Layup Lines: Fever playing free

Happy Friday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. Wherever you are and whatever you do, here’s hoping you have a relaxing weekend.

•  We went 1-3 with our bets last night after missing the over in the Seattle / Atlanta game by a point and completely misreading the Aces and Fever for what feels like the third week in a row. Las Vegas is unpredictable, might be falling apart, and we should stay far away.

This 464 word newsletter should take less than 2 minutes to read.

5 games, 8 sentences

• The Fever are playing lighter and looser without DeWanna Bonner (and Caitlin Clark, for now) and held the Aces to 54 points in the win. Indiana not only broke a 16-game losing streak against Vegas dating back to 2019, but also became the first team in the league to allow less than 60 points in consecutive games this season.

• The Sparks can’t stop anyone defensively, which makes it hard to hold leads against smart, efficient teams like the Liberty.

• Skylar Diggins put a cap on the best game of the night by kissing the go-ahead layup off the glass with three seconds left to beat Atlanta, who shot 19% on 3-pointers and really missed Rhyne Howard. If you don’t count the two road losses at Golden State, Seattle is 8-1 over its last 9 games.

• Dallas only suited up 8 players and still put up 98 points in a huge home win over the Mercury. Paige Bueckers will rightfully get a lot of the credit for the Wings winning five of their last seven, but fellow rookie Aziaha James has also been very impressive.

• Once Napheesa Collier turned on the scoring, Minnesota easily handled a confident but streaky Washington team.

Take of the day

• On a short holiday week, the WNBA decided to not have any games on Monday, Wednesday or Friday and then just two on Saturday.

• If the league is doing its best to make the Commissioner’s Cup a thing, having it as the sole game on Tuesday makes sense — but this is a week the WNBA should be trying to own on TV and the schedule should be packed.

Card of the day

• The card market is still going wild for Panini’s expensive, hit-laden Rookie Royalty WNBA release. The autographs and patch cards are easily going in the five figures, which I get, but someone paying $8,500 for this Caitlin Clark Downtown insert is something else.

Layup Lines is written 100% by human beings and we appreciate your support. If you’re still reading this newsletter, you must like it enough to share with a friend. We’ll see you back here tomorrow.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor