Game Preview: Sky's Visit from Mystics Has Huge WNBA Playoff Implications
Chicago looks to finish their final homestead with a perfect record and claw back Mystics' tiebreaker advantage.
An impressive start to the Sky’s final multi-game homestand plus losses by the Dream and Mystics on Sunday have moved Chicago firmly into the driver’s seat for the final berth in the WNBA playoffs. However, match-ups against Atlanta and Washington in the final week of the season mean that all is still to play for with all-important tiebreaks yet to be decided and the gap between the teams in the standings still tight. The first of those match-ups comes Wednesday night when Chicago hosts the Mystics to close out the aforementioned homestand (a single home game against the Mercury is still to come on Sunday), and the Sky can all but bury Eric Thibault and company’s playoff hopes with a win. Let’s dive into what Chicago must do to keep their momentum going and extend their win streak to 3 games.
1. How do the rotations look?
While the Sky were forced to play without Angel Reese on Sunday as well, the nature of the game (which saw the Sky leading to by double digits for thirty-plus minutes to end the game) meant Teresa Weatherspoon didn’t necessarily have to roll with her 1A rotation in the rookie power forward’s absence. Instead, there was a lot more room for experimentation with late game departures by Diamond DeShields (who is out Wednesday) and Brianna Turner requiring even further creativity from the rookie head coach. Add in the unique match-ups that Dallas, one of the W’s bigger teams, presents, and it’s fair to say that we don’t know too much more about how the Sky’s rotations will look without Reese than we did before the first contest without her on Sunday afternoon.
However, the Dallas rotations may also be more reflective of those that Weatherspoon works with in the last 5 games of the season than you’d otherwise think because of the team’s dwindling numbers and the “win or go home” situation Chicago now finds themselves in. Any player who heats up in the minutes that they do get will probably get more—with Dana Evans’ role Sunday serving as a perfect example. In the first half against Dallas, she hit two threes and added to the team’s energy out of the gate with her patented point-of-attack defensive pressure, and Weatherspoon gave her more minutes throughout the remainder of the game as a result. Of course, that logic is more specific to the backcourt players—with all three of the available front court players needed to play big minutes each game given the lack of depth with Reese and Elizabeth Williams out. As mentioned in the past, I’d expect that we’ll also see Michaela Onyenwere play at the four as match-ups allow to give the front court trio an extra breather and show opposing defenses a different look. Granted, small ball lineup options are much more limited with DeShields out.
2. Can the Sky manage a lead again?
Of course, Chicago needs to build a lead first for this to come into play, but if they do start quickly once again versus the Mystics, it will be interesting to see if they can manage a lead as well as they did on Sunday against Dallas. After playing from behind so often since the Olympic break, Chicago haven’t had many leads to manage, but they did so expertly on Sunday—even if the Wings made a couple of late surges that ate into what had been a huge lead. Keeping the momentum (and lead) they’d built was down to multiple factors—with both players and coaches deserving credit. On the court, it’s the timeliness of the Sky’s scores and big defensive plays that allowed the run to extend. Chennedy Carter is usually good for a couple of back-breaking scores a game and Sunday was no different—with her step back over Natasha Howard with three minutes remaining bringing to end any chances of a miraculous Dallas comeback.
When those on the court couldn’t flip the momentum, the bench did a very good job of mixing in timeouts. Weatherspoon—like any first time WNBA head coach—has had strengths and weaknesses, but I feel that her timeout usage (with a couple of obvious exceptions) has been one of her biggest strengths throughout the season. W and NBA players alike have regularly mentioned in recent years how big leads seem to shrink quicker than ever before and that change (whether actual or perceived) has led to some coaches managing their timeouts different than in the past. Whereas a twenty-point lead would’ve often been allowed to sink close to single digits before a timeout was called in the past; many coaches (Denver’s Mike Malone stands out to me as an example) are now far more aggressive with using their timeouts as soon as the energy starts to flip. Other coaches, meanwhile, have stuck with a more traditional approach, and the result is often painful to watch as a team sees a massive lead evaporate while their coach watches on. In that respect, Weatherspoon seems to be very much with the new school approach, and we saw that Sunday when she used a couple of quick timeouts after small Dallas runs to kill the Wings’ momentum before it could pick up significant steam. Given the strength the Sky have shown in third quarters since the Olympic break (+11.5 net-rating, 2nd best in the W), it’s clear Weatherspoon’s messaging is able to get a response from her team; so, those quick timeouts were (and should continue to be) effective in letting her get in their ears and help them stem Dallas’ tide Sunday.
3. Keep the turnover battle close.
If you look at the last meeting between the Sky and Mystics two weeks ago, it was as tight as the 74-70 final score suggests. The Sky shot better from the floor than the Mystics, the difference in three-point shooting was almost non-existent (38% to 36%), and both teams finished with 19 assists. The two stats that stand out as glaring differences on the scoreboard in favor of Washington are fast-break scoring (+12) and points off of turnovers (+7)—with the latter obviously helping fuel the former. On Sunday, the Sky beat Dallas by 9 points in both metrics, and the reasonable number of turnovers they committed (14) meant that even a strong performance by Dallas on the break was unlikely to create a huge edge in transition scoring. And to that point, the problem last time against the Mystics wasn’t necessarily the transition defense itself (though there’s room for improvement there too), but the quantity of giveaways Chicago committed in the first place. When you turn the ball over 23 (!!) times, it’s hard to win games at any level of basketball. Case in point, Chicago actually scored a solid 14 points off of the 13 turnovers that the Mystics committed on 8/28, but they gave Washington so many chances that a game of 20+ points off of turnovers felt like an inevitably.
This is an area, returning to the previous section on game management, that can really make or break the Sky’s playoff push over the final 5 games. The Sky have had some high turnover performances as of late (they’re committing the 4th most turnovers per game in the W since 8/1), but it’s usually stretches in the game where Chicago commits 3-4 turnovers in a stretch of 5-6 possessions that cause the turnover count to add up so quickly as opposed to a general lack of ball security throughout the game. In Sunday’s game against Dallas, the majority of the 14 turnovers Chicago committed came as a result of forcing the ball into extremely tight windows—especially in an attempt to feed Kamilla Cardoso in the post. Those are, at the very least, “competitive” turnovers, and I imagine Weatherspoon will live with them to some degree as her team becomes more accustomed to feeding Cardoso. In the long run—of course, the Sky can’t afford those types of passes to continue, but it feels more an issue of acclimation than ignorance at this point (especially since Cardoso has a habit of hauling in some passes that probably should be turnovers and accidentally encouraging teammates to keep throwing them).
However, there’s other types of turnovers (moving screens, flat-angle passes, forced passes into double coverage) that Chicago has committed which Weatherspoon will probably feel there’s no excuse for. They’ll happen here and there inevitably but it’s those spells of 2 or 3 (especially of the live ball variety) that have been backbreaking at times. It’s almost as if you can feel it coming at certain points in recent games. The Sky commit a turnover, give up a score and—in their hurry to get the bucket right back—they rush and commit another mistake. Weatherspoon and her players have spoken about taking the remaining schedule one game at a time, and I think a similar mindset can help them curtail this issue in the next 5 games. By looking at each game one possession at a time, the Sky can eliminate focus on what happened the last time down the floor and hone in on making the best decisions in the present. Of course, this is also an area where Weatherspoon leans on her veteran players—Lindsay Allen perhaps above all others—to slow the game down if needed. Being too slow has been a whole other problem, but a brief pause is sometimes all that’s needed to settle the nerves and avoid giving the ball right back. If the Sky limit the turnovers they commit, they’ll almost always be able to produce an important edge in fast-break scoring because of their pace and aggressiveness when transition opportunities arise.