🌉 Layup Lines: Golden State finds another gear

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA.

• Golden State moved to 10-5 at home last night with a strong 74-57 win over the Sun. After winning five of their last seven, the Valkyries are suddenly right back in the thick of the playoff hunt.

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↗️ Today’s games

• After nailing the under last night, we’re now 75-82 this season and have $236 of our initial $1,000 budget remaining to wager.

• There are two games tonight featuring four fun offenses — Dallas @ Indiana (7:30pm ET, ESPN) and New York @ Los Angeles (10:00pm, NBA TV).

  • With Caitlin Clark still sitting with a quad injury and Sydney Colson and Aari McDonald now out for the rest of the season, the Fever are down to Kelsey Mitchell, Lexie Hull and the newly-signed Odyssey Sims in the backcourt. Hard to play 40 minutes of defense with that personnel and Dallas has a loose understanding of the concept of defense to begin with.

    • Bet: Dallas / Indiana over 172 total points scored, $50 to win $44.

  • Of the Liberty’s six forwards, four of them are out tonight. The Sparks can struggle to score against good defenses but I don’t know how the Liberty pull that kind of effort off tonight on the first night of a back-to-back.

    • Bet: Sparks +4, $50 to win $45.

    • Bet: Indiana & L.A. moneyline parlay (+214), $25 to win $53.50.

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✋ Correction of the day

• After 72 editions of Layup Lines, we have the first official correction I’ve noticed (and if I’ve made other mistakes feel free to not share them).

  • Yesterday, I wrote that New York and Minnesota both get five days of rest before playing each other for the third time this season.

    • The Lynx are indeed off, but New York has it much worse by playing at L.A. tonight and Las Vegas tomorrow before heading back to the Target Center for Saturday’s tilt.

Good reads from around the league

• Power Rankings: Did Minnesota win the trade deadline? (The Athletic)

• The real problem with WNBA injury reports (The IX Sports)

• How the Fever are surviving without Caitlin Clark (ESPN)

Graphic to go

• Tiffany Hayes retired after the 2023 season, decided against it to come back and win Sixth Player of the Year award with the Aces last season, and has now passed legend Sheryl Swoopes on the league’s all-time scoring list.

  • If this is the soon-to-be 36-year-old’s last season, passing Maya Moore to get into the top 30 all time would be pretty special.

Layup Lines is written 100% by a human being with visual assistance from AI tools. I very much appreciate you reading and will see you back here tomorrow.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor