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Believe it or not, we are only two months away from the WNBA Playoffs. There is a lot of stuff still to come with the season, but when your season is only 44 games, it tends to go by fairly quickly. This has been an interesting campaign. With two new teams in the league, a big turnaround from the Wings, and somewhat of a falloff from the Aces and Liberty, there might be some new excitement in the postseason. Before we get there, let’s talk about the Sun and the league’s most popular team, the Fever.
The Connecticut Sun are 7-19 for the season and have won just three games on the road. I believe this will be the last season for the Sun in Connecticut, and this will be one that everyone forgets. The Sun started the year with just two wins in 15 games, but have gone 5-4 over the past nine games, so at least the Sun are showing a bit of progress. The biggest problem for this team seems to be that it can’t find anyone to get a bucket when absolutely needed.
The team is led by Brittney Griner, but she is scoring just 14.1 points in 25.8 minutes. This is her second-lowest total point production since her rookie season. Last year was her worst, posting just 9.8 points per game. Perhaps it is because she is 35 years old and slowing down, but she is no longer the force she once was. The bigger issue for the team is that it is just a hodgepodge of players – some are castoffs from other teams, others are free agents that have been pieced together. However, the pieces really don’t fit well.
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The Indiana Fever have a better record than the Sun, but that’s not much of a challenge. I think one of the things to remember about the Fever is that they get the best effort from every team they face, every night. The WNBA players don’t really like Caitlin Clark (at least that’s how it seems), and the effort level is clearly different in games with her involved. The Fever are 10-5 at home this year, and have won seven of their past ten games overall. One other thing to remember about the Fever is that the beginning of this season was a major adjustment.
Clark was out almost all of last season, and her coming into the fold once again, even after a really successful run in the playoffs last year without her, meant the team had to learn new roles. She is ball-dominant and a great passer, so the team had to change its offense a bit. The Fever do seem to be getting back to what they were best at last season, when they looked to get Kelsey Mitchell buckets. She has led them in scoring in eight of the past nine games. Perhaps it is a balance between last year’s success and this year’s adjustments.
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The Sun are not a team that you’d expect to score a ton of points – averaging only about 80 points per game. However, the Fever are not a very good defensive team, and again, you get a big effort every time from the opposition. I feel like the total can go either way, I don’t know that the Sun can stop the Fever, but I don’t think the Fever have much interest in playing defense, either.
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The Fever have a rest advantage in this game; they’ve been at home for a while, but did have a back-to-back before this. Still, they’ve been off for a couple of days. Being in the same gym for multiple days helps with sight lines for shooters and allows them to be more comfortable. The Sun will have a long stretch off after this game, but will still be on the road. I like the Fever early in this one as I’m not sure they will blow out the Sun late. Connecticut has kept games close on the road lately. Give me the Fever 1st quarter at -2.5. I think this is where they will have the biggest advantage of being familiar for shooting.
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