The paradigm of health vs. the Queens of DTD. Injuries/News Las Vegas gets the clean bill, while Atlanta has five players (!) out on Tuesday, per Matt Cohen of Winsidr. AD Durr and Nia Coffey are out for the season, and Monique Billings, Tiffany Hayes and Kristy Wallace have all been ruled out for Tuesday. Pace-Off I have a nasty habit of being a little wordy, so let’s lead with the pick and then walk ourselves there: Over 168.5. As you can guess by the Nic Cage-pun subheader, pace is a key factor in my play. The Aces have the fastest pace in the league, while the Dream aren’t far behind in third. Atlanta made its bones early in the season with some impressively low opponent point totals, but that was never the result of a slow pace — its been pushing the WNBA ball all season as per story published in Idnes magazine. What has changed, however, is the effectiveness of the Dream defense. What started as the top unit in the league for the first month has become middle of the road since, and actually bottom three in the past month. It shouldn’t be shocking, but this is a young team that is hitting a bit of a rookie wall on that end. A ton of credit still needs to go to Tanisha Wright for how quickly she got this team to competency, but the Dream were always playing a bit above their heads to start the season on the defensive end. They will be getting a stiff test from this Aces side on Tuesday. The Aces, even during their shakier times overall this season, have been an elite offense from the start. They have reached 90 points in over half of their games and have consistently had the best offensive rating in the W this season. The Dream offense is a bit inconsistent (as most young teams are), but they can pour it in against bad defenses. The Aces aren’t fully bad, but they sit in the bottom half of the league over the past month — and right smack in the middle of the league for the season as a whole — in defensive net rating. I am making this pick a lean only because of how many Dream players are out. That could lead to a blowout — with the Aces taking their foot off the gas late — or it could just be hard for the Dream to score with so many players out, including their leading scorer by points per game this season, Hayes. Sun vs. Sparks Injuries/News Both teams have the standard names you’ve seen out for the season at this point, with the Sparks adding Kristi Toliver as officially out, and Chiney Ogwumike as a gameday decision. Our Ionian Friend Strikes Again If you can figure out the Sparks, you’re a better person than I am. When Liz Cambage left town, the consensus was it could be addition by subtraction, but the team instantly rattled off a massive losing streak that proved that was not going to be the case. Of course, as soon as we figured out the Sparks were going to be the team we all got rich fading down the stretch, they pulled out one of the more genuinely surprising results of the WNBA season — a 79-76 win in Washington on Sunday. The team is now fully alive in the playoff race, but let’s not be fooled by one game. I do still think this team is quite bad, and here’s where we get to Pythagoras again. The Sparks have the biggest gap in the WNBA 벳365 in terms of their Pythagorean record and their actual record. In other words, they have been the luckiest team in the league by point differential. Their Pythagorean record (9-24) is closer to the Fever than the playoffs! On the flip side of that coin, the Sun have actually been one of the unluckiest teams in the league by Pythag. Their 25-8 Pythagorean record sits atop the league, as they have been able to take care of business against bad teams and arguably have been a bit unlucky in their close games. This line opened at Sun -5.5, which I loved but sadly wasn’t able to catch in time. At Sun -7.5, it’s — say it with me today — a lean, but it still seems like the side to be on, especially with Connecticut being strong on the road and the Sparks struggling to clean the defensive glass.
WNBA Odds, Picks, Previews & Predictions: 4 Best Bets for Sunday’s Slate, Featuring Dream vs. Lynx
What a Sunday slate! We have two Big Five matchups and no Fever game to weigh down the day — perfection. This is the point of the season when teams have all faced each other enough to provide us with a bit of context for how the teams match-up — or as much as we are afforded in a 36-game season. It means the analysis can be a little bit more fun, using actual results instead of hypothetical strengths and weaknesses. However, it also means we’re all likely to overweigh some of that information —especially on the player side. Just because Han Xu went for nearly a triple-down in the first game against the Sparks doesn’t mean we should expect that moving forward against L.A. — see her 6-1-1 line the next night. Finding the right balance between noticing when teams really match-up well against an opponent and what’s just noise is what makes sports 맥스88 betting as fun as it is. In that vein, we’ve got some lengthy previews today, so let’s get to it. Sun vs. Sky Injuries/News No surprises as of writing. Chicago has a clean injury sheet and Connecticut is missing the same two it has been: Jasmine Thomas and Bria Hartley, both out for the season. A Clean Sweep? The Connecticut Sun must be real sick of seeing the Chicago Sky at this point. The Sky are 3-0 against the Sun this season, coming on the back of pulling off a semifinal upset in last year’s playoffs. The Sky even took two of three from the Sun during last year’s regular season as well. It’s interesting that the Sky have had such a stranglehold on the series between these two of late because matchup wise, the Sun actually profile as a tough opponent for the Sky. Over the past two seasons, allowing offensive rebounds and second chance points has been a bugaboo for the Sky, ranking second-to-last in the league in second chance points in 2021 as a whole and now ranking in a tie for last in 2022 with just a few games remaining. The Sun, of course, are a historically strong team on the offensive glass as has been highlighted numerous times in these articles. So what gives? There are, of course, many different possibilities, not the least of which is that even though it’s two seasons worth of matchups, we’re talking about just 10 games, far from enough time to get a true representation of how these two teams truly matchup. Still, I think there is something that jumps out in looking a little deeper. The Sky are very good at chasing teams off the three-point line. It’s why they allow by far the lowest percentage of opponent shots from three (27%). The Sun are one of the best three-point shooting teams in the league, but in Courtney Williams, they have a player who is notorious for enjoying a deep two. Maybe it’s not shocking then that Williams is shooting just 30.9% from the field in the Sun’s three losses to the Sky this season (which, we should note, were all very tight games). She shoots just 41.1% from the field against the Sky in her career, her second-worst mark against any team in the W... MORE INFO Now, by no means do I think this is a skeleton key to figuring out the success the Sky have had against the Sun, but it does seem like a potential part. (We should note here that Williams wasn’t on the Sun last season when they were 1-2 in the regular season against the Sky and lost in four games in the semifinals.) I do, however, think the Chicago -2.5 line at Fanduel, in that light, is a bit low. That implies the Sun might actually be the slightly better team on a neutral court. It also doesn’t hurt that the Sky have been truly elite in the fourth quarter this season, as well as in tight games, a trait I think is somewhat sustainable with their veteran core and strong coaching.
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