Layup Lines: Ballhalla on ABC

Good Saturday afternoon to you and yours and welcome back to Layup Lines, a quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. We escaped last night by going 2-1 on wagers even with a terrible read on the Atlanta Dream.

• The good: The Sparks beat the Wings by 14 and the game still managed to stay under its high point total. We should now be looking forward to fading Dallas whenever possible.

• The bad: A lot of yesterday’s newsletter was spent on the return of Atlanta’s Jordin Canada, who put up an impressive 0 points and three assists in 17 minutes while throwing the Dream out of rhythm. Connecticut made just three 3-pointers — all by Marina Mabrey — and still won by eight for their second win of the season. That’s just not a good read!

This 502 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

Bets of the day

• We’re 21-24 this season and have $762 remaining of our initial $1,000 to wager.

• There are three games today — Las Vegas @ Golden State (3pm ET, ABC), Indiana @ Chicago (8pm, CBS) and Seattle @ Phoenix (10pm). We’re going to hit the first two:

  • The Valkyries are 2-5 but have been keeping games close, and should have a legit home court advantage today (more on that below).

    • Bet: Golden State +12.5, $50 to win $46.

  • As long as Caitlin Clark is out and the Fever have game totals in the 160s, we’re going to take their unders.

    • Bet: Indiana / Chicago under 165 total points scored, $50 to win $44.

  • The game I’m not touching is the Storm and Mercury. They’ve already played each other twice, Seattle looks like a completely different team depending on the night and Phoenix is still really banged up.

Take of the day

• It’s great to see a non-Indiana, New York, Chicago or Las Vegas team get to host for the Saturday afternoon ABC slot, especially because this is the first time most casual fans will get to watch the Valkyries at home.

• Golden State has sold out its first 3 games at the Chase Center and gotten 18,000+ fans at each, the first WNBA franchise to ever do that. A noon local game could get sleepy, but if this fan base is truly different, we’ll see it against the Aces today.

• The Valks have also taken to calling their home court Ballhalla, which instantly joins the Big House, Death Valley and the Garden as the coolest stadium nicknames in sports.

Card of the day

There are Angel Reese haters out there and I am not one of them!

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If you bet, please do so responsibly, and we will see you back here tomorrow.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor