{"id":16233,"date":"2025-07-22T20:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16233\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:03:10","slug":"wnbas-second-half-begins-with-five-game-slate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16233\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA\u2019s Second Half Begins With Five-Game Slate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks for your support of Her Hoop Stats. You can find me on Bluesky<\/a> and HHS on Bluesky<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A\u2019ja Wilson\u2019s on top, top, top of this post, and I\u2019ve been waiting all season to make that joke (Photo credit: Chris Poss)<\/p>\n

WNBA players return to the floor tonight after the StudBudz All-Star break, potentially with \u201cpay us what you owe us shirts\u201d visible in the stands for the first time. With no intention of fact checking myself, I think this is the first time that I\u2019ve looked at a busy schedule and thought the national TV games were the day\u2019s most interesting, so kudos to the programming executives for getting this one right. The gulf between the vibes of these teams\u2019 first halves was about as wide as the Mojave Desert, but if Las Vegas defends homecourt it\u2019ll be just one game back of Atlanta in the standings and building steam.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas is trying to win three in a row for the first time this season after taking the first two games in this nascent win streak by six combined points. The first win came by a 104-102 margin over the Valkyries in one of the most entertaining games of the entire first half, followed by a 90-86 victory at Dallas despite almost letting a 72-52 lead entering the fourth quarter slip away. That gave the Aces wins in the last three games A\u2019ja Wilson played to completion and six of the last eight such games heading into the break. They were 6-5 after her return from concussion, though, including a loss in her first game back, one she left in New York due to a wrist injury and two more she missed as a result of that injury.<\/p>\n

Atlanta went 5-6 over the second quarter of the season after starting the Karl Smesko era 8-3 but went into the All-Star break with an emphatic 37-point win over Chicago (without Angel Reese) to avoid a third straight loss and sixth in eight games. This is the Dream\u2019s fourth straight road game as part of what someone (probably me) will someday refer to as a six-game road trip when they look at a game log and forget there was an All-Star break in the middle. The second half of Atlanta\u2019s pair of three-game trips will also take the Dream to Phoenix tomorrow night followed by Minnesota on Sunday before they return home for their first game in Atlanta in more than three weeks next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that win shares aren\u2019t a perfect measure of player productivity (nothing is), I still think it\u2019s fun that this matchup features two of the top seven players in the league in win shares per 40 minutes among those playing at least 20 minutes per game. Seems like as good a reason as any to pick A\u2019ja Wilson and Allisha Gray to spotlight, with apologies to Brionna Jones who is just barely behind her teammate Gray in eighth.<\/p>\n

Wilson has been at her unstoppable best since returning from a concussion last month, averaging 23.5 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 2.2 blocks per game while hitting 52.2% from the field over her last 10 outings. Those numbers jump to 25.9 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 2.4 blocks and 53.3% from the field if you throw out her injury-shortened game against the Liberty and balloon to an absurd 35.5 points and 13 rebounds per game in the two games after her wrist injury. Those two games were the 10th time a player has had consecutive 30-point double-doubles in WNBA history (including playoffs), and Wilson is the first player to have had two 30-point double-doubles in a row three different times. Tina Charles and Candace Parker each have two sets of back-to-back 30-point double-doubles while Liz Cambage, Lauren Jackson and Maya Moore each did it once. Wilson can become the first player with three in a row tonight.<\/p>\n

Gray finished the first half in a slump, scoring 36 points over the final three games while going 8-for-32 (25%) from the field including 4-for-21 (19%) from deep. That capped off a second quarter of the season that mirrored the Dream\u2019s as she put up 15.7 points per game and hit 36% from the field including 34.3% from beyond the arc over the last 11 games compared to a blistering hot first quarter with 21 ppg on 51.4% from the field and 41.8% from deep in the first 11 games. The shooting slump hasn\u2019t prevented her from contributing in other ways of late, though, which can be a worry with struggling scorers. She\u2019s averaging career-highs in both rebounds (5.6) and assists (4.0) per game with pretty consistent marks in each quarter of the season. Also notable is a turnover rate of just 10% which ranks in the top 10 in the WNBA while her assist-to-turnover ratio (2.29) ranks in the top 20.<\/p>\n

If Caitlin Clark was playing tonight, I\u2019d probably have addressed the national doubleheader in order, but I\u2019m slavishly devoted to putting the things I find most interesting up front and this doesn\u2019t feel like quite as huge a matchup without Clark on the floor.<\/p>\n

Indiana will look to avoid falling to 4-7 without Clark in the lineup this season and also bringing my favorite nugget of the season back into play in the process, something my commitment to the bit requires me to mention even though I feel guilty about it this time. The Fever reached a season-best two games above .500 last Tuesday after winning at Connecticut and losing Clark to a groin injury, but they lost their final game of the first half by 21 points the next night at Barclays Center. Another loss tonight would drop Indiana back to .500 for the 10th time in 12 opportunities this season, which is both remarkable for someone broken-brained like me who can\u2019t help but notice these things and a perfect encapsulation of their season so far.<\/p>\n

Kelsey Mitchell has been Indiana\u2019s most consistent player this season regardless of Clark\u2019s status, but the Fever might need one of her biggest games to pull off this win. She\u2019s had at least 15 points in all but four games this season, but Indiana is 1-7 when she has fewer than 17 points and, perhaps more importantly, it\u2019s 4-0 when she scores at least 25. The Fever have also won more than 70% of the time this season (8-3) when Mitchell scores at least 20 points, and it\u2019s hard to imagine them finding a path to victory tonight without either Clark on the floor or that type of outing from Mitchell.<\/p>\n

The Liberty will finally welcome 2024 WNBA Finals MVP and 2021 WNBA MVP Jonquel Jones back to the lineup after missing eight games with an aggravation of an ankle injury she originally suffered earlier last month. This will also be the Liberty\u2019s first game since signing Stephanie Talbot, who started 10 games for the Valkyries earlier this season and has appeared in 215 regular season games in her WNBA career. Suffice to say, Talbot\u2019s signing wasn\u2019t New York\u2019s most notable reported transaction on Monday as news also broke that they\u2019re set to sign Belgian star Emma Meesseman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The reigning champs went 6-6 in the dozen games since Jones\u2019 initial injury but are 7-0 in games Jones played to completion this season (8-1 in her appearances overall). JJ recorded six double-doubles in the seven games she completed \u2014 New York is 28-0 when she has a double-double in the regular season.<\/p>\n

The 2019 WNBA Finals MVP, Meesseman last played stateside in 2022 for the Chicago Sky and was recently called \u201cthe best player in the world who has better things to do with her summers than bother with the WNBA\u201d<\/a> by Her Hoop Stats\u2019 own Richard Cohen, an expert in such things if ever there was one. I am still levitating over the news as a Liberty fan, if also still surprised that Meesseman chose to spend her summer dealing with all that her decision entails given the caveat that her signing is pending a visa application. With Meesseman in the fold, a healthy Liberty could run out a starting frontcourt featuring the MVPs of four of the last seven WNBA Finals between Jones (2024), Meesseman (2019) and Breanna Stewart (2018 and 2020). I\u2019m guessing coach Sandy Brondello has had bigger problems than figuring out how to make that work, such as deciding which outfit to pull out of her closet full of excellent denim.<\/p>\n