Hello, hoopheads! With just one game on tonight’s WNBA schedule after two last night, and none of them being what you’d call marquee matchups, I decided to put the recaps and preview into a single post. Monday was notable for the fact that both home teams came out on top, marking the first day this season on which home teams have had a winning record. They now stand at 9-21 (.300), but as my Phillies (now 15-6 since their 9-19 start) continue to show, these things can even out quickly. Tonight’s winner will either put one back in the road column and give the expansion teams a combined three-game win streak, or it’ll be a third straight win for the home teams.
The higher-profile of last night’s games turned into one of the least competitive games of the early season, as Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings throttled the Washington Mystics by a 92-69 margin. The Wings seemed to make a point of playing unselfish basketball in their first game since head coach Jose Fernandez publicly accused his locker room of being selfish, sharing the sugar to the tune of 30 assists on 33 made field goals. That 90.9% assist rate made Dallas just the 16th team in WNBA history to finish a game with at least a 90% assist rate on 30 or more field goals — you might remember this coming up just a few days ago when my New York Liberty had a 94.1% assist rate to tie the WNBA record with the same field-goal minimum, but Dallas’ effort wasn’t too shabby either. Bueckers led the victorious Wings with 18 points and 7 assists while going 7-for-12 from the field including 4-for-5 from deep, Arike Ogunbowale added 16 points, 3 assists and 3 steals, and Azzi Fudd had the best game of her young career with 12 points, 3 assists and a steal while going 6-for-9 from the field. Washington’s young stars largely struggled after a couple of fantastic games, as Sonia Citron finished with just 7 points compared to 5 turnovers, Kiki Iriafen had 9 points on 2-for-6 from the field (although she did pull in 10 of the team’s 24 rebounds) and Shakira Austin finished with 12 points (the team-high), 4 rebounds and 4 turnovers. Perhaps it was my fault after I said yesterday that the trio couldn’t stay hot forever.
The second game of the night was a thriller, as the Portland Fire finished up their season-opening four-game homestand with the second win in (new) franchise history, both of which have come in dramatic fashion and by one possession. Sarah Ashlee Barker didn’t hit a buzzer-beater for the win this time, as she did last Tuesday against the Liberty, but she was once again the star with 18 points to tie for the team high. Eight of those 18 points came in the fourth quarter, during which she was 3-for-4 from the field and also had a steal and assist on a key bucket by Emily Engstler. I asked for more of “S-A-B” (as the crowd chanted last night) in my overreactions piece the other day, and one game later, all I’d like to add to that is that I was right and also, even more Sarah Ashlee Barker, please. Bridget Carleton also had 18 points, 10 of those coming in the third quarter, during which she was also 3-for-4 from the field and had 2 assists and a steal. Engstler added 15 points and Sug Sutton had 12. Sutton also had the Fire’s final field goal, which put them ahead for good, so one might argue that she said “Sug night” (see what I did there). Brittney Griner led the Sun with 16 points to go with 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks while several of the Sun’s young players played pretty well (specifically Hailey Van Lith, Aaliyah Edwards, Aneesah Morrow, Saniya Rivers and Charlisse Leger-Walker). Connecticut is 0-5 nonetheless, and you know I’m enjoying it as a Sun hater. That’s also an accurate description of me in general, so let me just say fuck this heat.
That brings us to the lone game on tonight’s schedule, which sees the Toronto Tempo (2-2) visit the Phoenix Mercury (2-2) (10:00 ET, League Pass/local affiliates). Toronto is looking for its second straight win, having finished its two-game stay in Los Angeles with a 106-96 triumph over the Sparks on Sunday. Brittney Sykes led the way with a career-high 38 points, the second-most in a game by a player on an expansion team and the most in a regulation-length game (Betty Lennox had 44 in an overtime loss for the 2008 Atlanta Dream). There’s a version of that note floating around that says Sykes is the third player with at least 38 for an expansion team, but the third player in that note is Cynthia Cooper and it treats the 1997 Houston Comets as an expansion team during the W’s inaugural season. That’s ridiculous. Sykes and the Tempo have looked pretty potent at the offensive end while winning two of their last three games, putting up points at a rate of at least 107.5 per 100 possessions in all three according to Her Hoop Stats. Only the Las Vegas Aces (three of five games) and New York Liberty (all four games) join Toronto in having at least three games with an offensive rating of at least 107 so far this season.
Phoenix is looking for a second straight win after two straight losses, having avoided a three-game skid by holding off the Chicago Sky on Friday night behind 27 points from early-season star Jovana Nogić. She went 5-for-8 from deep to improve to 13-for-20 over the first four games of her career, a 65% mark from downtown which is a WNBA record for the first four games of a player’s career with more than 10 attempts. The previous mark was the 63.6% that Marine Johannes, Cathy Joens, Stephanie White and Taj McWilliams-Franklin all put up on identical 7-for-11 lines in their first four games. Mercury legend Diana Taurasi had the previous record among players with at least 20 attempts, going 14-for-23 (60.9%) over her first four games. Nogić is tied for second in the WNBA in 3-pointers, trailing only Johannes (15 in four games) and tied with Chelsea Gray (13 in five games). Alyssa Thomas also added a double-double with 17 points, 11 rebounds and 6 assists in the win over Chicago, her first time bringing in double-digit boards so far this season. The triple-double queen has also had only one game with 10+ assists, but it probably won’t be long before she adds to her historic total.