The Guru’s WNBA Roundup: Minnesota’s Win Over Phoenix and NY Win on Indiana Missing Clark Puts Liberty in 2nd

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

With Indiana’s Caitlin Clark on the sidelines Wednesday night following another groin injury suffered near the end of the Fever’s win in Boston over Connecticut 24 hours earlier, the defending WNBA champion New York Liberty (15-6) took advantage for a dominating 98-76 victory in front of a near-sellout home crowd of 17,371 fans at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Breanna Stewart had 24 points, 11 boards, and seven assists as the Liberty flipped into second place a half-game in front of Phoenix (15-7) courtesy of first-place Minnesota (20-4) beating the Mercury 79-66 in front of 16,421 fans at the Target Center in Minneapolis to head to the All-Star break this weekend with a perfect 12-0 record at home.

Kayla McBride had 18 points for the Lynx and Courtney Williams had 12 points, seven rebounds and five assists.

Both are on the All-Star list, McBride picked by Commissioner Cathy Engelbert to replace Atlanta injured Rhyne Howard, while Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier is captain of one of the teams which will be coached by the Lynx’s Cheryl Reeve.

Clark, as the top vote-getter, was to captain the other team in her home arena under New York’s Sandy Brondello on the sideline. She was also to participate in the 3-point contest Friday night at 8 p.m. and aired by ESPN, which will also broadcast the skills competition.

Later Thursday Clark through the team announced she would not participate but will be on the bench.

Indiana (12-11), which hosts Saturday’s festivities (8:30 p.m., ABC, Disney+, ESPN+)  at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, despite the loss to New York, held sixth a half-game in front of Washington (11-11) and Las Vegas (11-11) but dropped 1.5 games behind Atlanta (13-9) which won easily 86-49 at Chicago (7-15), the 11th place Sky drawing 9,025 at Wintrust Arena where Moriah Jefferson’ s jumper with 30.3 seconds left averted the lowest scoring game in franchise history.

The Dream, whose starters combined for 58 points, still remained fifth a half-game behind Seattle (14-9), which beat expansion Golden State 67-58 as Nneka Ogwumike scored 22 and took sixth all-time on the WNBA career list in front of a home crowd of 12,500 in Climate Pledge Arena.

The former Stanford star passed Temple alum Candice Dupree, who has been retired.

The other game which ended all league contests until next Tuesday saw A’ja Wilson score 37 points as Las Vegas moved into a seventh-place tie with Washington holding off a late rally by 12th place Dallas (6-17) to beat the Wings 90-86 in front of a crowd of 6,153 at College Park Center on the campus of Texas-Arlington.

Wings rookie Paige Buecker, the overall No. 1 pick in April’s draft, scored 20 points with eight assists. She will be joined by Washington first-rounders Sonia Citron and Kiki Irafen as three WNBA newcomers to be voted All-Stars to play this weekend.