For basketball heads everywhere, the WNBA playoffs are an out-of-body experience.
The WNBA playoffs are here. This is when regular season records mean nothing, and wins mean everything. It’s buzzer beaters, emphatically blocked shots, “what did I just see?” moments and scoring so good you’ll need a pulse check.
For basketball heads everywhere, this is an out-of-body experience. The level of play is elevated, and so are the expectations.
Will the Lynx fly too close to the Sun? (See what I did there?) Will the Liberty crush the Aces’ chances of winning back-to-back titles?
The WNBA playoffs are more exciting than ever because of their new format
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What’s good, family? It’s Sykes, once again, delivering another edition of Layup Lines into your inbox. Today, let’s talk about the Chicago Sky.
The WNBA’s defending champions find themselves in a precarious situation. They’re down 1-0 to the New York Liberty after losing Game 1 on their home floor.
Nobody can really blame them — Sabrina Ionescu was absolutely brilliant. Marine Johannes’ passing is still sending shockwaves through the basketball world. Nobody expected them to play as perfectly as they did down the stretch, but it happens. Sometimes, you lose a game you’re supposed to win. That’s what happened with the Sky.
In a best-of-3 series? That’s normally OK. You’ve still got two games to make it up. But the Sky are going to have a tough time doing that now. Why? Because of the W’s new playoff format.
Everyone lauded the league for going away from single elimination games in round 1 and getting rid of the bye-week. Ultimately, it means more games. More games mean more chaos — more drama. And that’s a good thing.
Just look at the situation the Sky is in right now. They’ve essentially lost homecourt advantage.
Under the new rules, the first two games are played at the higher seed’s court. The lower seed gets the final third game in the series. The Sky will have to beat the Liberty on the road in order to advance and defend their title — that’s if they can beat them at home.
That’s a tough road to take for the champs. Can they do it? Absolutely. They’re the champs. They’ve got Kahleah Copper (We think?????) and Candace Parker. They can do anything.
But will they? We’ll see.
That’s the drama everyone loves. That’s the intrigue that brings eyes to the table. And the more eyes on these games, the better. Because it’s great basketball.
Buckle in, everyone. We’re in for a wild ride.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Bronny James’ recruitment is, apparently, underway. Obviously, dude has already pulled offers from places like North Carolina A&T and UNC Central, but he was never going there.
Now, it’s getting serious. Penny Hardaway and Memphis are reportedly sending an offer his way. Our Bryan Kalbrosky wrote about how this is just the start to what will almost certainly be a chaotic process.
“In addition to Oregon and Memphis, there are several other schools with reported interest in landing a commitment from Bronny. On3 reports that USC has offered Bronny a scholarship as well.
But now that there is apparently an offer letter extended to the four-star recruit, expect several other high-major universities to get involved and do the same. The madness has officially begun.”
We’ll have to keep it locked on this one. No idea where Bronny is going, but teams will no doubt be pulling out all the stops to get him. We’ll see how it ends.
Shootaround
(Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
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Game 1 of the WNBA Playoffs between the New York Liberty and Chicago Sky was a stunner.
The reigning 2021 WNBA champions — the Sky — fell to the Liberty 98-91 off the back of Sabrina Ionescu and Natasha Howard scoring 22 points each. Not to be outdone, however, was Marine Johannes, who made an absolutely ridiculous solo effort play in the fourth quarter.
With the Sky up 91-85, Johannes started the Liberty’s rally off of this brilliant no-look backwards pass to Howard for the easy up and in. It’s a truly spectacular solo effort here from Johannes, who trusts Howard to be in the right place at the right time for the grab and score.
In the end, the Liberty were able to hold the Sky scoreless for over three minutes as they battled back to win Game 1. What a gusty play from Johannes and what a win for New York!
