Four games left, and a seed to protect
The Indiana Fever land in Toronto on Friday night with 26 wins, 14 losses and one specific piece of business to finish. All eight playoff places are already settled. What is not settled is who opens the first round at home, a privilege reserved for the top four.
When the WNBA shut down on Aug. 31 for the FIBA Women’s World Cup, Indiana sat level with the Atlanta Dream in fourth. Four games remain to hold that line. The Fever have won their last two. The Tempo have lost their last four.
Try it for $0.99.
Toronto’s first year became an injury ledger
The expansion Tempo are 11-29 and sit 13th, eliminated weeks ago, and the explanation lives mostly in the medical room. Toronto confirmed on Wednesday that Marina Mabrey will miss the rest of the season with a right adductor injury. Surgery is not expected.
Mabrey was in the middle of the best season of her career: 20.8 points, 3.7 assists and 3.3 rebounds across 32 games. On June 25 she scored 53 points against the Los Angeles Sparks, equalling the WNBA single-game record. Her last appearance came on Aug. 18, when she put up 22 against these same Fever.
Brittney Sykes (foot) and Aneesah Morrow (knee) are also done for the year. That leaves rookie Kiki Rice, at 12.5 points per game, as the highest-scoring player Sandy Brondello can actually name on a teamsheet.
“I think we have learned a lot about ourselves, haven’t we?” the Tempo coach said. “We faced a lot of players getting opportunities to put their best foot forward, but we still want to come out and compete hard.”
Indiana have made this a comfortable trip
The two meetings so far this season both went to Indiana, and the Fever cleared 100 points in each. Toronto were closer to full strength on both occasions than they are now.
“We’ve got to finish strong,” Fever forward Myisha Hines-Allen said. “Coming out of the break, I think we’re playing really well. So just going into these next four games and knowing that the playoffs start a couple of days after that, so just taking the mindset of, ‘All right, we’re trying to win a championship.’”
Seeding is the whole argument for treating a game against a 13th-place team as anything other than a formality. Drop it, and Atlanta take the fourth spot and the home court that comes with it.
Discover the rest of our WNBA news on MathODDS!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply