The Valkyries took Game 1 of the WNBA Finals in dramatic fashion, and they have a chance to take a 2-0 series lead and move to 5-0 against the Dream this season. Below, I explain why I expect the defenses to play well, why that’s good for the Dream and why I don't expect either team to run away with this game. Here are the best WNBA picks for Game 2 of the WNBA Finals.
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Monday’s Best WNBA Picks & Predictions
(Odds provided by FanDuel Sportsbook)
Atlanta Dream at Golden State Valkyries
Game 1 was brutal for the offenses and excellent for the defenses, as both teams shot below 35% from the field. The Dream made just four of their 25 three-pointers, while the Valkyries were just 7-of-33 from deep.
Combining for just 132 points may seem like a fluke, but I think that score is a sign of things to come in this series. While the Dream were the third-highest-scoring team in the league in the regular season, the Valkyries were the second-lowest-scoring team.
Even if the Dream speed up the Valkyries a bit, that likely won't lead to much offensive success for Atlanta. The Valkyries led the league in scoring defense during the regular season, and in the postseason, against the league’s best teams, they’re allowing only 2.5 more points per game.
This postseason, the Valkyries and Dream are the top two defensive teams, holding opponents to fewer than 81 points per game. Opponents are making just 41.2% of their shots against the Valkyries and 41.8% against the Dream. And though the teams played in one high-scoring regular-season game, they combined for 153 or fewer points in their other two meetings. With the pressure of the WNBA Finals impacting all shooters, I expect this game to finish with a total in the low 140s.
Though I don't think either offense will perform all that well, I believe that the Dream have more potential to improve over their Game 1 performance. This is a team that led for nearly 80% of Game 1 and simply struggled to knock down shots in the final two minutes.
The Dream are 0-4 against the Valkyries this season, but the Dream's lack of reliance on three-pointers gives them an advantage. The Valkyries are allowing an average of only seven three-pointers per game in the postseason, down from eight per game in the regular season. Atlanta averaged nine threes per game during the regular season and has had a lot of postseason success, despite averaging just 8.5 threes per game.
The reason I highlight this is that the Dream shot very poorly from the field in Game 1, and I expect them to choose higher-percentage shots over threes, especially against what is undoubtedly the best three-point shooting team in the league. Meanwhile, the Valkyries are likely to struggle offensively again, as they finished the regular season with the league’s worst field-goal percentage.
For my final bet, I'm backing a pretty random prop: Will either team be winning at the end of every quarter? Game 1 was a great back-and-forth contest that featured seven lead changes, and with the defenses being the story of this series, I expect another low-scoring, highly competitive game.
In Game 1, the Dream led at the end of the first and third quarters; the teams were tied at halftime; and the Valkyries led at the end of the game. With these results in mind, I'm pretty shocked that the price for this is only -130.
Picks: Under 152.5 Points (-110), Dream +2.5 (-108) & Winning at the End of Every Quarter: Any Other Result (-130)
Phil Wood is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Phil, check out his archive and follow him @Phil_Wood_Jr.