🤔 Layup Lines: Upsets up and down

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

• Programming note: Hello from an airplane. I’m headed to California for my best friend’s wedding and will be locked in to the festivities. Have an excellent weekend and I’ll see you back here Monday!

This 481 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

😳 Wait, the Liberty lost to who?

• After beating the crap out of each other over the last few weeks, Minnesota and New York both lost to other teams last night.

  • At least the Lynx lost to a strong playoff contender in Atlanta — the Liberty dropped one to a Sky team that had lost 13 of their last 14 by getting dominated in the post by Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. You can bet playoff opponents will be watching this film on how to exploit New York inside.

• The other two games were no less surprising. The Mystics winning three of four to get back into the playoff hunt only to roll over and hand the Sun their first back-to-back wins of the entire season is borderline illogical. They are now a full two games back of Seattle for 8th place.

  • While the Aces winning their 9th in a row wasn’t unexpected, doing it by holding the Mercury to just 61 points was not on my bingo card. What a seriously impressive second half for Vegas.

📺 Today’s games

• There are three games tonight on ION — Minnesota @ Indiana (7:30pm ET), Seattle @ Dallas (7:30pm) and Golden State @ Phoenix (10:00pm).

  • The Lynx have got to be exhausted during this stretch without Napheesa Collier, but this is a vengeful, emotional team and losing to the Fever in the Commissioner’s Cup Final earlier this season probably still stings. Also, Indiana is quickly running out of healthy guards. Could be a problem.

  • I’m also curious to see how Seattle attacks Paige Bueckers after her recent 44-point explosion and if Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts can get his veteran, somewhat grumpy team to rise to the occasion on the second night of a back-to-back (especially if Kahleah Copper is out).

✈️ Quote of the day

• Between the refs, player pay and how to fit more games into a season with pretty defined calendar parameters, it’s going to be a fascinating offseason.

🏀 Pic to go

• May we all live a life that allows us to try new things at 90 years old.

Layup Lines is written 100% by a human being. I very much appreciate you reading and will see you back here Monday!

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor