Guru’s WNBA Report: Chicago Rallies Over Dallas Keeping Washington and Atlanta in Playoff Contention While First Place Seattle Routs Phoenix

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

The playoffs for the playoffs, also known as the final days of the caronavirus-shortened WNBA 22-game regular season, have become pretty exciting unto themselves with a three-team battle for the eighth and final spot at the bottom and a battle at the top with battles for first as well as a 1-2 seed finish that offers a double bye into the semifinals.

 

Last Sunday the defending champion Washington Mystics seemed to headed for an early exit ahead of the postseason from the wubble, AKA the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., near Tampa/St. Petersburg after Notre Dame grad Arike Ogunbowale did what she has trademarked, namely making a buzzer-beating three-pointer, this one to force overtime where the Dallas Wings took over to hold eighth place.

 

Since then, the Mystics came up with two big upsets, downing the Minnesota Lynx and Los Angeles Sparks.

 

Now heading into the final two days this weekend Washington’s destiny is in its own hands.

 

That’s because of a helping hand provided Friday night by the sixth-place Chicago Sky who after letting a lead slip late in the game came back and recovered for a 95-88 win over Dallas (14-7), which slipped into a ninth-place tie with the Atlanta Dream, who stayed alive with an 82-75 win over the seventh-place Connecticut Sun (10-12), which is already set to play Chicago on Tuesday in one of the two postseason openers.

 

Washington has a back-to-back playing the New York Liberty at noon on Saturday and then in the last overall game for everybody Sunday at 5 p.m. the Mystics meet Atlanta.

 

Dallas plays New York Sunday at noon on CBSSN so at this hour, although the Liberty finishes dead last, they can be a bit of a spoiler in the process.

 

“We’re still trying to make the playoffs,” Dallas coach Brian Agler said afterwards. “We have to take care of business and prepare for New York. Come in here Sunday and play well. We got to stay together. 

 

“You’re competing for something and you lose like that, it’s frustrating. At the same time, you have to regroup, you have to get your preparation and move on. That’s how this league works.”

 

Sunday is actually a one-game extension to the regular season to place the final three of six makeup games from the recent two-day postponements of what became a game for each team as the WNBA players backed their NBA relatives in protest of the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., as well as other prominent social justice causes.

 

Every game this weekend is big with Los Angeles (15-6) meeting Las Vegas (16-4) Saturday at 3 p.m. with Las Vegas having a shot to catch the first-place Seattle Storm, while Minnesota (13-8) finishes with the eliminated Indiana Fever (6-15) having a chance to land a one-game bye to the one-game second round and catch Phoenix, which got routed Friday night by Seattle, 83-60 in one of the worst beat-downs in the history of the league.

 

The Mercury loss dropped Phoenix (13-9) a half-game behind Minnesota in fifth in their final game so if the Lynx win Saturday they take fourth otherwise Phoenix has the tiebreaker.

 

Las Vegas can catch Seattle (18-3) to become the No. 1 seed by beating Los Angeles and then on Sunday downing Seattle at 3 p.m. on ABC.

 

Late Chicago Rally Carries Sky Over Dallas

 

As to the particulars of the Chicago win, Sky rookie Ruthie Hebard out of Oregon had 22 points and eight rebounds, one point behind teammate Cheyenne Parker’s 23, Courtney Vandersloot scored 15 and dealt 12 assists, and Rutgers grad and Philly native Kahleah Copper scored 12.

 

In the loss, Ogunbowale scored 38, just one-point less than her career mark set in the recent overtime win by Dallas against Washington, while Marina Mabrey and Kayla Thornton each scored 11.

 

Dallas was without prized rookie Satou Sabally out of Oregon, who was injured in a fourth-quarter collision with Seattle’s Sue Bird in a loss earlier in the week. Bird did not play for the Storm Friday night.

 

Rookie and Princeton grad Bella Alarie started for the Wings and played 19 minutes, scoring five points and grabbing four rebounds.

 

 

 In the fourth quarter Chicago led 82-74 on Alexis Prince’s running jump shot when Dallas began a rally on Connecticut grad Kate Lou Samuelson’s three-pointer with 5 minutes, 55 seconds left in regulation.

 

Samuelson had just subbed for Alarie to play against her former team. Her three-ball launched a 10-0 run that gave the Wings the lead on Ogunbowale’s layup with 4:32 left in regulation.

 

The run and Chicago’s drought continued all the way to an 86-82 lead when Parker hit a foul shot. Thornton countered with a layup for Dallas, but Parker came back with a layup and a foul shot and then after a dry spell by both teams Vandersloot tied it for Chicago with a layup with 1:31 left in regulation.

 

As the last minute wound down, Vandersloot gave the Sky back the lead at 89-88 with 36.2 seconds remaining, making one of two free throws.

 

She made two more for a 91-88 advantage with 17.2 seconds left. The run continued on two more foul shots from Parker with 8.6 seconds left to make it 93-88.

 

Hubard then closed it on two foul shots at the finish for the final score.

 

“We had our opportunities,” Dallas coach Brian Agler said. “We turned the ball over, missed a couple of shots. They came down and scored some. There wasn’t a whole lot of difference in the style of the two teams down the stretch. They just made plays and we didn’t.”

 

Seattle Routs Phoenix

 

The Storm’s nearest pursuer to a first-place finish, now down to Las Vegas, keeps applying the pressure and Seattle keeps answering by handing it back.

 

Such was the case Friday night when Seattle rode to an easy win over Phoenix, putting the Mercury in jeopardy of losing a one-game first-round bye as Phoenix fell out of a tie with Minnesota by a half-game.

 

Los Angeles, minimally has third place locked up for the other spot, though off the coming weekend’s games could flip-flop with Las Vegas.

 

In the Seattle win, in a balance attack in which interim coach Gary Kloppenburg was without Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart due to injuries, the Storm prepared for Sunday’s final regular season game with Los Angeles as Jordin Canada had 13 points, Natasha Howard had 12, and 10 points each came from Mercedes Russell, Jewell Loyd, and reserves Crystal Langhorne, the former Maryland star out of Willingboro, and Ezi Magbegor.

 

Phoenix got 24 points from Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, but once the looming outcome was obvious, some players got rest as Diana Taurasi scored five points in 11 minutes.

 

Sophie Cunningham scored 10 and Brianna Turner grabbed 11 rebounds.

 

Phoenix now waits to see if Minnesota wins Saturday to grab the fourth seed and one-game by or loses and ties the Mercury, who has the advantage.

 

The fifth place team Tuesday will open against the eighth seed, which at sunrise Saturday, is either Washington, Atlanta or Dallas.

 

Atlanta Stays Alive in Playoff Hunt Beating Connecticut

 

Having already wrapped up seventh and unable to do better but also safe from doing worse off the final game of the regular season, Connecticut coach Curt Miller had to balance between resting players and keep the Sun (10-12) late-season momentum alive after they bounced back from an 0-5 season start to make the playoffs.

 

Doing a little of both, Connecticut fell to Atlanta, which off the win is now tied with Dallas for ninth, a half-game behind Washington, who the Dream play Sunday.

 

Rookie Chennedy Carter, in the hunt for rookie of the year, led Atlanta, scoring 22 points, Courtney Williams scored 20 against her former team, former Rutgers star Betnijah Laney had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Monique Billings scored 13 for the Dream (7-14).

 

For Connecticut, DeWanna Bonner scored 17, while Natisha Hideman and rookie Kalia Charles out of Maryland each scored 13. Alyssa Thomas had nine points and nine rebounds in 22 minutes.

 

“Every game has a certain amount of seriousness to it,” said former UCLA star Monique Billings of the Dream’s situation. “We’re preparing every single game like it could be our last, we don’t want it to be our last.

 

“But the mindset is to just playing and to keep giving ourselves opportunity. I would say the identity of this team is make it work, make it happen.”

 

And that’s the report.