixed feelings about the Liberty’s decision at the time which I can’t say have gotten any less complicated as the team has displayed some of the same infuriating tendencies on offense as it did last season, but there’s no doubt that she’ll be welcomed with open arms and one of the loudest ovations of the night from the Liberty fans in attendance, myself and Bestie included. In addition to being the owner of probably the world’s most badass collection of jean and leather jackets, Brondello is the winningest coach in Liberty history and took the team to four straight postseasons, including back-to-back Finals appearances. She also won a WNBA as head coach of the Phoenix Mercury, which also let her go and was somewhat fittingly the team that eliminated the Liberty from the 2025 playoffs and ultimately ended her tenure in Brooklyn, but I digress.
Chris DeMarco’s 2026 Liberty are looking for their third straight win after three straight losses, although it’s unclear how much the previous wins were about the Liberty getting right as opposed to their opponent (the Phoenix Mercury) being a total mess. The first of last week’s wins over Phoenix memorably featured a 23-0 run to close the third quarter which I truly hoped marked the death of the Liberty’s maddening “what the fuck?” offense, named for the question I ask as they spend possession after possession doing god only knows what with the ball before either throwing it into the stands or forcing up a bad shot. Neither Brondello nor DeMarco has seemed to be able to do anything when the WTF offense takes hold. Friday’s follow-up win over the Mercury was a rock fight (the Liberty won fairly easily with an offensive rating of just 94.9 points per 100 possessions) and featured too many turnovers (19 to tie the season-high), but for once I didn’t find myself wondering whether they had any clue what they were trying to do with the ball (this time I wondered if anyone on the team could make an open shot). The good news is they’ve still got about 80% of the season to sort it all out and they came out of last week back above .500 and healthier than they’ve been all season. The only member of the full-time roster left on the Liberty status report is Sabrina Ionescu, who is questionable tonight with back soreness that has kept her out of the last three games. With any luck she’ll be on the court tonight and the Liberty will have their full complement of players as they try to build chemistry and find consistency going forward.
Toronto is also looking for a third straight win following consecutive losses, although much like the Liberty, the last two wins didn’t come against the stiffest of competition. The first was by a 111-104 margin at Chicago, which has been in a freefall since losing Rickea Jackson, followed by a 93-72 home win over the Seattle Storm, who have also been in a race to the bottom. The latest Tempo win snapped a six-game streak allowing teams to post offensive ratings of at least 108 points per 100 possessions, as Seattle mustered up a mark of just 85.7, but the Tempo remain 14th out of the WNBA’s 15 teams in defensive rating giving up 108 points per 100 possessions so far. They’ve just barely been able to outdo that with the league’s second-highest offensive rating, 108.3 points per 100 possessions, but defense tends to be at a premium in Tempo games. Two things that generally aren't at a premium for the Tempo are 3-point attempts (Toronto is third in 3-point rate at 38.3% of scoring attempts) and free throws (it has the WNBA’s highest free throw rate according to Her Hoop Stats). The Tempo are better at making the free ones (2nd in the league making 86.1% at the line) than the long-range ones (8th making 34.3% from deep), but they usually take a lot of both regardless.
Tonight’s second game sees two of the struggling teams I mentioned in the last couple of paragraphs try to pick up their first wins in Cup play as the Phoenix Mercury (2-8) visit the Seattle Storm (3-7) (10:00 ET, USA Network/local affiliates). The Mercury have dropped eight out of nine since starting their season with a rout of the Las Vegas Aces that increasingly feels like a remnant of last season’s Finals as opposed to part of the 2026 campaign, because the Mercury team that played that game has been nowhere to be found since then. Phoenix is 11th in offensive rating and 13th in defensive rating while sitting dead last in opponent 3-point percentage (39.8%) and opponent effective field goal percentage (54.7%). While the Liberty have been off since Friday’s game against Phoenix, the Mercury have lost again since then, a 34-point home beatdown at the hands of the Minnesota Lynx on Monday which was the second-worst loss the Mercury have ever taken in the desert. Preconceived notions of the teams create a tendency to view this as a get-right game for Phoenix, an idea reflected in it being a 6.5-point road favorite as of late Tuesday night. Despite the Storm being without Dominique Malonga again as she recovers from her second concussion of 2026, I don’t really see this game that way. Seattle’s dropped three in a row and six of eight, but even after a blowout loss in Dallas on Monday, it sits 6th in defensive rating. The Storm’s 14th-ranked offense couldn’t make enough buckets to keep up despite slowing down the league’s top-ranked offense, but I see no reason to believe it can’t make enough buckets against the porous Mercury defense to keep up with a significantly less potent Phoenix offense.