The Guru’s WNBA Roundup: Golden State Tops Indiana and Moves Closer to Playoffs; L..A. Dodges Washington Upset Bid to Stay in Hunt

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

The Golden State Valkyries took a major step Sunday night to making more expansion team history as the great WNBA chase to the playoffs continued while Los Angeles nearly took a major misstep in the other game on the schedule.

The Valkyries (21-18) before a continuing record season-long sellout home crowd of 18,064 at the Chase Center in San Francisco added to their record win total for a first-year team on the second day of a back-to-back by winning 75-63 over Indiana (21-19) to sweep the series 3-0.

Down in Southern California the 10th-place Washington Mystics (16-25), who Golden State sent to the four-team draft lottery pool on Saturday, chased Los Angeles all night until the Sparks (18-20) emerged with a narrow 81-78 victory before a Crypto.com Arena crowd of 12,218.

It was Washington’s seventh straight loss since beating Los Angeles in their previous meeting on August 17, the lone win in the now completed four-game series with the Sparks.

Had the Mystics won Sunday, they would have done for defending champion New York what the fifth-place Liberty (24-16) failed to do for themselves in Phoenix Saturday night, becoming the fifth team in the eight-team playoff hunt.

At the same time, a Sparks loss would have left them further behind than their two games outside the eighth playoff spot.

The WNBA record 44-game regular season ends Sept. 11 when the pairings will be set and all four games in the best-of-three first round in a revised 1-1-1 format will begin three days later on Sunday, Sept. 14 (ABC/ESPN).

The only thing that’s certain in all the playoff parts happened on Saturday when Minnesota (31-8) on the road by beating 11th place Connecticut (10-29) clinched top seed for home-court advantage if advancing through the best-of-five semifinals and record best-of-seven finals.

“It means if we win all our home games, we’ll be WNBA champions,” said Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, the former La Salle star from South Jersey.

“In the playoffs you want everything that helps, this was one of our goals, so glad we achieved it.

Minnesota on Monday’s three-game slate hosts last-place Dallas (25-14) at 8 p.m. on NBA-TV.

Reeve said don’t expect her team to lie down through its remaining five games that also include at Las Vegas (26-14), which is in second 5.5 games back and on a 12-game winning streak; at Golden State, hosting Indiana and hosting Golden State.

“Any time you switch to that mentality is a dangerous thing and I know our players always come to win no matter what the circumstances are.”

Second place with the other semifinals home court advantage is up for grabs.

Third-place Atlanta (25-14), which is at Connecticut Monday at 1 p.m., is a game behind Las Vegas and tied with Phoenix (25-14), which next hosts Indiana Tuesday at 10 p.m. on NBA TV.

New York in fifth isn’t likely to fall further, holding a 2.5 games lead on sixth place. With a magic number of one to make the playoffs the Liberty have two of the four games left which they’ll be favorites in hosting Washington and visiting Chicago.

But getting to a home-court advantage in the first round, trailing third by 1.5 to the two teams that hold series tiebreakers over them will be a stretch considering the other two remaining opponents are at Golden State and at Seattle.

New York All-Star Breanna Stewart addressed her team’s predicament with several comments, including “… We know our fans have our back, and listen, we're a team that's going to keep fighting. And wherever we are, wherever we end up in the playoff situation, we’ll be ready, and they know that.”

If New York just misses home court advantage or a 2-3 semifinals bracket feed that dodges Minnesota, besides going 1-3 against the Lynx they beat 3-2 last October in series play for their first title, the Liberty were the only team among the top five to have a loss against each of the eliminated trio of Connecticut, Chicago, and Dallas.

Las Vegas finishes with two home games hosting 4th place Chicago (9-3O) and then visit Los Angeles.

 Atlanta finishes hosting Los Angeles in two games this week and then plays Connecticut twice in a home and home arrangement.

Phoenix hosts Indiana Tuesday at 10 p.m. in one of two games that night – the other New York at Golden State also at 10 p.m. – and then the Mercury visit Washington and Connecticut before hosting Los Angeles and visiting Dallas.

The Next Group

So much for the fight for home court.

Sunday’s two results impacted the 4-for-3 fight just to make the field.

Golden State, by beating Indiana and trying to be the first expansion team to become playoff eligible, shot from eighth to sixth virtually tied with Seattle (22-19) and10 behind Minnesota while Indiana dropped from sixth to eighth but only a half-game behind the next teams and two ahead of Las Angeles.

Golden State after hosting New York Tuesday hosts Dallas and has a home-and-home with Minnesota that’s on both sides of a game at Seattle.

The Storm, ahead of that game, hosts Los Angeles, as mentioned, Monday, and then New York.

Indiana is at Phoenix Tuesday and then finishes hosting Chicago, visiting Washington, and hosting Minnesota.

Los Angeles in the second of a back-to-back is at Seattle Monday at 10 p.m. and then visits Atlanta twice this week, hosts Dallas, and finishes by visiting Phoenix and hosting Las Vegas in a daunting slate when trying to close the gap.

Ruppert’s Career Night Leads Golden State Over Indiana

Iliana Ruppert had a career high 21 points, fueled by making five shots from distance, and the playoff target for expansion Golden State is clearly on the horizon with a magic number of three with five games remaining to play.

Janelle Salaun and Kate Martin each scored 10 points for the Valkyries and Veronica Burton dealt 13 assists.

“We have the best fans in the league,” said Golden State coach Natalie Nakase about dealing with the stoppages and the crowd support while it was happening.

 “So, yeah just credit to our fans. At the end of the day, we do want to enjoy this time when we're all together for two hours, or 2 hours and 45, like we want to entertain people, and we want to have an almost like a party like atmosphere.”

The Fever came into the game with two key wins over Seattle and on Saturday at Los Angeles despite the ongoing absence of reigning rookie of the year Caitlin Clark, who has now missed 18 straight games with a groin pull and has only played in 13 Fever games this season because of two earlier injuries after never missing a game in college staring at Iowa.

 Besides Clark's absence, Indiana last month lost three guards — Sydney Colson, Aari McDonald, and Sophie Cunningham, to season ending injuries.

 Reserve Aerial Powers, a recent signee, scored 17 points, while Kelsey Mitchell scored 14, and Natasha Howard collected 13, but Aliyah Boston, the No. 1 overall pick in 2023 out of South Carolina, was held to four points, nearly 12 below her average.

“The beauty of our defense right now is complete trust,” Nakase said. "Without Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Mitchell has come to life ten times full. Talk about tough coverage, she is fast, and that’s something we weren’t used to.

“It had to be team coverage with our defense. With Kelsey Mitchell, Aaliyah Boston is a load inside, she is super strong. Crafty with her footwork.”

The start of the game was delayed because of problems with the shot clocks, but once underway the home team took off to build a 25-14 lead at the end of the first period in which Golden State set a team record for 3-pointers made in a quarter.

The lead got to 20 but the visitors made use of the foul line to slice the deficit at 12 points down to 44-32, at the half.

It got closer, 55-50 early in the fourth quarter but the Valkyries started connecting again beyond the arc and went on to wrap up the game.

“We came out and we weren’t ready for those first five or six minutes of the quarter,” Indiana coach Stephanie White said of the outset of the game. “They are a really good team when they can make wide open threes, so you can’t make a lot of mistakes.”

Los Angeles Fends Off Upset-Minded Washington

Dearica Hamby had 20 points, and Kelsey Plum helped the Sparks get closer by half a game to the playoff cutline with 14 of her 18 points in the fourth quarter for the narrow victory over the Mystics.

Rickea Jackson added 16 points while Hamby and Azura Stevens each grabbed 12 rebounds.

The visitors’ rookie Kiki Iriafen scored 22 points with 13 boards, her 15th double double, for Washington, while Sonia Citron, who has the WNBA rookie record for most games scoring double figures, collected 12 points, Shakira Austin scored 11 points, and Stefani Dolson had 10 points.

The Mystics got off to a slow start but late in the fourth quarter they moved within a basket at 65-63.

The Sparks, so to speak, then caught fire, namely Plum, who scored eight straight points on a pair of makes from deep, and a pair of free throws, before Rae Burrell and Hamby each scored inside for a 77-67 lead inside of two minutes.

Washington made one more push closing it to 77-72 with under 19.7 seconds left but Hamby answered with a driving layup.

“We got a little sloppy,” said Los Angeles coach Lynne Roberts. “I thought in the second and third quarters we were settling for threes when we needed to be attacking. We shot 36 threes, which is a lot, and I'm OK with that, but you need to shoot better than 27% if you're going to shoot that many.

 “I think what you saw was we put Kelsey Plum at the one for a little bit just so she could get the ball in her hands. They were doing a good job of top blocking her and making every catch really hard,” Roberts said. “Defenses are so keyed on her, I thought she did a good job choosing her spot.

“`Hamby was just a beast on the boards, and finishing in traffic, and those and-ones, she's just so strong and athletic. They showed their experience, and Stevens did a great job defensively, but we have to be better at putting teams away.

“But we took care of business, and at this point, it's advance and move on.”