WNBA Odds, Picks & Previews: 4 Bets, Featuring Storm vs. Wings, Fever vs. Lynx & More (Sunday, June 12)

PThe W is really starting to heat up as we pass the one-third mark of the season. Sunday is another fun day of action after Friday's slate delivered some great games — as well as some nice winners if you came here to read my debut piece for the Action Network.

We won't dive back on picks every time, but for the debut, I'll note that we went 3-0 on the fully recommended plays and 0-2 on the leans. That was good for a positive ROI if you trailed all five and an amazing return if you just went with the full plays.

Hopefully we can build on that today, but, as always, I am here to give you advice to make your own best bets so you can be in total control of how you approach the WNBA.

Let's get to it.

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WNBA Odds, Picks

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Sky vs. Liberty

Injuries/News

It's a clean bill of health for the Chicago Sky.

The same can't be said for the Liberty, who remain without Betnijah Laney (knee), Jocelyn Willoughby (quadriceps) and Nyara Sabally (knee) for the foreseeable future.

However, there is double good news for New York. First, DiDi Richards (hamstring) is possible to return to the court after a lengthy absence, having made it just four minutes into the season before picking up her injury. She is set to debut either today or Thursday. Also, Rebecca Allenwill be playing, despite having left Friday's game early after taking a hit to the chin.

Two Teams Headed in the Right Direction

In Friday's  preview piece, both the Sky and Liberty were handed out as winners with part of that logic coming on the back of recently improved rotations and play.

Both those picks proved prescient (yay!) as the good times did indeed roll for both squads. Chicago picked up its best win of the season in a 83-79 road victory over the Connecticut Sun and the Liberty dominated the third quarter and won 97-83 against the cellar-dwelling Indiana Fever.

While these are two teams both trending in the right direction, they are not equals. The new levels the Liberty have reached since slotting Crystal Dangerfield into the starting lineup have them playing like a bottom-tier playoff team. Meanwhile, the change in play for Chicago has them looking like the best team in the league.

[Extreme Stephen A. voice] HOWEVER, the Liberty match up decently with the Sky. The Liberty defense — which has quietly been a strong unit, with the second-lowest field goals percentage allowed this season and a defensive rating right in the middle of the pack — has two main strengths: interior defense and limiting assists.

It just so happens that those are the two things Chicago relies on most offensively. So, this will be a bit of the old "what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object" conundrum.

Here's why I think the unstoppable force (the Sky) is going to have a bit of an edge. Although that opponent assist rate for the Liberty is extremely impressive, it's a bit of a false flag. The Liberty give up, by far, the most fast-break points in the W. Having watched a lot of Liberty this season, I can tell you it's a lot of live-ball turnovers that result in one player running down the court for an uncontested layup the other way. That's part of why their assist rate allowed is so low and it's not a good reason the rate is low.

That being said, the full game 7.5-point spread is right in that danger zone, so here's how we're going to attack: Chicago in the first quarter. The Liberty have been brutal in the first quarter this season, while the Sky have been the second best team in the W in their first frames. We're bringing in a bit of potential chaos with the smaller sample, but it's the best play I see in what should be a fun game.

Pick: Chicago -2.5 or better first quarter 

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Storm vs. Wings

Injuries/News

Dallas' Marina Mabrey (Health and safety) was ruled out of Friday's game and her status for Sunday is still unknown as of this writing.

Seattle is fully healthy as of print.

Swing and a Miss

In the introduction, I noted that we went 3-2 in the first article, but that the full picks went 3-0 and the leans went 0-2. Though, in all fairness, the preview for Friday's Seattle-Dallas game was a whiff. I loved the under of 159.5 when the line opened and the only reason I didn't love it more when I released the article was because the line had already adjusted three points. (It would eventually drop a full seven points!)

So, while I got the closing line value, a final score of 89-88, a combined 178 points, was not the game script I imagined.

A Different Route

Instead of doubling down on the point total, I'm going to the tape of this most recent matchup to find an edge. What jumped out to me was the fact that the Wings stayed in the game at the charity stripe. Despite shooting 11% worse from the field, getting out rebounded and turning the Storm over only three more times, the Wings were right there with a chance to win it at the end because they went 21-of-22 from the free-throw line. The Storm only got to the line 13 times and made just eight of those.

Is that a sustainable path to competing against Seattle in the second half of this double-header? I'm not so sure.

Yes, the Wings are one of the better free throw shooting teams in the W, coming in at 81.6% — good for a three-way tie for second in the league. However, they are decidedly middle of the path in terms of getting to the line and even though they rank higher than Seattle in terms of free throw percentage, it's only be two percentage points.

Add in the fact that the Storm are typically one of the more disciplined teams in the league in terms of handing out fouls (no surprise given their experience) and I don't see another game in which the Wings get 13 more points than the Storm at the stripe.

All in all, the Storm looked to get pretty much whatever they wanted against the Wings on Friday and that should continue Sunday.

Pick: Seattle -4.5 or better (and because I'm stubborn, I'm going to sprinkle a little on the under as well, which, again, was my best bet from Friday on this matchup. However, it got blown up so hard, so tail at your own risk!)

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Mercury vs. Mystics

Injuries/News

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

Sophie Cunningham missed her first game on Friday and will remain out for a few weeks with an elbow injury. Kia Nurse has yet to debut for Phoenix in 2022.

For the Mystics, Elena Delle Donne left the game early two games ago and missed Friday's game against the Lynx. However, she is listed as probable for Sunday's game as of this writing.

Stay Away

I'm going to be perfectly honest, this game has me a little stumped. The bucketing model I use as my entry into analysis doesn't really pull any factors where Phoenix and Washington match up in any sort of interesting way.

Zooming out a bit, Phoenix has played the hardest schedule in the league so far by a decent margin, which, in theory, makes the Mercury an intriguing play moving forward. However, they also are due for a bit of Pythagorean regression. The Mystics lean the other way.

The point totals for both teams have also been a bit all over the place and the two teams sit on opposite sides of the pace spectrum. Overall, I just can't find an edge here right now, so I really can't advise any plays.

Pick: Save your units for elsewhere

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Fever vs. Lynx

Injuries/News

A few big names remain out for the Lynx: Sylvia Fowles (knee), Napheesa Collier (maternity) and Natalie Achonwa (hamstring).

Kayla McBride is also listed as questionable with a foot injury.

For the Fever, the only name  on the injury report is Emily Engstler, the pesky rookie who has impressed on the defensive end to start her career, but was forced to leave Friday's game with a rib injury. Like McBride, she is questionable at the time of this writing.

Battle for Boston?

No, this game is not being fought on the northeastern seaboard, but this may indeed be a Battle for Boston — Aliyah Boston.

These are the two worst teams by record in the WNBA and I truly don't see anything changing by season's end. Neither team has a win over a team that currently has a winning record and with the Liberty's recently improved play these two also sit at the bottom of the league in net rating.

In terms of how the two match up, the Fever get caught with their hands in the cookie jar as much as any team in the league and the Lynx have been good at getting to the line this season. Of course, they're also the worst team in the league at making those freebies when they get there.

Minnesota has also been surprisingly competent at the start of games and has a pedestrian first quarter net rating that blows Indiana's league-worst first quarter rating out of the water.

So, this is where I'm going with this game … and it's more of a lean than a direct pick because it's got a bit more narrative to it than I usually rely on. (It's also a lean since none of the lines are out yet for this game.)

I see Cheryl Reeve and the Lynx Front Office approaching this game with an eye on the bigger picture. This is likely the team they will be battling for the top spot in next year's draft. With a loss, the Lynx could guarantee themselves an edge with the tiebreaker. I think Reeve lets the team play to start the game (hence the first half of this bet), but then starts to get a little creative with her rotation. We're already seeing a bit of that with that late announcement of McBride being downgraded to questionable.

As of now, there is no line for this game, but my intuition is telling me something around MIN -4. If that's the case, I really like the idea of betting MIN to win the first quarter, which should come at something around -125 — then betting the Fever full game moneyline, if it's somewhere around +150 or so. If the books had same game parlays, I'd love to combine it, because those parlayed plays that appear to be reverse correlated (but that you actually have in a game script) are fun to play from time to time at a small unit input.

Lean: Lynx first quarter moneyline -130 or better; Fever game moneyline +145 or better

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