2020 WNBA Finals preview: Seattle vs. Vegas for bubble supremacy

 

Photo courtesy of Getty Images-2020 NBAE

Matthew Roberson | @mroberson22

The Seattle Storm, a juggernaut that completed an 18-4 regular season before sweeping Minnesota in three games, can add their name to the list of greatest teams ever with a win in the upcoming 2020 WNBA Finals. A championship would be the team’s second in three years, with the only interruption coming in 2019 when injuries held Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird to a combined zero minutes played. Squaring off against the Las Vegas Aces and MVP A’ja Wilson, the Storm face a formidable challenge if they want to leave the bubble with the franchise’s fourth trophy.

This Storm team hopes to become the fifth to win two championships in a three-year span, joining the Houston Comets (1997-2000), Los Angeles Sparks (2001-02), Phoenix Mercury (2007, 2009), and Minnesota Lynx, who won every other year from 2011 to 2017. Standing in their way is the only team to beat them twice this season, an Aces squad who led the league in points per game, rebound percentage, and assist to turnover ratio during the regular season. Vegas matched the Storm’s 18-4 record and were also the only team within shouting distance of Seattle in both offensive and defensive rating. The Storm outscored opponents by a tyrannical 15.0 points per 100 possession, with their Finals foe taking the silver medal at 10.0.

Both Seattle and Las Vegas enter the Finals without a key piece of their bench. Storm guard Sami Whitcomb has left the bubble and will miss the entire series as she travels to Australia to be with her wife for the birth of their first child. The Aces are without forward Dearica Hamby, who just won Sixth Woman of the Year for the second consecutive season. Despite serving a reserve role, Hamby played the second most minutes per game of anyone on the Las Vegas roster. The 6’3” forward was also the Aces’ third-leading scorer in the regular season and leader in field goal percentage. She has been out with a knee injury since Game 3 of the semifinal series against Connecticut, though, and head coach Bill Laimbeer said he does not expect her to return.

Already without two of their big-ticket names – superstar center Liz Cambage opted out before the season due to COVID concerns, while former No. 1 overall pick Kelsey Plum has missed all of 2020 with an Achilles tear – the Hamby injury means Vegas is relying heavily on five players as they head into the Finals with the deck stacked against them.

Wilson has carried the load throughout her MVP season and will continue to do so in this showdown with the Storm. She’s averaged a staggering 21.8 points on 51.9% shooting in five playoff games, adding in 10.4 rebounds and three blocks a game for good measure. In the decisive Game 5 against Connecticut, she lived up to her MVP billing and then some, finishing the biggest game of her life with 23 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, and three blocks while playing every second of the game.

Angel McCoughtry, the team’s best and only legitimate three-point threat with Hamby out of action, is the difference between Vegas being a good offensive team and a great one. Her 20 points to close out Connecticut included a pair of three pointers, two of just three the Aces made all night, as her 45.5 percent clip from deep is a much-needed complement to Wilson’s inside game. Her team is 6-1 across the regular season and playoffs when McCoughtry records at least 20 points, which includes arguably the most clutch performance of the entire 2020 campaign. Facing elimination in Game 4 of the semifinals, McCoughtry went off for 29 points on 13-of-22 shooting in a reminder that Wilson is not the only offensive threat wearing red and black. Assuming Stewart and Natasha Howard share the responsibility of guarding Wilson in the post, Seattle’s defensive maven Alysha Clark will be tasked with containing McCoughtry in a matchup that could very well decide the series.  

Backcourt mates Danielle Robinson and Kayla McBride, both three-time All-Stars, are important parts of the Aces’ attack as well. Robinson has increased her scoring average from the regular season to the playoffs while McBride has struggled a bit. Both players are shooting below 40 percent from the field during the postseason and missing badly from the three-point line. While neither were lights out to begin with, McBride’s 34.2 percent hit rate has plummeted to an ugly 14.3 in the playoffs, as she’s connected on just two of her 14 attempts from beyond the arc. Robinson, the always fascinating ballhandler that doesn’t shoot the three, has taken just four treys during the playoffs. It will be interesting to see if she is more aggressive when matched up with Bird, the Hall of Famer whose defense has slipped with age, or Jordin Canada, the better defender of Seattle’s point guard duo who lacks the experience of her 39-year-old teammate. Losing Whitcomb will sting here too, as the sparkplug of Seattle’s bench is usually a blur of constant motion and annoyance for opposing guards.

The real x factor in this series though, and a player who may be asked to do more in response to Vegas’ lack of depth, is Jackie Young. The first pick in the 2019 draft made a miniature leap this year, going from 6.6 points per game on just 32.2 percent shooting as a rookie to a much more respectable 11 points and 49.2 as a WNBA sophomore. Her game log is wildly inconsistent – two games with 20 points, two games with zero points, a 1-for-10 evening not far removed from an 8-for-11 masterpiece – and she’s shrunk into a non-factor during the last two playoff games. Laimbeer elected to play Young for just over nine minutes in both Games 4 and 5 against the Sun, getting two combined points and zero made field goals in return. Young’s tough go in the playoffs is certainly not from a lack of talent, though. Will we see the version of Young that Laimbeer trusted during the regular season, or the one who was held scoreless in the fourth quarters of Games 2-5 of the Connecticut series?

Photo courtesy of Getty Images-2020 NBAE

For Seattle, Whitcomb’s absence and its trickle-down effects will be one of the biggest storylines of the series. Coach Gary Kloppenburg has two options: give 11-year veteran Epiphanny Prince more minutes or shorten the rotation and lean heavier on Canada. Prince has extensive playoff experience from her time with Chicago and New York, but that was several years ago, and Canada’s vibrant playmaking abilities outweigh Prince’s savviness. Some of the team’s best lineups this year featured Canada too, albeit in relatively small samples.

When Canada shared the floor with Clark, Howard, Jewell Loyd, and backup center Mercedes Russell, the Storm had a preposterous 51.0 net rating, though they played just 28 minutes together. In 155 minutes playing alongside the starters (Clark, Howard, Loyd, and Stewart), Canada helped Seattle post a 2.4 net rating. While not as eye-popping as some of the other lineups, this figure is encouraging both because of the larger sample size, which creates familiarity and stability, but also because of the likelihood that his group will run together in the Finals.

Sue Bird has been in and out of the lineup all year with knee ailments and has been candid about the fact that she’s in the fourth quarter of her career. Playoff Sue is a different animal entirely, but with the bumps and bruises accumulated this season and a backup as proven as Canada, the Storm don’t need her on the court the way they have in years past. The numbers support the idea of Canada as a more than solid fill-in with the starters, and Seattle also shined in the small amount of time she played with Clark, Howard, Stewart, and Ezi Magbegor, the rookie standout in the post. This super-sized, defensive-minded lineup could potentially be utilized in the Finals as well, particularly if Howard gets into foul trouble against Wilson or if Kloppenburg wants to throw as many defenders at the MVP as possible.

Of course, a huge percentage of the “what if” game becomes moot if Breanna Stewart dominates the way she is capable of. Stewart was swallowed by Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier during stretches of the teams’ semifinal bout, and Wilson is a step up in terms of skill level. Still, Stewie has been incredible during each of her runs to the Finals, putting up stats that make it clear why she’s the greatest women’s basketball player in the universe.

That 2020 three-point percentage is worth keeping an eye on. Stewart has consistently taken about four and a half threes per game since entering the league, and her 4.7 tries during the playoffs remain right in line with that even as the percentage sinks. If she continues chucking to no avail in the Finals though, that creates one less outside threat for the Storm, who will already be without their best pure shooter in Whitcomb. Losing her touch from deep also theoretically pushes Stewart back into the post, where she can be unstoppable, but also where she was recently seen getting bullied by the aforementioned Napheesa Collier.

Napheesa Collier's 3 blocks on Breanna Stewart pic.twitter.com/sxjTzrzQAY

— Stu Motown #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) September 23, 2020

As is often the case with modern basketball, the three-point line will be a strong flavor in this lively stew. The Storm were the WNBA’s second-best three-point shooting team in 2020, and they’re jacking even more often during the playoffs, but their overall team percentage has taken a hit. Along with Stewart’s woes, Alysha Clark’s three-point percentage has crashed from 52.2 percent in the regular season to a pedestrian 37.5. Thankfully, Loyd’s has gone the opposite direction. Seattle’s shooting guard flipped a 39 percent regular season mark to an impressive 53.3 in the postseason.

No playoff team relies on the deep ball less than Vegas, who is taking just 10 threes per postseason game. The next closest team on the list checks in at 18. As long as three is more than two, the Storm’s let it fly mentality still holds a mathematical trump card, just so long as they actually go in. With Hamby out, the Aces take a big loss in post defense, which plays right into the hands of Stewart, Howard, and Magbegor. Seattle’s style of play may not include much post-oriented offense though unless their outside shooting is missing the mark, at which point it may be too late to catch up with two-pointers. Stewart, Loyd, and Clark’s three-point shooting in the early going will likely dictate how the Storm structure their offensive approach for the series, but if they can all get hot for the next week or so, Seattle looks to have too much firepower for the depleted Aces to withstand.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images-2020 NBAE

No matter what unfolds in this best-of-five series, the WNBA can hang its hat on the fact that they completed a season with hardly any mishaps. The league will crown a champion from a series pitting the two best teams the bubble had to offer, after a season in which the league continued to use its platform to lead the way on social justice causes, setting the unquestioned standard across American sports.

The league and its fans should be thrilled with this final act to a season many thought was destined to fail. The 2020 MVP takes on the 2018 MVP, neither of whom are older than 26. Three players from the league’s All-Defensive teams, five first overall picks, and 33 combined All-Star appearances litter Seattle and Las Vegas’ active rosters. A win for Seattle takes their ironclad standing as one of the premiere WNBA organizations and cases it in gold. A win for Las Vegas would be the first for a franchise born in Utah during the ‘90s, raised in San Antonio for 15 years, and now firmly entrenched in the desert for years to come. For McBride, a player who crawled through the mud with this team when they were the laughingstock of the league, memories of the losing in San Antonio linger as constant motivation.

“In the back of my mind, I'm always remembering we started at the bottom,” McBride told ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel. “I'm so thankful for Vegas and this organization, because they've created something really special."

But if you ask Bird, the most seasoned player in the Finals by far, the focus is completely on the now.

“I feel like you can get caught up sometimes in thinking about the past,” Bird explained to Voepel. “We really haven't done that. This is this team's year, this team's journey. And it won't matter if we don't finish the job anyway."

Whether the job finishes with a ring for Las Vegas – a franchise that’s cycled through multiple cities and several turns on the Ferris wheel of success, or Seattle, a pillar of the league aiming for yet another confetti celebration – the WNBA gets to close out the 2020 season with an ideal Finals matchup.