Game 5: Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker are taking over again, Kendrick Perkins' GPA, and more
I also submitted my official answer to the What To Do With The Liberty Playing On National TV So Much problem.
Hello, it’s me, Matt Ellentuck.
We’re five games through each team’s schedule, meaning we’re nearly 25 percent of the way done with the 2020 WNBA regular season. WTF. Everything’s happening too quickly.
Anyway, I want to start with the usual reminders. The first being that you can subscribe to the newsletter for 7 dollars per month if you’d like to get an additional six-times-per-week newsletter that includes fantasy WNBA tips, using this link. It’s the best way to support my work:
The second is that Here’s Basketball has an Instagram account that you can follow!
Ok, I’ll shut up now.
Here’s Basketball.
WNBA players wore t-shirts in support of Raphael Warnock, the candidate running against Dream owner Kelly Loeffler for senate
WNBA players have long been at the forefront of the social justice movement, and on Tuesday, they put on a helluva display of collective action, donning shirts in support of Raphael Warnock, a Democrat running against Atlanta Dream team owner Kelly Loeffler. Loeffler is a Republican senator who’s openly opposed Black Lives Matter, and was so against the WNBA using its platform to promote social justice initiatives that she wrote a letter to commissioner Cathy Engelbert. That led to player calling for her to be removed from the W, including Natasha Cloud, who tweeted “Get her weak ass out of our league.”
The WNBA players’ message ahead of Game 5 was to go out and vote:
"For effective change to happen, there has to be policy changes,” Dream center Elizabeth Williams told ESPN. “And so if we're going to sit here and talk about wanting justice reform, part of that is making sure that we have officials in office that understand that."
The players of the W have also decided not to talk about Loeffler’s recent statements in the media, instead focusing their effort in support of Warnock, the candidate they believe in.
"I think when all this stuff started happening with [Loeffler], we didn't want to feel like we were pawns,” Williams said to ESPN. “We can only control so much about what the league does [in regard to Loeffler], and so for us, we wanted it to be bigger than that.
"That's kind of been the theme of this season. So we wanted to make sure we could still keep the focus on our social justice movement, and funny enough, Rev. Warnock is somebody who supports everything that we support and just happens to be running in that seat. So it just worked out really well."
The players of the WNBA are raising the bar every damn day.
A’ja Wilson and Napheesa Collier’s podcast included Kevin Durant, and dunking on Kendrick Perkins
If you haven’t already subscribed to “Tea with A and Phee,” Wilson and Collier’s new weekly podcast, you need to do so right freaking now. You’ve already missed two episodes, and the second was the best so far with special guest Kevin Durant.
Throughout the pod, the group discussed plenty of tea, like Durant’s love life, but the best line came when the two asked Durant to guess Perkins’ points per game average in 2014… Long story short, the answer was 3.4. And Wilson’s response to that was, “THAT’S A GOOD GPA.”
LMFAO
Yo! Diana Taurasi is back
Taurasi’s played maybe her best three-game stretch in years, and I’m excited as hell. On Tuesday, she started slow in the first half, but then went in attack mode to finish with 20 points on nine field goal attempts, with six rebounds and six assists to one turnover. The Mercury beat the Dream, 81-74.
Look at this pass:
In the last three games, Taurasi is averaging 20 points, eight assists, and three rebounds, shooting 45 percent from the field and 40 percent from range. Maybe most impressively, she’s gotten to the line 25 times, sinking 24 of them. The Mercury have won all three of those games, flipping their season from an 0-2 start. The Goat is back.
Candace Parker looked like an MVP again
Parker had a strange 2019 season where she’d heat up in flashes, but was wildly inconsistent. The Sparks were only as good as she performed, and that led them to be swept in the semifinals. On Wednesday night, though, Parker went off for one of her best games in the last two years. She handled 6’7 Teaira McCowan on defense, and came racing back on the other end for fast-breaks all night. She finished with 18 points on 13 shots, with 11 rebounds, three assists, two blocks and a steal.
And one of those blocks was THIS:
The Sparks won, 86-75, and CP3 made plays like this all night:
The Sparks need this from her nightly if they want a chance to win it all.
Now, for some not-so-great things.
Sabrina Ionescu left the bubble to get her ankle checked out
Are you sweating? Because I am. On Wednesday, the New York Liberty announced that Ionescu was traveling to New York to see an ankle and foot specialist. Umm. I hope she’s ok.
I think this means the WNBA needs to move some Liberty games off national TV now
Ionescu is clearly going to sit for a lengthy period of time. And the Liberty are uhh… not good when she doesn’t play. They’re one of two winless teams in the league left, and in two games without Ionescu, they’ve lost by 29 and 26 points. Yikes!
I feel bad for head coach Walt Hopkins and the Liberty. They’re a rebuilding team. And they might be really good in a couple of years! But they aren’t right now, playing six rookies out of 11 players.
In the next 12 days, the Liberty are due to play on ESPN or ESPN2 four times, and CBS Sports Network once. Please… change the TV schedule. The Liberty were thrown into the spotlight because Sabrina is Sabrina, but now without her, they’re probably going to get blown out more times than not. That’s not the competitiveness the WNBA should want to put in a national spotlight.
The Wings went to Satou Sabally in the closing seconds of a close game. It didn’t end well.
Before we dig in here, Sabally is an incredible player. She might win Rookie of the Year. But it was a huge shock that in a 1-point game with 8.4 seconds left, the Wings went to her to try and close out a huge regular season game. She hadn’t played particularly well prior to that play either, scoring 10 points on nine shots.
Head coach Brian Agler explained after the game that Satou was the second option on the potential game-winner, with the first being Arike Ogunbowale, who appeared open enough to catch a pass. Here’s the broken play that saw Sabally get the ball stripped by Cheyenne Parker:
Why Katie Lou Samuelson chose a diving Sabally, with Parker on her hip, over an open Ogunbowale at the top of the key, we’ll never know. But what a bummer for Dallas. Huge opportunity blown.
Additional notes:
Sylvia Fowles sat out against the Liberty because of a calf injury, which head coach Cheryl Reeve said she hopes isn’t serious.
Nneka Ogwumike only played 13 minutes in the win over the Fever because of a hamstring injury. Head coach Derek Fisher thinks she‘ll be ok.
Sue Bird sat out because of a bone bruise in her left knee, and she’s expected to miss today’s game, too
Epiphany Prince missed last game, and will miss tonight’s game for personal reasons
Victoria Vivians missed Game 5 because of a knee injury suffered in Game 4 that’s not thought to be serious
Bria Hartley is questionable for Game 6 because of a foot injury
Natalie Achonwa, Shenise Johnson and Stefanie Dolson missed Game 5 to their lingering injuries
Te’a Cooper had an inconclusive positive Covid-19 test, and she’s in quarantine
Matt’s power rankings:
Storm
Sky
Aces
Mystics
Lynx
Sparks
Mercury
Wings
Dream
Fever
Sun
Liberty
Matt’s MVP rankings:
Breanna Stewart
A’ja Wilson
DeWanna Bonner
Sylvia Fowles
Diana Taurasi
Matt’s Rookie of the Year rankings:
Chennedy Carter
Satou Sabally
Sabrina Ionescu
Ezi Magbegor
Julie Allemand
Ok, that’s all from me.
If this post helped you catch up on the last 48 hours of basketball, I hope you’ll share it with friends using this link:
Or subscribe to get the newsletter delivered to your inbox for free using this link:
Or pay $7 per month to receive access to additional WNBA fantasy sports newsletters like the one at the bottom of this post from me, and support the work I do, by using this link:
I’m also still looking for work writing about the WNBA!
If you have any leads, please email: mellentuck10@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter: @mellentuck. I miss doing this as a full-time job. All of my previous work can be found at SB Nation, where I worked for the past four years before being laid off due to the pandemic.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!