WNBA Player News

Back in the lineup after a knee injury sidelined her for Friday’s win over the Mercury, Collier looked like her usual self in Minnesota’s Commissioner’s Cup opener. The MVP candidate recorded a double-double and a complete stat line, shooting just under 50 percent from the field. Collier has recorded complete stat lines in five straight games and double-doubles in three straight. She’ll look to continue this run of excellence on Tuesday when the 7-0 Lynx host the Mercury in another Commissioner’s Cup matchup.

One night removed from scoring 27 points in a loss to the Fever, Bueckers will sit out the second game of Dallas’ back-to-back. According to the team, she’s dealing with a right knee injury. With DiJonai Carrington (ribs) unlikely to be available, Dallas will be down multiple rotation guards against the Mystics. Kaila Charles and JJ Quinerly will likely play heavy minutes out of necessity.

After a less aggressive first half, Cloud upped her energy in the second half, scoring 10 of her 14 points and dishing out five of her seven total assists in the two final quarters. After multiple games of hesitant play, Cloud got downhill much more against the Mercury. Cloud played well in the two-person game with Breanna Stewart, finding Stewart on the move especially during Stewart’s breakout quarter in the third. Cloud still continues to take inefficient shots in the mid-range, something that without shooters in Leonie Fiebich and Jonquel Jones on the floor for New York becomes more of a glaring issue.

After a less involved game against the Valkyries on Wednesday, Sabally bounced back and set a new career scoring high on Friday night with 16 points. She was incredibly efficient, only missing one shot during her minutes of play. She also hauled down the most rebounds for the Liberty with six. Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello instructed Sabally specifically before the game to just post-up strong to create an advantage against the Mercury. Most of Sabally’s work was done in the paint excluding one 14-foot fadeaway jumper that she made with 6:33 left in the third quarter.

Whitcomb continues to provide a scoring punch and secondary facilitation off the bench in addition to hitting three-pointers at a high clip this season, bringing her season percentage to 35.6%. Friday night’s performance was the fourth time in a row Whitcomb hit at least four three pointers in a game. Whitcomb also helped the Mercury keep the ball moving on Friday night, as she found Satou Sabally for one of her seven threes in addition to two field goals from Kitija Laksa.

Stewart played well individually offensively, but struggled defensively, especially when it came to containing Alyssa Thomas on drives to the basket. She had a monster 10-point third quarter that got the Liberty back into the game with 4:34 left in the third quarter. She scored 14 of her 17 points in the paint making more than half of her shots driving and cutting. On Friday night Stewart reached 21st on the WNBA’s All-Time field goals made list (1,967), passing the legendary Lindsay Whalen.

Thomas was one rebound shy of a triple-double but notched her fifth double-double of the season. This was the 27th time Thomas has put up a points-assists double-double in her career. Thomas accounted for 92.3 percent of all of the Mercury’s points in the third quarter with 3:53 left. She especially took advantage of the fact that Jonquel Jones wasn’t on the floor for the Liberty on Friday night, and was able to penetrate through the Liberty’s point of attack defense often to get to the paint and then to the rim.

Sabally had her second-most efficient game of the season against the Liberty on Friday night. She hit seven threes, tying her career high and became the third player this season to make at least seven threes in a game. Sabally has eclipsed 20 points on nine occasions this season, which is tied for second in the entire WNBA. Sabally scored nine of her 25 points in the third quarter to break open the game for good even though the Liberty brought the deficit down to single-digits with 4:34 left in the third.

James was patient getting her scoring opportunities. She probed the defense and waited for her moments to drive right into the paint. She was the most efficient scorer on her team on Friday night, hitting 55.6 % of her shots. She hit one pivotal three-pointer during the Wings’ 13-5 run in the first half of the fourth quarter. Paige Bueckers found her in the left corner pocket with no other defender around. James’ minutes have gone up exponentially ever since June 13 when players around the league left in the middle of the season to compete in the EuroBasket Championships. Expect her minutes to stabilize by the time they play the Mercury at home on July 3.

Nurse logged arguably her best offensive performance of the year against Golden State. In 27 minutes, she set season-highs in points, three-point makes, rebounds, and assists. And as a result, she finished as one of the Sky’s top scorers on the evening. Nurse’s first season with Chicago has yielded mixed results and inconsistent play, but the veteran guard still flashes the high level of three-point shooting that has become her calling. The Sky would benefit from continued offensive production from Nurse on Sunday against the Sparks.

Ogunbowale was her most effective in the third quarter when she played the entire quarter and shot 3-for-5 from the field. She got downhill and used her speed to score right at the rim alongside one 16 footer that while it wasn’t an efficient shot, it went down anyway. That’s par for the course with Ogunbowale. But in the fourth quarter, however, when the Wings were on a 13-5 run Ogunbowale was on the bench. When she re-entered, the Wings deficit ballooned and she took very inefficient, difficult and off-balanced shots.