4️⃣ Layup Lines: The final four

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Happy Sunday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. We’ve made it to the semis!

This 490 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

🌵 Phoenix sends New York home

• A season after replacing franchise cornerstones Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner with a new big three of Alyssa Thomas, Satou Sabally and Kahleah Copper, Phoenix knocked off the defending champs in the first round on Friday night to advance in the playoffs for the first time since 2021.

  • Led by another Alyssa Thomas triple double, that trio scored 55 of the Mercury’s 79 points.

• Yes, the Liberty were banged up and have been injured all season, but they also got nothing from Jonquel Jones (3 points, 1-10 shooting), Natasha Cloud (7 points, 2 assists) or midseason signing Emma Meesseman (0 points in just 9 minutes).

  • Superstar Breanna Stewart (30 points) has a sprained MCL and was still the only Liberty player to score in the 4th quarter.

  • A disappointing season, of course, but it’s very hard to repeat in this league.

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📺 Today’s games

• We now have two games per day throughout the best-of-five semifinals (tonight, Tuesday, Friday, Sunday and then the following Tuesday).

  • The Aces (-1100) and Lynx (-550) are both heavily favored to win their series and Minnesota is -165 to win the title.

• Today’s games start in the afternoon — Indiana @ Las Vegas (3:00pm ET, ABC) and Phoenix @ Minnesota (5:00pm, ESPN).

  • The Mercury are +7 tonight. Playing on Friday night and then having to take on the best team in the league on the road like 42 hours later is nuts, and I’m curious what the line for this game would be on normal rest.

  • The Fever (+9) are going to struggle slowing down the Aces and it won’t be a series unless they bring another gear defensively.

  • In terms of bets, we hit Phoenix -2.5 on Friday night and are now 3-7 in the playoffs. Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme. Today, we’re taking:

    • Indiana / Las Vegas under 165 points scored

    • Minnesota -8

🏆 Award updates

The league announced more end-of-season awards, including:

• MVP: A’ja Wilson (Aces) — the first 4X MVP in league history.

  • Though Wilson is very deserving, I did not expect this and thought Napheesa Collier would win.

  • More in tomorrow’s newsletter!

• Sixth Player of the Year: Naz Hillmon (Dream)

• Defensive Player of the Year: Wilson and Alanna Smith (Minnesota)

💙 Thank you to go

• This is the 100th edition of Layup Lines. I love writing this thing and love that many of you read every day despite (or because of) my losing picks.

  • Maybe we just needed to get the first 100 out of the way to start making money.

See you back here tomorrow.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor