With another slate of Game 2's on deck for Wednesday night in the first round of the WNBA Playoffs, "WNBA Buckets" dissect what's ahead for the Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun matchup that's going down on ESPN at 7:30 p.m. ET as well as the Phoenix Mercury facing the Minnesota Lynx at 9:30 p.m. ET to follow.
Joe Dellera and Bryan Fonseca provide some of their best bets for Wednesday night below, so don't miss out on listening to the podcast and continue reading for their "WNBA Buckets" best bets.
| Game | Time (ET) | Pick |
|---|---|---|
  | 7:30 P.M. | Alyssa Thomas Over 18.5 Rebounds + Assists |
| 7:30 P.M. | Sun -6.5 |
Alyssa Thomas Over 18.5 Rebounds + Assists vs. Fever
7:30 P.M. ET ⋅ ESPN
By Joe Dellera
I think that the Connecticut Sun has probably some of the best tools that you could throw at Caitlin Clark. So it's like I hope she plays well, because it's going to make the game a little bit more exciting. And maybe if you do like her to score, maybe parlay it with the Fever to cover or the Fever on the money line, something like that, because I don't really see a scenario where they can do that if Caitlin doesn't put up like 20 points here.
So that's one thing as for Mabrey, and I do think that I would imagine that they would keep her in the starting lineup or move her into the starting lineup. I think that that is something that maybe they kind of stumbled upon that is going to be beneficial for them long-term. I think that it really helps with the spacing and something that I was hoping to see from them in the back half of the season. And she was still only playing maybe 20-ish, 22 minutes a game. So maybe we'll see her in the low 30's, which I think would be a dramatic improvement.
That's part of what ties me into the player prop that I like with Alyssa Thomas. Because I like Alyssa Thomas over 18.5 rebounds and assists. I liked her before the series started to lead the series in rebounds. She's one behind Aliyah Boston. So a lot of it has to do with that I that it's a bad matchup for Boston. But then also from an assist perspective, Alyssa Thomas had nine assists in the second half of Game 1 and I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the offense just opened up.
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Sun -6.5 vs. Fever
7:30 P.M. ET ⋅ ESPN
There have been a few different instances this year where the Connecticut Sun have had some of their top 10 scoring games this year against the Indiana Fever. Unfortunately, for the Fever, I think the points total were 88, 89, 92 and 93 and a couple of those still went under because they were blowouts. Now, I don't know if we're going to get the same type of blowout because the Sun just had 93 points. They also shot about 50 % from the field, 50 % from three with Marina Mabrey at 27 points off the bench. I don't know if that's going to happen again.
There are other elements that you can replicate, though, and Brianna Jones didn't really do anything from an offensive perspective. So that's something you could watch out for in this game. Conventional wisdom is kind of like, all right, maybe the Sun aren't as good offensively and maybe the Fever are a little bit better offensively where they scored not even 70 points.
Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell combined for, I think, 4-for-23 from three point range. I'm going to say that's probably not going to happen again, but we don't know. And Caitlin Clark shot 4-for-17, some of which were open shots. Don't know if it was just jitters or, you know, the defense, but then being surprised at being open and missing some shots or shouldn't happen.
It's basketball. And sometimes you make some, sometimes you miss some like it happens. There's a combination of things.
And then as it pertains to Aliyah Boston specifically. Now she's gotten this over twice this year now, if you include the playoffs, because she had a great Game 1. She was probably their best player on the floor, all things considered, which is shocking to me because it was like that front court defensively is really good, but it felt like the Connecticut Sun was kind of like, we don't want to let the guards beat us today.
This is kind of where to use an NBA comparison. It's kind of what the Denver Nuggets did with Bam in the NBA finals that one year where they were like, all right, knock yourself out, take all the mid-range jumpers you want. And he made them and nobody else around him kind of gave him that support. And it was kind of the same thing here where Aliyah Boston was getting to her shot.
And then on the flip side, when you look at Alyssa Thomas just walking into mid-range jumper after mid-range jumper, but then it's also like other people are hitting shots around her. DeWanna Bonner had
16 first-half points, for example, you know, we've mentioned Marina Maybrey already.
So Aliyah Boston has had, and I'm surprised that this line was 22.5, but it kind of has to be because of her performance in the first game. You look at how she's played this season against the Connecticut Sun, she's averaging basically 9.5 points and eight rebounds. She's only had one game of 10 points or more before this playoff game, right? And then with on the rebounding side, it's kind of similar before this playoff game, which I think is an outlier. I'm grading it as such.
She had eight rebounds or more than eight rebounds just once. So I'm probably looking at a regression there. Whereas maybe Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell and perhaps others play a little bit better. I'm not going to say a whole lot better because this Connecticut Sun defense is really, really good. But I think Aliyah Boston goes under along with the Sun taking care of business.
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