The final game before the WNBA All-Star break happens Wednesday night as the Indiana Fever and prized rookie sensation Caitlin Clark head south for a battle against the Dallas Wings and star player Arike Ogunbowale.
Indiana had a slow start to the season, losing nine of their first 12 games. Since then, the Fever have won eight of their last 13 games to bring their record to 11-14, good enough for third place in the Eastern Conference.
Dallas has been trending in the opposite direction. The Wings are 5-19, and the team has lost six of their previous seven games. Dallas is currently in last place in the Western Conference and the entire WNBA.
Will Dallas begin their resurrection into playoff contention in their final game before the WNBA All-Star break, or will Indiana continue its surge? We’ll cover that and our top three bets for the Fever at Wings matchup Wednesday night as well as our best bet for the contest.
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Clark has brought a lot of eyeballs to the WNBA as the league has consistently shown vast improvements in TV audience viewership since her arrival this summer.
The former Iowa star has not disappointed, averaging 16.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 7.8 assists this season. While she continues to up her scoring averages, Clark has also been finding open teammates more frequently.
The No. 1 overall draft pick has recorded double figure assist totals in six of her past eight games. Expect the trend to continue tonight as Clark covers this player prop bet.
With two top 10 picks in the 2024 WNBA Draft, Dallas looked primed to make noise immediately. However, top pick Jacy Sheldon has been pedestrian in limited minutes while Carla Leite – a French athlete – has yet to play this season.
Much of the production on offense has relied on Arike Ogunbowale for much of the season. The former Notre Dame athlete leads the team in scoring (22.2 points), assists (5.1), and steals (2.7) at the midway point of the season.
Only once in the past 10 games has Ogunbowale scored more than 23 points, and that was the team’s close loss to Phoenix two weeks ago. Expect that the 5-foot-8 guard will continue that trajectory and score less than 23 points against the Fever.
Although much of the focus in Indiana is on Clark, another overall No. 1 selection – forward Aliyah Boston – is quietly producing a solid season. Boston is averaging 13.7 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game this season.
The 6-foot-5 forward has eight double-figure rebounding totals in eight of the team’s last 13 games, cleaning up the glass on both ends of the floor.
Against the Wings, expect Boston to continue rolling along and easily cover this player prop bet.
Ironically, this is the first matchup these two teams have had despite the WNBA having only 11 other teams for each squad to face. During its current winning streak, the Fever are primarily winning games by single-digit margins, but every win has been beyond five points since June 7.
Dallas is trending in the wrong direction. Outside of their two wins since May 31, the losing margins for the Wings have by double figures in all but three games.
Expect the Wings to continue their trend and lose by at least five points to the visiting Fever on Wednesday.