WNBA Best Bets: 5 Picks for Tuesday

Basketball is back! Just like that, the very fun, if somewhat flawed All-Star Weekend has come to a close, and real basketball is back in our lives.

Betting on the W was all sorts of chaos in the month preceding the All-Star break, and I don’t know about you, but I am very excited to see if that trend continues.

Alongside that overarching trend, I’m excited to see if:

• The Lynx are going to be the team that nobody wants to face in the first round.
• The Aces can address their depth problems.
• The league can maintain its relatively strong health right now [knocks furiously on wood].
• Candace Parker and Sabrina Ionescu can break even more triple-double records.
• The Sun use literally any hashtag other than #disrespeCT.
• The Liberty can either make the postseason or position themselves to land both Breanna Stewart and Aliyah Boston next year.

OK, I’ll admit I’ve stole that incredibly biased hope from a recent article at The Next by Alford Corriette, but as a Liberty fan, you know I’m going to use any excuse I can to manifest that possibility into existence.

Without further ado, let’s get to Tuesday’s action.

Article plays: 22-22-1 (0.0 percent ROI)
Action Network app plays: 41-42-1 (-5.7 percent ROI)

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WNBA Odds, Picks

Click on game to skip ahead

Matchup	Time
Wings vs. Storm	3 p.m. ET
Aces vs. Liberty	7 p.m. ET
Dream vs. Sky	8 p.m. ET
Mercury vs. Lynx	8 p.m. ET
Mystics vs. Sparks	10:30 p.m. ET

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Wings vs. Storm

Injuries/News

The only player on the injury report for either team is Mercedes Russell, who remains out for the Storm.

Round 4 of Seattle vs. Dallas

This will be the fourth matchup between the Seattle Storm and Dallas Wings already this season, and unless I missed one on a quick perusal, these are the only two teams to have met so frequently this season.

In two of the three previous matchups, I wrote about the matchup here and went with the under.

Now I’m verging on the definition of insanity, but despite taking the L on the under each of the two previous times, I’m going back to the well.

There are a few reasons:

• I still like the reasoning behind why these two defenses should be able to shut down the opposing offense. There’s a reason the first matchup went for a combined total of 119 (!) points.
• I’ve mentioned in recent articles the afternoon unders trend that has returned 8.5 percent ROI over the past decade.
• Finally, the line is two points higher than last time, giving slightly more room to work with.

There’s also the possibility that the book shifted the line up slightly from last time because the Storm now have Tina Charles.

However, if anything, I think she should help the Storm shore up the offensive glass and prevent the Wings from grabbing as many offensive rebounds as they might otherwise get, thus limiting their second-chance points.

Pick: Under 161.5

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Aces vs. Liberty

Injuries/News

Two teams in much different injury spots. The Aces are fully healthy, while the Liberty remain without Betnijah Laney (knee) and Jocelyn Willoughby (quad). Rebecca Allen is still listed as day-to-day as of writing.

Will the Reset Help?

These two teams matched up in a recent preview, and we handed out a nice +440 Liberty winner that night.

However, the driving premise behind that pick was that these were two teams limping towards the All-Star break, and anything could happen that night, so the value was in picking the long shot.

Now the Aces have had a chance to hit the reset button and see if they can right the ship back to the all-encompassing death star they were in the first month and a half of the season.

Here’s the only problem: not that much of their rotation actually got the weekend off — four of their five starters were in the All-Star Game!

Kelsey Plum had an awesome weekend — participating in the Skills Competition and taking home the ASG MVP honors — but that doesn’t exactly sound like a super restful weekend when you add on the fact that those four went to Chicago from Las Vegas and are now headed to New York.

That being said, I do think this line is a little low (it was really low when it opened at Las Vegas -4.5, but that line got bet up fast.) However, the Aces’ ability to blow leads this season has been terrifying, so here’s how I’m going to play this: Las Vegas first half.

The Aces are still the top first-half team in the league. In fact, they have even led at the half in four of their seven losses. The possibility of a backdoor cover, or even a full-blown Aces choke in the second half scares me (they really need to address their depth before the trade deadline), but the first half feels like a safe play.

Pick: Las Vegas -4.5 First Half (up to -5)

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Dream vs. Sky

Injuries/News

Nia Coffey is the only player on the injury report for either team, and is listed as day-to-day still.

Return to Normalcy After Break?

As has been noted over and over, the past month or so of the WNBA season has been incredibly chaotic.

To update a stat I used a week ago, underdogs are returning a positive 8.5 percent ROI on the spread since the start of June (compared to -19.1 percent ROI on favorites). They’re returning a whopping 15.8 percent on the moneyline compared to -14.1 on favorites.

Of course, there are two factors to consider when deciding whether to chase that trend:

• Will the All-Star break act as a reset button for some of the top teams that had been sliding before the break, possibly due to fatigue?
• Have the books adjusted to this New World Order, and is there still value to be tapped in the WNBA underdog market?

The answer to the first question honestly feels like a no. The break lasted less than a week, which is not all that different than the amount of time teams sometimes have off during a quieter part of the schedule.

Add in the fact that the best teams sent more players to All-Star Weekend than the hypothetical underdogs, and one has to wonder how much of an impact there will really be.

Regarding the books, it looks like they may not have fully adjusted either. This line came out in double-digits and quickly dropped down to +9 at most books.

However, there’s still a +10.5 at BetRivers. I know this is a book not everyone has access to, so apologies on that front. But I think the overall takeaway should be that until proven otherwise, there’s still value on dogs in the W right now.

Pick: Atlanta +10.5

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Mercury vs. Lynx

Injuries/News

As has been the case all season, the Phoenix injury/news section has to lead with Brittney Griner, who has been detained in Russia for more than 100 days.

Kia Nurse is still waiting to make her 2022 debut for Phoenix.

For the Lynx, it’s just the long-term absence of Napheesa Collier (maternity).

Ride the Hot Hand

As Howard Megdal asked on a recent episode of Locked on Women’s Basketball: Will the Lynx ever lose again!?

Now, the win streak is technically only at two games, but the last month of Minnesota basketball has looked like the golden days.

The team is sporting a winning record during that stretch, and their only losses have come to the top of the league in tightly-contested, high-scoring battles (a two-point loss to the Storm, a three-point loss to the Sky and two losses by a combined seven points to the Aces).

The Lynx’s record is also deceiving because their net rating and Pythagorean record both show a team that has been a bit unlucky compared to their actual win-loss results.

In fact, despite sitting a game and a half behind their opponent on Tuesday in the actual standings, the Lynx have a superior net rating and Pythagorean record then the Mercury.

And if we’re going by vibes, this has to be the lock of the year. The Mercury are actively trying to deal away one of their stars — a star who just tweeted a clown emoji at her coach, and had the team be the one to apologize.

This line feels like it’s going to balloon a bit, so get in while you can.

Pick: Minnesota -5.5 (up to -6.5) and Over 161.5 (up to 163.5)

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Mystics vs. Sparks

Injuries/News

It’s not official Elena Delle Donne is playing, but given her rest patterns this year, it’s a safe guess she is.

For the Sparks, Chennedy Carter and Rae Burrell are listed as out, but neither have had updates since before the All-Star break.

A Sleeping Giant

The single biggest question of the second half of the season is whether Washington starts to try to ramp up EDD for a postseason in which she can play every game, or whether it has the far bigger picture in mind and are only going to be using her once or twice a week even into the postseason.

Only EDD and the team doctors can know whether Path A is an option, but if it is, I love Mystics championship futures at the price they are at right now. I got in on them before the season at +2000, and they have only shrunk a little to +1400.

Given the ceiling for this team, that’s worth a shot.

Right now the team is 11-4 with EDD in the lineup and have only lost once in the last month with her playing.

However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Washington faces off with a Sparks team on Tuesday that has shown improvement since Derek Fisher was fired (they’re exactly 5-5 since), but this line is simply too low with EDD likely to play after the All-Star break time off.

I’m hoping this article gets live while there are still some juicy numbers out there.

Pick: Mystics -3 (up to -5), Moneyline -155 (up to -170)

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