Indiana -5 with Fever for revenge as Sun orbit to Conseco Fieldhouse
By:"Reload" Joe Freda | reload.mysbrforum.com
The top two squads from the WNBA's East meet tonight in Indiana when the Fever put their nine-game home winning streak on the line vs. the Connecticut Sun.
The WNBA has a showdown between the Eastern Conference’s top two teams on Thursday night as the Connecticut Sun, winners of four of their last five games, visit the Indiana Fever who have won their last nine games at home. It is also a battle of the conference’s top two defenses as both teams have given up an average this season of only 71 points per game. Something has to give here, and this handicapper is going to lay the points with the Fever at home as they look to open up their lead in the standings over the Sun by another game heading into the August homestretch.
Connecticut and Indiana have met twice this season already with each winning on their home floors. Most notably, the Sun recently ended an 11-game winning streak that the Fever had the WNBA world talking about night after night. This victory came for them back on July 19 at the Mohegan Sun Arena and you can bet the Fever will look for revenge tonight after that. In that matchup, the Sun held the Fever to only 29% shooting and also outrebounded them as well. Since then, Connecticut have played two disappointing games at home with a less than stellar comeback victory over the lowly Sacramento Monarchs and getting lit up by the Phoenix Mercury in a loss on ESPN2 this past Tuesday. In some ways, it could mean that the Sun were not as up for those games against Western Conference opponents after getting such a big win against the East’s top team. But I see it as a lack of consistency and that will hurt them at the Conseco Fieldhouse tonight as a four game road trip begins for them that could easily have them on the losing end of all four contests.
Going into Tuesday’s game against Phoenix, we heard the announcers on ESPN2 talk repeatedly about how it was a matchup for the Sun that featured their top defense in the league and how they would challenge the fire power of the Mercury’s top offense. This handicapper saw right through that and knew that the defensive numbers of the Sun did not mean very much given the kinds of teams they had faced lately. The end result was a first-class tip to buzzer bitch-slap and had the Sun dropping from first to third in points allowed just from one game. I do not see the Sun able to get refocused enough tonight on the road and they could easily lose by more than the 15 point deficit suffered against Phoenix.
Since losing in Connecticut a week and a half ago, the Indiana Fever have won two out of three games with the only loss being in San Antonio on a weekday afternoon against the Silver Stars. You can easily draw a line through that defeat as those kinds of spots have a lot of variance to them for road teams. It was also an out of conference game sandwiched between a home and home pairing against the Washington Mystics - so the focus of the Fever could have clearly been off there. Washington has emerged this season as a playoff contender and sweeping the Mystic with wins in both games means a lot more to how the Fever stack up than the loss in San Antonio. I also feel that the Fever’s All-Star Game participants Katie Douglas, Tamika Catchings, and coach Lin Dunn could have been looking ahead to their arrival in Connecticut for the All-Star festivities at that time which is certainly understandable.
Speaking of those all stars, Catchings currently leads the Eastern Conference in steals per game averaging three and expect to see the Fever take advantage of turnovers by the Sun in tonight’s matchup. Indiana also outrebounded Connecticut 42-29 when the teams first played this season at the Conseco Fieldhouse and Fever center Tammy Sutton-Brown had the most rebounds of her season in that game with 14. I feel it is not surprising that happened since the Sun are generally outclassed in the center position most of the time they take the floor due to Sandrine Gruda and Chante Black showing their inexperience at times against marquee opponents. Sutton-Brown has faced all of the big legends in the game up the middle and has held her own when matched up against them. She even has more blocks than anyone else in the Eastern Conference this whole season and I look for some key ones from her in tonight’s game.
Douglas is also hitting midseason form for the Fever and just put in a season-high of 34 points in the Fever’s victory over Washington on Tuesday, as well as nine rebounds which were also a season high. She always gets fired up to play the Sun as she spent her share of seasons in Connecticut’s lineup and this will especially be the case tonight in a revenge spot.
In addition the Fever's bench includes rookie guard Briann January who is showing some promise with reaching double figures for the first time this season in their past two games. In Indiana's most recent matchup with the Sun, January quietly had three steals making it just as many as Fever starter Ebony Hoffman pulled off that night. With Tamika Whitmore still out for the Sun, they have had no effectiveness from the bench and that means an edge down the stretch for the Fever thanks to some potential from someone like January. It is only fitting that Whitmore wears number “00” as she continues to play in zero games lately, and that is not too far off from how many points the Sun’s bench tends to pitch in with each night.
Tonight’s point spread opened at Pinnacle Sports with the Fever being favored by 4.5 points and other books have opened the number higher at 5. When these two teams met in Indiana back on July 2, the line closed right at the same number. I feel tonight’s spread should have been a couple of points higher and we could still see it go up.
The Fever have played better and more consistent basketball than the Sun since that game, as well as have a revenge factor which in itself should have meant more in the spread here. While you may never get the best value when going against a team that just got blown out on ESPN2 like the Sun did on Tuesday, the fact that Indiana has gone 1-4 against the spread in their five most recent games will generally help keep the number down a bit in a case like that. Now is a good time to step in and lay the points with the Fever as they go for their 10th home win in a row while the bookies and public are still reflecting the Sun’s recent victories too much.