The Guru WNBA and UPSHOT Reports: Another New York Spurt Gets Sweep of Phoenix; Minnesota Rides Second Half Over Chicago; L.A., Wins at Washington While Atlanta Handles Portland; Savannah Gets Another UPSHOT Win at the Finish

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsgurux

NEW YORK – The host Liberty (5-4) continued a move in a positive direction here Friday night in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn before a crowd of 17,579 completing a three-day, two-game home sweep over Phoenix (2-7), extending the Mercury losing streak to five straight with a 75-68 victory.

Elsewhere on the four-game WNBA card Minnesota (6-2) moved a half-game in front of the 15-team field in the league standings, extending the home slide of Chicago (3-5) with a 79-58 victory moving away from a small halftime advantage to dominate the rest of the way in front of 7,004 at Wintrust Arena.

Los Angeles (4-3) picked up another road win continuing to rise from a struggling start at the expense of Washington (3-4) with a 92-87 triumph before a disappointed crowd of 4,200 in the small CareFirst Arena venue in the nation’s capital.

Out in the Northwest, Atlanta (5-2) easily handled expansion Portland (5-4), one of the two new teams this season besides idle Toronto (4-4), winning 86-66 ending the Fire’s three-game win streak before 13,602 at the Moda Center in Oregon.

And in the new UPSHOT League of four teams, Savannah (3-3) got to .500 after starting 1-3 in a string of narrow outcomes winning in the last 30 seconds to complete a back-to-back home sweep 73-72 of Charlotte (1-4) in Georgia and now the two teams will meet a third-straight day reversing venues Saturday to head to North Carolina at 7 p.m. while first-place Jacksonville (3-1) will also head to North Carolina to play at Greensboro (2-2) at 7 p.m. and will stay for a second-game Sunday the same time.

The entire league slate of 40-games each splitting road and home slates at 20 and 20 can be viewed on the UPSHOT Channel on Youtube.

The Liberty’s Smaller Streak in Series Enough to Go 2-0 on the Mercury

Prior to the tip of Friday night’s contest here, Phoenix coach Nate Tibbetts was asked about the surprising start of the WNBA’s newest teams and standings balance through the first 11, which he thought good, adding, “I haven’t really looked at the standings considering our situation.”

The five-game losing streak is the team’s worst since 2023.

Of course, there’s no reason to panic even though the Mercury start is surprising considering last season’s run to the finals against ultimate winner Las Vegas, which through the first half of the season appeared lottery bound until after a Minnesota decimation went on to win the rest of the Ace’s contests and go on to be champs three of the last four seasons.

In New York’s win Friday night, coming after the Liberty used a franchise best 23-0 run in the third period 48 hours earlier, rookie Pauline Astier scored 16 points while former Rutgers star Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, who missed three prior games for personal reasons  scored 13 to key the result.

Unlike Wednesday’s wide advantage at the end of the third quarter, the Liberty in this one were up 54-52 with a minute left in the period and then went 13-5 the next four minutes to gain a 67-57 lead with 6:59 left in regulation.

The crowd roared its approval on the streak’s last score, Jonquel Jones, the former George Washington star who was a league MVP when playing with Connecticut, blocked an attempt by another Rutgers standout and Philly native Kahleah Copper and then Astier found Rebekah Gardner length of court for an easy bucket.

Phoenix, which ended New York’s one-year title reign in the first round of last fall’s playoffs, refused to die, though, going 8-0 to move to within a bucket at 67-65 with 3:15 on the clock.

But Astier stopped the bleeding with a field goal and then Phoenix trailing 71-65 with 46 seconds on the clock, connected deep from Monique Akoa Makani but a chance to get even died when DeWanna Bonner missed a 3-pointer and Astier closed it out with two makes at the line.

Copper went 0-for-7 in the first half and then ended up scoring 14 of her 16 points over the final two periods.

Originally, New York’s big free agent acquisition, Satou Sabally wasn’t expected to play against her former team after not playing Wednesday due to illness that began Monday forcing her out of most of the loss here to Portland.

Midway through the first quarter she came off the bench and ended up playing 10 minutes scoring four points.

“Us beating them on the boards helped out a lot,” said Laney-Hamilton, whose mother Yolanda also starred for Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer, but at Cheney, of the end to the Mercury’s rally.

The Liberty won despite committing 19 turnovers.

“We knew this was going to be a gritty game, it’s a playoff series when you play a team twice, they’re going to step it up defensively,” said first-year Liberty coach Chris DeMarco, who will face his predecessor Wednesday when Sandy Brondello comes here with Toronto.

“We have to play in an environment we all know. Some of it is going to be on us not putting ourselves in the correct environment to make plays, and some of it is the combinations, new lineups, new players coming in not used to playing with each other yet.

“But you have to give Phoenix credit, they made adjustments to be aggressive.”

Tibbetts said of his team’s night, “Just stay with it. No one’s going to feel sorry for us. We gotta keep fighting. This is a group. I believe in the group. We’re gonna keep fighting.

“I believe we’re going to be where we need to be when the playoffs roll around, but we’re not there right now.”

Linx Beat Sky

In Minnesota’s win, Nia Coffey scored 20 points propelled by six makes from deep, while rookie sensation Olivia Miles, the Central New Jersey native out of Notre Dame and TCU, had 17 points, six boards and six assists.

Coffey’s big night was her first in eight seasons dating to scoring 23 on Seattle on May 27, 2018. She also had eight rebounds.

After a narrow halftime lead, Minnesota used a 12-0 run, the first half from Natasha Howard and then Coffey with consecutive 3-pointers for a 45-30 lead and eventual outscoring the Sky in the third 31-16 to go up 64-46.

Howard collected 14 points on the night, and the Lynx are perfect at 4-0 on the road despite being without MVP Napheesa Collier, still rehabbing from offseason surgery on her ankles, which were injured once in the regular season and then again in the playoffs.

Courtney Williams reached double digits with 10 points on a night Kayla McBride struggled, missing her first six attempts from distance and finishing with nine points on a mediocre 3-of-13 from the field.

Chicago got 12 points and 13 rebounds from former South Carolina star Kamilla Cordoso, a native of Brazil, while Skylar Diggins scored 12 and Saint Joseph’s grad Natasha Cloud, a free-agent signee not renewed by New York last season, had six points, shooting 1-for-7 from the field, with four boards.

“Both teams tonight hang their hat on the defensive end, so I knew coming in, we’re on the road, so you’re defense had to travel,” said Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve, the former La Salle star from South Jersey who late next month will be inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame guiding the Lynx to four WNBA titles and USA to its eighth straight Olympic gold medal.

Sparks Deals Mystics Loss

On a big night for former Rutgers players in the WNBA, Erica Wheeler had eight of her 21 points in the final minute and 10 seconds, while Nneka Ogwumike put 20 points and 11 boards to the L.A. stats on the night and moved into sixth in WNBA career rebounding with 3,312 and a franchise best 2,339 made field goals.

The former Stanford great is now in front of retired Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie, who had 2,332 field goals and 3,307 rebounds with the Sparks.

Another former Stanford star Cameron Brink equaled her season best with 16 points, 14 came in the first half, and her 3-pointer with 17 seconds left in the second period gave the visitors a 42-37 advantage.

Dearica Hamby had 14 points, nine rebounds and seven assists with four steals.

Los Angeles succeeded despite the absence of WNBA leading scorer Kelsey Plum (26.8 ppg.), who is sidelined with a right ankle injury and illness.

Washington nearly pulled it out, Shakira Austin hitting two from the line to tied it at 81 with 2:07 left in regulation, but then Ogwumike scored from deep and Wheeler sealed it.

Austin had 25 points and 10 boards for the Mystics, while second-year pro Sonia Citron, one of last season’s top rookies along wth teammate Kiki Iriafen, who had 13 points and nine boards.

Washington opened big with 25 points in the first quarter but was then reduced to 12 in the second.

“We’re still learning to work through foul trouble,” Brink said of the second period. “Credit to our staff. They do a good job with the scout and give us everything we need to do.”

“We can build on that, showing the word ‘toughness,’ and that’s what it takes,” Sparks second-year coach Lynne Roberts of winning without Plum.

“You don’t replace KP with just one player, we’re going to sub in so-and-so. Everybody’s just gotta do a little bit more. It took us a quarter to snap out of it, whatever you want to say. We did a really good job defensively in the second quarter,” Roberts continued.

“And then in the second half, it was back-and-forth, but then the toughness without KP, but you gotta win on the road and I’m extremely proud of this group.”

Dream Put Out the Fire

Atlanta’s Angel Reese, the third-year pro traded from Chicago before the season, had 18 points and 12 boards with five assists, while Rhyne Howard scored 14 and grabbed six steals to put the Dream in the winner’s circle.

Portland rallied and threatened in the third period with a 14-5 run,but the visitors recovered the next period 27-13 to easily settle it, having started the final quarter on a 9-0 spurt.

Naz Hillmon’s foul shot made it a 20-point lead, and she finished with 14 points and five steals, while Allisha Gray scored 13 and passed 1,000 foul shots made for her career.

The Dream dominated the line shooting 17-for-20 while the Fire made just eight trips.

Portland’s Sarah Ashlee Barker had 14 points and Carla Leite scored 11, and Emily Engstler and Megan Gufstason each scored 10 points.

Bridget Carleton was sidelined with back issues, allowing Holly Winterburn to make her first start for the home team and she had six points and seven assists.

The Fire were defensed into a season-worst 28 turnovers, enabling Atlanta to mine 33 points with 25 made field goals.

“It’s been a recurring theme trying to figure out where our shots are going to come from but this team does really good job not allowing their posts to get in the paid,” Hillmon said.

“Just trying to find ways where I can fit in and rebounds is something I can always rely on no matter how the game is going,” Reese said. “Tonight I was going to get a lot of offensive rebounds, the last time didn’t get a lot of offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, it’s something I take pride in.”

“Obviously, we did a great job in the second half defending and then getting out in transition,” said Atlanta second-year coach Karl Smesko. “It was good to really close it out in the fourth quarter.

“We made a lot of good defensive plays, we put a lot of pressure on them and got a lot of steals. When you get a lot of steals, we get out in transition and we got a lot of good looks in transition.”

Looking Ahead

League Pass has two of Saturday’s three-game slate – Seattle at Toronto at 1 p.m. and Los Angeles on a back-to-back at Connecticut at 6 while in the evening at 8 p.m. CBS and Paramount+ will air Indiana at Portland, the latter hosting a back-to-back.

The Connecticut game is being played in Hartford at the PeoplesBank Arena, formerly the XL Center, the off campus larger second home of UConn, for the first time since 2003 as part of the Sun farewell season before the NBA Houston owners take over and bring the team to Texas in 2027.

The week and first month of the WNBA’s first season wraps up with a single game Sunday on NBC and Peacock at 3:30 p.m. when Las Vegas plays at Golden State.

We’ll get to the June start more extensively later in the weekend when the in-season Commissioner Cup intra-conference schedule of games begin Monday in the West with Seattle at Dallas at 8 p.m. on USA and Minnesota at Phoenix at 10 p.m.

It’s the only time conference standings are relevant in the overall picture, though they also come in play for the WNBA’s weekly awards.

For those new to paying attention to the WNBA, the league standings regarding playoff and seeds are combined without regard to the best teams in the East and West.

As expansion continues the rest of the decade with the additions of Cleveland (’28), Detroit (’29) and Philadelphia (’30) along with the Sun relocation to Houston, while labor peace is firmly in place – the final step of the transformative CBA in what will become an 18-team league recently announced on the weekend – attention will have to be paid to playoff format in terms of field size which also could change the non-qualifying draft lottery number of designated squads and also perhaps an alteration to in-season standings configuration establishing intra-conference divisions or as in the NBA, place the lowest qualifying seeds into opening play-in rounds.

UPSHOT: Another Close One for Savannah

The host Steel have gone from losing three of their first four games by a combined nine points and then bouncing back winning in overtime Thursday night against Charlotte on a pair of threes near the end from former Florida Gulf Coast star Lauryn Taylor.

She was the one of two heroines at the finish Friday night after Charlotte started to let it get away in the final minute missing a pair of foul shots, Taylor then got fouled and made both attempts from the line for the one-point lead and then former Louisville star Olivia Cochrane blocked Deja Kelly’s attempted game-winner for the visiting Crown.

Kelly, the former Oregon and North Carolina star, had 18 points while Asia Durr, Reigan Richardson, and Michelle Oniyah also were in double figures for the visitors.

Sydney Shaw, who starred at West Virginia, referenced Savannah coach Coretta Brown in putting the team in position to win close games.

“I think just having practice be harder than the game is something the coach harps on,” she said. “So, when you come out here, it’s not as much pressure as you would think.”

Added Taylor, “I could play guard or forward, so honestly, ‘Coach gets me in good position to get the mismatches. And my teammates trusted me to take those shots.

“At the end of the game, I just had the trust from my teammates, so it just really made it easy to make those mismatches,” Taylor added.

“I feel like with this team, everybody knows their role. We’re so versatile, and everybody can do everything. So if anyone hasn’t figured it out, I love to rebound, but I know that this person to the left of me is a great shooter, so I’m not being selfish. We just really play our roles.

“Honestly, we’re a great team, and we have great spurts. Once we can connect connect it all for 40 minutes, the games won’t be as close. It won’t be as taxing on our bodies, and we’re able to coast through.”

Off Friday night, coach Brown texted here, writing, “Had a huge third quarter that propelled us to a win. The energy from the home crowd ignited us and we pulled out out.

“We had too many costly turnovers and that’s an area that we as a staff will continue to harp on. Our decision making will get better. Players are starting to feel more confident in those late game situations.”