Hello, hoopheads! We’re exactly one-sixth of the way through the 2026 WNBA regular season, with 55 of the 330 games in the books. Home teams have won 15 of the last 27 after losing 21 of the first 28, taking both halves of Thursday’s doubleheader and making it the fourth time the hosts had a winning record in the last six days. You can catch up on that action here, but the second sixth of the season gets underway with four games tonight, so we’ve got previews to get to. I can’t say there’s a clear marquee matchup on tonight’s schedule, but there’s also not a stinker unless my Libs carry their second-half performance from Wednesday night against the Mercury into the rematch. The late game is, however, in a standalone window and the only matchup of teams with winning records, so we might as well start there.
One of two teams who enter Friday tied for the longest active win streak in the WNBA (three straight) will be on the floor in the last game of the night, but it won’t be my picks to win it all, the Atlanta Dream (4-2), who visit the streaking Portland Fire (5-3) (10:00 ET, ION/League Pass). The Dream were denied a three-game win streak for the second time this season in a 96-81 loss at Minnesota on Wednesday, proving that they can in fact be killed with slightly less effort than a horror movie villain (although they did briefly make things interesting in the fourth quarter after trailing throughout). That loss marked the first time that Atlanta’s defense has let it down this season, as the Lynx scored at a rate of 120 points per 100 possessions according to Her Hoop Stats, 17.7 better than any previous Dream opponent. That dropped Atlanta to third in defensive rating (98.2 points per 100 possessions), while it’s sitting in 12th in offensive rating (101 points per 100 possessions), but all that really says to me is this team is going to be really scary when it gets the offense going. I have no reason to believe that won’t happen given how much of the team that finished second in offensive rating last year remains intact. One key difference, however, has been that Atlanta is 10th in turnover rate (17% of possessions) after ranking second in the league in that department last year (14.2%), and it’s fair to note that some of that is directly related to adding Angel Reese (second in the league with 4.3 turnovers per game). I just think it’s still far too early to be worried about it.
Portland has won three in a row since a 2-3 start to its rekindled existence, most recently holding off the Connecticut Sun by a 71-61 margin on Wednesday. The Fire’s win streak coincides with some significant improvement in their play on defense, with Portland having held all three opponents in its win streak to offensive ratings under 99 points per 100 possessions, its first three times keeping an opponent under the century mark. Portland’s also 4-1 during a five-game streak keeping opponents to efficiency ratings under 105 points per 100 possessions, before which the Fire gave up marks of 121, 120 and 119 in their first three games. The competition hasn’t been the greatest at the offensive end, with two of the wins in the last five games coming against Connecticut, one against fellow expansion team Toronto and one against my Liberty running almost exclusively their dreaded “what the fuck?” offense while the loss came against the Indiana Fever sans Caitlin Clark. Then again, I just finished telling you how disappointing the Dream offense has been this season, so perhaps the competition isn’t any better tonight (I think it is). Carla Leite leads the Fire averaging 16.3 points and 4 assists per game while top expansion draft pick Bridget Carleton is close behind with 15.3 ppg and sits second in the league with 2.1 steals per game. If you’re here, however, you probably already know that what I really want to tell you is how Sarah Ashlee Barker’s doing. She scored a season-low 4 points in Portland’s latest win over the Sun, but played her most minutes since the first week of the season and added 11 rebounds, an assist, 3 steals and a block (as well as 4 turnovers). As always, my request of the Fire: more Sarah Ashlee Barker, please.
Bestie and I will be in attendance at Barclays Center for the third time in six days when the Portland Fire (2-6) visit the New York Liberty (4-4) (7:30 ET, ION/League Pass), who are looking to improve to 2-3 on a seven-game homestand and also hosting Pride Night at Barclays Center. I can only assume that the impending Commissioner’s Cup is the reason they’re celebrating Pride at the last May home game instead of one of their two home games next week or either of the ones they have later in June, but I digress. New York played around 12 or 13 minutes of WTF offense on Wednesday, spanning the second quarter into the third, but I’m going to suspend disbelief for a little while longer and pretend that it was killed for good when the Libs went on a franchise-record 23-0 run to close that frame. That run started a few points after a 30-5 run starting from the exact moment that Bestie and I looked at a 50-42 Mercury lead and agreed that the situation felt dire, if not borderline insurmountable. The Liberty won’t have Sabrina Ionescu tonight, but there’s no one else on the full-time roster listed on their latest status report, so New York should be as healthy as it’s been all year as it looks to get back above .500.
A huge assist for Wednesday’s win goes to the Mercury, who continue to rank among the league’s worst teams on defense (11th in defensive rating). Phoenix, which has lost six of seven since its opening rout of the Aces, has also seen its offensive rating slip to 9th. The Mercury are losing a lot of battles on a nightly basis, but the one that’s probably hurting the most, if only because of its inherent value, is on the 3-point line, where Phoenix is 11th making 32.5% while it’s dead last allowing opponents to hit 39.2%. Opponents have certainly noticed Phoenix’s inability to shut down the perimeter and are hoisting up a whole lot of 3-pointers — 35.6% of their scoring attempts, to be exact, the second-highest opponent 3-point rate in the league, while Phoenix is 10th in 3-point rate. So, it’s not making many of the relatively small number of 3s it takes, but it’s letting opponents make a ton of the relatively large number they’re attempting. That’s a very bad formula! A lot of the personnel is the same from last year’s Finals team, but that group’s experience on the perimeter was quite the opposite. Phoenix was 6th in 3-point percentage and 4th in opponent 3-point percentage last season while attempting triples at a significantly higher rate than its opponents.
Starting simultaneously to the Libs and Mercury, the Los Angeles Sparks (3-3) visit the Washington Mystics (3-3) (7:30 ET, ION/League Pass) in the first half of an East Coast back-to-back for LA. It’s also the Sparks’ first game since knocking off the Aces on Sunday in Sin City, their second win in a row and third in four games, but they got bad news in the interim as Kelsey Plum will miss at least a week (which essentially means at least tonight’s game and tomorrow’s at Connecticut) after suffering an ankle injury in practice. LA’s improved fortunes have coincided with a four-game streak posting offensive ratings of at least 115 points per 100 possessions, but the Sparks’ offense will undoubtedly look different without Plum at the wheel. Washington avoided a three-game skid in a 14-point win at Seattle on Wednesday, leaving the Emerald City with a split and finishing up a four-game spell away from home (with a six-day gap in the middle, so not a continuous road trip) with a 2-2 record. Wednesday’s win marked the first time Washington kept an opponent to an offensive rating under 100 points per 100 possessions since its opening-night win in Toronto, although 110 is increasingly feeling like a better baseline threshold in this year’s tightly-officiated, offense-happy WNBA. The Mystics are 3-0 when they keep opponents under 110 points per 100 possessions and 0-3 when they allow opponents to hit it.
Finally, the other team on a three-game win streak, the Minnesota Lynx (5-2) look for its second road win over the Chicago Sky (3-4) (7:30 ET, ION/League Pass) in a seven-day span. This is already the third and final meeting between the Lynx and Sky this season, with road teams having won the first two. Chicago’s injury situation continues to put it in an unenviable position, however, as it’ll once again be without DiJonai Carrington and Courtney Vandersloot, who haven’t played yet this season, Rickea Jackson, who was lost for the season after a torrid start, and the latest addition to the list, rookie standout Gabriela Jaquez. Minnesota’s got its own injury issues with Napheesa Collier, Dorka Juhász and promising rookie Emma Cechova sidelined, but as I pointed out heading into last Saturday’s meeting, the Lynx were in a much better position to withstand their injuries. They just keep on electric sliding past any bumps in the road, same as ever.