Weekly Preview: Sky Close Regular Season Against Dream + Sun
With a playoff berth still on the line, shorthanded Chicago gives it one last go in 2024 on the road against Atlanta and Connecticut.
After Sunday’s loss to Phoenix, the playoff picture should be getting clearer, but the Sky—even down a number of players—still have a fighting chance thanks to the weekend split between the Dream and the Mystics. With just two games to go before the end of the regular season, let’s dive right into the preview with no further delay.
Sky at Dream
Tuesday, September 17th at 6:30 PM CT
Stopping Rhyne Howard
For all the offensive struggles Atlanta have had this season (98.3 offensive rating—last in the W), the volume of weapons at Tanisha Wright’s disposal means the task of building a defensive game plan to stop the Dream is still a tough one. Yet, all else that a defense does can quickly become inconsequential when Howard is at her best. Atlanta’s win percentage jumps from 34% to 46% when Howard scores 16 or more points while an aggressive Howard (6+ FTA) pushes that mark even higher to 57%. Against Chicago this season, the Dream are at 100% with their two-time All-Star helping win the first meeting of the season 89-80 back on June 8th. Yet, it was the interior players, not Howard (3/10 FG), who did the damage that day as Cheyenne Parker-Tyus and Tina Charles combined for 40 points on 57% shooting. With Chicago now more vulnerable to inside offense with Angel Reese out for the rest of the season, there’s an obvious threat there for the Dream but Parker-Tyus’ own season-ending injury means the pendulum swings back towards Howard having a bigger impact on the perimeter.
Reason being, the Sky—likely without the services of Diamond DeShields for the fourth straight game on Tuesday—have few options to defend the 6’2” Howard. It’s a strong possibility that Michaela Onyenwere will start the game matched-up on Atlanta’s star (though less certain after Sunday’s system change), and her goal has to be keeping Howard off the free throw line as much as possible—both to limit the opposition’s ability to establish rhythm and to keep herself out of foul trouble. After a trio of thirty-point outbursts from September 3rd-8th, Howard has shot just 24% from the floor and from three while scoring more than a third of her points at the line. Without 6 free-throw makes on both Friday and Sunday against the Mystics, Howard wouldn’t have gotten to double figures in either game (something she’s only failed to do 9 times in 101 W games), and Chicago simply cannot afford to give the 78% lifetime free-throw shooter any easy points in what figures to be a tight game late. With few other reasonable options beyond Onyenwere to take on the match-up, Chicago also—obviously—cannot afford to have her in foul trouble. If Onyenwere gives the Sky thirty minutes or more minutes of her usual defensive coverage on Howard, Weatherspoon can chalk that up as a win—with her attention going to using her other defenders to limit the impact of Charles and Naz Hillmon inside and Allisha Gray (17.7 PPG against Chicago this season) on the perimeter.
Helping Chennedy Carter
For all that Carter has done well this season, it was clear in Friday’s loss to the Lynx that there was very little gas left in the tank late in the game. It’s not the first time since the Olympic break that’s been the case with a handful of other games painting a picture of a player who’s simply being asked to handle a little too much at both ends of the court. Her bout with illness, of course, probably only adds to the overall level of fatigue in the last month, but I think it’s fair to say the on court circumstances are also having an impact. Whatever the cause, a Carter that’s burned out after three quarters is a huge problem for a Chicago team that have leaned on her heavily as the team’s primary closer. Against Las Vegas at the end of August, we saw Weatherspoon resort to sitting Carter for a stretch (with the 5 that played in her absence actually closing the deficit) before she returned for her late heroics. And while that’s an option for handling the games left in the regular season, it’s not an optimal one. Simply put, the Sky need to have Carter on the floor for all of their fourth quarter minutes (or at the very least the final 7-8).
Making that possible starts with solid rotations that get Carter time on the bench, but it’s also about what she does when she’s on the court. Because Carter is one of the Sky’s most intense defenders, she doesn’t profit from the “stand and watch” energy saving that many high-volume scorers do, and her usage at the offensive end both as a creator and a scorer makes it virtually impossible to get her rest. In any case, Weatherspoon has to find ways—even if it means camping Carter in the corner every few possessions while Lindsay Allen initiates the offense. It’s no secret that Allen can run the offense with great success and an opposing defense is unlikely to leave Carter unguarded outside (even if she’s a 25% 3PT shooter) because of her ability to catch, take one dribble and score with a pull-up from the mid-range. Thus, there’s an avenue there to find Carter rest that she’s not getting right now while still having her available as an option offensively. Whether the Sky will bury their key players with 35 or more minutes a night to try and reach the playoffs or stick closer to their usual rotations (that have Carter averaging 30 MPG as a starter) remains to be seen but it’s vital to take some of the physical load off of Carter’s shoulders in order to allow her to play her best in the late game scenarios that will likely decide the fate of the Sky’s season in the final two games of 2024.
Sky at Sun
Thursday, September 19th at 6:00 PM CT
Match-up Nightmares
The forward pairing of Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner presents a lot of match-up questions than a Reese-less Sky probably aren’t prepared to answer. Like with Atlanta’s Howard, Onyenwere can likely handle one of the two, but there’s no clear player on the roster to deal with the other. Isabelle Harrison is not quite mobile enough to chase Bonner to the perimeter or Thomas all-around the court, Rachel Banham (5’9”) is not big enough to seriously trouble Bonner (6’4”) at the 3, and Kaela Davis—while physically a better fit—hasn’t gotten the time on-court yet to establish the rhythm and chemistry needed to be relied on heavily in a high profile game like this. Like on Friday against Minnesota when she got 29 minutes as part of the Sky’s multi-faceted attempt to limit Napheesa Collier, that probably leaves Brianna Turner as the best option to face whichever of the Sun’s dynamic duo isn’t guarded by Onyenwere.
And in fairness, Turner did an admirable job against Collier and the Lynx’s other interior options—with her all-defense pedigree shining through even after a year where she’s more often than not been a fringe part of the Sky’s rotation. Yet, the issue is likely to be that Chicago lacks one player who can reliably guard both Bonner and Thomas in the way that Reese did in the previous meetings between the two teams. Because while Reese—more often than not—was matched up with Thomas, we saw her ably step out to the perimeter and take Bonner for a possession or two when needed—like on this late possession in May.
Turner and Onyenwere can do both as Turner is relatively athletic for a power forward and Onyenwere is a strong small forward, but it’s definitely less reliable than with Reese. And if the Sun can prove at any point in the game that either of these two Sky forwards (or Harrison) is uncomfortable at either level, they have all of the experience and line-up versatility needed to force switches and attack that discomfort. Add in the fact that the Connecticut guards are, generally, much bigger than Chicago’s and the match-up issues are even more magnified. Simply put, Reese gives the Sky a lot more options for switching (especially when on court together with Onyenwere), and the few healthy bodies left at this point in the season for Chicago are far less versatile. That’s no criticism of those players (instead, it’s the reason Reese is so unique), but it’s a harsh reality that means the Sky will need to be even better organized at the defensive end to keep it close late into the game as they’ve done in the previous three meetings with the Sun.
Connecticut’s Motivation
Depending on the outcome of Tuesday’s game between the second-placed Lynx and the third-placed Sun, Connecticut may have nothing to play for by the time they turn up for Thursday’s game. On one hand, that provides obvious benefit for Chicago as key players like Thomas or Bonner may sit to ensure full health before the playoffs start on Sunday. On the other, the Sky have to be practical in realizing their current skeleton crew may have difficulty against an experienced and talented Connecticut bench group. In fact, the Sun resting the star forward pair and Dijonai Carrington might open the door for even more Marina Mabrey minutes, and we know the former Sky guard won’t take that opportunity lightly. Indeed, while the rest of the roster doesn’t have the personal motivation that Mabrey has against Chicago, everyone on the roster is fighting for a role (big or small) when the playoffs do tip off. At this point in the season, Stephanie White is pretty dialed in to who plays and when, but there’s moments in a playoff series when you need a change of pace, and the extended playing time White may offer Thursday if the Sun are locked into the third seed could be the last chance some players get to make an impression in 2024. Even then, the Sky should still have greater motivation than those Connecticut bench players, but it’s a group that Weatherspoon and company can’t afford to take lightly with a strong start and laser focus throughout the game needed to come out on top.