🗽 Layup Lines: New York's big stretch

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

📆 Programming note: The W is off tomorrow and so are we. Use the 2 minutes you normally spend reading this on Thursday to floss or pet an animal.

This 468 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

🤠 Dallas holds on

• It was not a fun night for my picks (0-3, entirely wrong on all reads, pain), but it was a fun night of basketball.

  • Li Yueru and Maddy Siegrist, who recently came back from a months-long knee injury, both set career-highs last night to hold off Indiana, 81-80. This was not a close game for most of the second half until the Fever went on a wild 19-3 run to come up just short.

  • In the late game, New York moved to 4-1 with Emma Meesseman by roaring to a 105-97 win over the Sparks, who shot just 29% on 3-pointers. Every starter for the shorthanded Liberty played more than 27 minutes and scored in double-digits, so we’ll see how that affects energy levels tonight.

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📺 Today’s games

• After falling flat last night, we’re back to 75-85 this season and have just $111 remaining to wager.

• Of today’s four games, we’re going to hit two:

  • The Sky and Sun are going to slog through 40 minutes and I don’t suggest watching this game.

    • Bet: Chicago / Connecticut under 159.5 total points scored, $50 to win $44.

  • The Aces have to be excited to play the Liberty on the second night of a back-to-back and should bring it.

    • Bet: Las Vegas -3, $50 to win $44.

💤 Take of the day

• In the span on 12 days, the Liberty are going to play at Dallas, vs. the Lynx, at L.A., at Vegas, at Minnesota and then back home for the Lynx again.

  • How could this make sense to anyone in the league office? If you’re going to wait until the end of July for a Finals rematch, why cram the last three games of that season series together? And why ensure that New York going to be exhausted for these marquee games?

    • Unforced errors like this drive me crazy and the league has to do a better scheduling job next season.

🥇 Graphic to go

• The size of Napheesa Collier’s face here comparatively is hilarious, but you can do whatever you want when you clinch the league’s first berth without even playing a game more than five weeks before the playoffs start.

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