Game Preview: Reese, Sky Host Clark, Fever for Final Time in 2024
The Chicago-Indiana series has been one of the most fascinating of the WNBA season and will conclude on Friday at Wintrust Arena.
While the Fever and Sky were prematurely dubbed as ‘rivals’ before Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese had ever played a game for the franchises, there’s definitely been a bit of spice in the three previous meetings between the teams—which were decided by a grand total of just 8 points. With playoff positioning (or, even, survival) now on the line, the match-up is unlikely to get less feisty—with the team that can keep their cool most likely to come out on top. Let’s examine the keys to the game—including what lessons should be learned from the three previous meetings (of which the Fever won two) in June.
Matchup to Watch: The Benches
Neither of these teams have had a bad season when it comes to bench scoring as the Sky sit third in the WNBA at 20.0 PPG, and the Fever are just a few places further behind at 16.5 PPG. Those numbers, however, are misleading--especially for the Sky who have moved their leading scorer into the starting five and lost some depth of scoring over the course of the season. In fact, as the Sky look ahead to the final 10 games of the season, one of the big questions for this team seems to be whether any of the Sky's bench players outside of Rachel Banham can provide consistent contribution to the team's scoring. Isabelle Harrison is the most likely Chicago player to start adding regular bench scoring thanks to her unique blend of offensive skills, but the reluctance to give her extended run when Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso are playing well together in the front court means even her production is not guaranteed. Meanwhile, none of the remaining players on the bench have displayed much efficiency—with their stop start roles making a sudden run consistent play unlikely. At this point, the Sky's best hopes of increased bench production may well be one or two random bench explosions—with Dana Evans and Harrison th most likely to deliver those. Even then, it's hard to know when (or if) those will come, and the onus is with the coaching staff to find a way to piece together more bench scoring than the 9.3 PPG they've gotten in the 4 games when Chennedy Carter has been healthy.
For Indiana, the bench production looks more consistent before (16.3 PPG) and after the break (17.0), but a lot of the recent production is still coming via one source (Lexie Hull — 11.4 PPG). Of course, the Fever had been missing Temi Fagbenle’s production before she returned from injury on Saturday, but they're still largely in the same boat as the Sky when it comes to their odds of players 7-10 making the difference on the scoreboard. Some of this is natural when you consider that both of these teams are early in their respective roster turnovers, and the odds to add better depth will be improved moving forward. However, the challenge is to account for the deficiency with the roster that's available in the short term—with a head-to-head match-up against another team with limited depth a welcome reprieve for both teams. On Friday, whichever side can squeeze the maximum out of their bench (or even get a standout game from one player) should have a leg up when it comes to winning the game. If the Sky get an unexpected standout, don’t be surprised if it’s Harrison, who will likely be called on to give the Sky’s starters a breather against the strong rotation of Fagbenle, Aliyah Boston and NaLyssa Smith in the Indiana front court.
Numbers Game: Opposition Assist Rate
The Sky’s second-half defense since the Olympic break has largely been solid, but Chicago’s first-half tape shows there’s still plenty of room for improvement. One area where opposing teams have really hurt the Sky’s defense is with their passing—with Chicago (for one reason or another) frequently left exposed by a sequence of good ball movement in the half court. The Mercury, with their up-tempo, three-ball heavy scheme, were the first to highlight this weakness when they managed 47 assists on 61 made field goals in the weekend doubleheader on August 15th and the 18th. However, the Sky struggling to keep up with the ball movement of the opposition was a recurring them against the Sun and Aces last weekend—with a slew of misses by DeWanna Bonner (3/16 FG) and Vegas (6/24 3PT) meaning those mistakes went partially unpunished. However, the rise of Caitlin Clark as the WNBA’s leading assister means the Sky could be in for yet another long evening of chasing the play and struggling to close on open Fever shooters on the perimeter. In 18 games between the start of the W season and the Sky’s third meeting with Indiana on 6/23, Clark was averaging a respectable 6.6 assists per game. In the 13 games Indiana have played since, that mark has exploded to 10.2 per game with the Fever’s scoring average following a similar trend by growing from 80.9 PPG to 85.2 over the same interval. Even with the improved numbers for Clark, the Fever are near the bottom of the league in assisted field goal ratio (65.8% - 9th best), but the broader message is clear: Clark is a unique passer who can quickly find the holes in the defense with her vision.
(It’s hard to write about fixing things like “ball watching, but that’s another recurring cause of good passing leading to open looks in the Sky’s tape.)
So, what can the Sky do to correct the flaws in their defensive coverages? A couple of areas stand out for improvement, but the biggest correctable one is consistent rotations. While I’ve kicked around the flaws with the Sky’s current rotational patterns a number of times, I’ve never honed in on how damaging it seems to be to the defensive cohesion of the team. While they’re a young team and have made mistakes throughout the season, it seems as if there’s been more wide open shots due to disorganization in the 6 games since the Olympic break than all those that preceded it. Some of that is probably recency bias on my part, but there’s also a presumable correlation between the Sky’s mismatched first-half line-ups and the amount of open looks they’ve conceded in those minutes. Meanwhile, in the second half, the Sky’s defensive performances have been much improved. Not only because their best defenders are on the court for more time but because the Sky’s usual closing 5 played together regularly in the first half of the season and are now playing together nightly for 25+ minutes. Of course, great ball movement will eventually unlock even the tightest of defenses, but the extra chemistry that closing group has (plus, in fairness, the intelligence of the players in it) gives the Sky a chance to make Clark or any other passer’s life that much more difficult. The key for Teresa Weatherspoon is to find some first-half combinations involving her bench players that are reliable enough to play together every game—allowing this chemistry (which, in fairness, takes a long time) to develop as much as possible over the last 10 games.