Hello, hoopheads! Memorial Day weekend is upon us, which means not only the unofficial start of summer, but a whole lot of sports being played over the next few days. The WNBA’s long-weekend action tips off tonight with a three-game slate which I’ll preview in a moment, but first I’m unfortunately compelled to say you can find recaps of my Liberty’s lifeless loss to the Golden State Valkyries and two other games last night here.
Speaking of the Valkyries, Golden State (3-1) visits the Indiana Fever (3-2) (7:30 ET, ION/League Pass) in one of two games occupying the first part of tonight’s ION doubleheader window. It’s a good thing for the Valkyries that the Liberty didn’t put up too grueling a fight on the first end of their back-to-back! Golden State continued to struggle to hit shots inside the arc, making 41.7% (15-of-36) last night while doing nearly as well from deep (37.1%, 13-of-35) to bring its season 2-point percentage to 42.3% (worst in the league) and 3-point percentage to 36.6% (second-best). It makes a whole fucking lot of sense, then, that the Valkyries lead the WNBA attempting 3-pointers on 40.6% of scoring attempts according to Her Hoop Stats. There’s some peril baked into being a team that relies heavily on 3-pointers given that there’s not much separating 7-for-25 (28%) and 10-for-25 (40%) on a night-to-night basis, but I can definitely see the vision behind a team that limits possessions (15th of 15 teams in possessions per 40 minutes), plays elite defense (3rd in defensive rating) and makes more 3-pointers than opponents can keep up with. It also helps to have an elite point guard leading the charge to both create good looks for her teammates and limit the number of possessions wasted. Golden State has one in Veronica Valkyrie (Burton), who has scored at least 13 points in all four games and had at least six assists with a zero or one in the turnover column in three of four. That makes her the first player in WNBA history to have at least three 13/6 lines or better without multiple turnovers in a team’s first four games of a season.
The Fever also have an elite lead guard, although there’s still some debate as to whether she’s better served playing with or without the ball in her hands, and while it’s tempting to do a rug pull and make this about Kelsey Mitchell as I write the sentence, I do mean Caitlin Clark. She seems like she’ll be on the floor tonight following a one-game absence with the “back soreness” felt ‘round the world (maybe I’m just in my 40s), which may or may not have been a load management thing depending on who around the Fever you ask and when you ask them. The WNBA seems to think that was the case, given it warned, but didn’t fine, the Fever for its reporting of Clark’s status. While I’m not generally one to defend the Indiana Fever, or any institution or ism, I will point out that it is the WNBA who decided that literally every Fever game needs to be on national TV and also scheduled five of them in a 10-day span early in the season. Ironically, Clark’s absence led some in the media and on humanity’s greatest mistake the internet to accuse Indiana of pushing Clark too hard and causing her to be hurt again when the reality seems to be that she missed a game specifically because the Fever were trying to protect her from the schedule by giving her a night off against a lesser opponent. Sorry for that stray you just caught, Portland, but like the magical sitar in Moulin Rouge!, I only speak the truth. There certainly hasn’t been any load management when Clark is on the floor, as she’s scored at least 20 points and dished out at least 7 assists in all four games she’s played this season, one shy of tying her own WNBA record for consecutive regular-season games with at least 20/7. This is the fourth time a player has had at least three straight 20/7 games, with three of those streaks belonging to Clark (Kelsey Plum had the other last season). She’ll never be likely to have the same low-turnover type stat lines as Veronica Valkyrie (Clark’s had at least 4 turnovers in every game) nor will she ever be considered an elite defender, but it’s hard to argue that anyone impacts a game the way Clark can. Assuming Clark plays, both guards’ abilities to dictate tempo will likely go a long way to determining the outcome, as Indiana’s third in the WNBA averaging 86.2 possessions per 40 minutes, a stark contrast to the Valkyries’ league-slowest pace.
Because I had so much to say about the Fever and Valkyries, there’s a genuine banger of a game that I’m not going to give as much attention to as I’d otherwise like. Consider it a meta commentary on the fact that the Dallas Wings’ (3-2) visit to the Atlanta Dream (2-1) (ION/League Pass) starts at the same time as Valks-Fever and will likely be seen by far fewer people given the other game (presumably) includes the league’s foremost magnet for eyeballs in Clark. The Wings are looking for a third straight win since the Jose Fernandez press conference I’m just about ready to stop referring to except for the fact that it’s the line of demarcation between consecutive losses and consecutive wins. The latest win, by a 99-89 margin over the Chicago Sky, started a three-game road trip which I hope wraps up with a loss on Sunday in Brooklyn such that Bestie and I take the subway home happy. Yet another elite lead guard, Paige Bueckers led that Dallas win with 24 points on 11-for-19 from the field, Arike Ogunbowale had 23 points and Jessica Shepard tallied the season’s first triple-double with 18 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. Bueckers has scored at least 15 points with at least 3 assists in all five of Dallas’ games this season while having no more than three turnovers in any of them, tying the longest streak of games with at least 15/3 and that few turnovers at the start of a season in WNBA history (Jackie Young had a five-game streak to open 2024).
Atlanta hasn’t played since falling to the Aces by one point on Sunday in instant classic, with that game also coming after a five-day layoff. This starts a busier stretch for my picks to win the WNBA title, with four games in the next eight days and no stretch of more than three straight days off until the end of June. That layoff could also be interrupted if the Dream make the Commissioner’s Cup championship, which would fall on the third of a four-day gap in the schedule. Either way, that gap comes during a four-game road trip with three in the Pacific Northwest and one in the nation’s capital, so even a home Commissioner's Cup game breaking the trip up won’t provide that much of a respite from the upcoming grind. Allisha Gray leads the Dream with 25 points per game on the nose so far, although Atlanta’s played so little that I still feel like it’s too early to even be using averages. That said, she scored 25 in the loss to the Aces and had 24 and 26 points in the first two games, so it’s not like one big game is skewing her average. The Dream also look likely to have Rhyne Howard back from concussion protocol after she missed the Aces game, as she was able to practice yesterday.
The second half of the doubleheader is a game that exists, and it is my mission to acknowledge every game this season, so here is me acknowledging that the Connecticut Sun (1-5) and Seattle Storm (1-4) (10:00 ET, ION/League Pass) play again tonight. The Sun got their only win so far on Wednesday in Seattle, and the Storm still won’t have Dominique Malonga back from concussion protocol, so Connecticut might even have a little winning streak on its hands. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this could be the Sun’s last win streak ever! Here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a 38-game skid they carry into Houston instead.