Sky vs Liberty Betting Preview: Liberty Look To Finally Take Down Sky
New York is Peaking as It Aims To Cover Against Chicago
Liberty Largely Favored Against Sky For Third Time
The New York Liberty are on a roll. Following two impressive victories, including a 38-point beatdown of Las Vegas, New York is now favored to blow out Chicago at home. Remember that the Sky are 2-0 against the Liberty this season (both as underdogs). The Sky vs Liberty betting preview shows two teams with hot offenses ready to light up Brooklyn.
Chicago Sky (12-16) vs New York Liberty (22-6)
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Sky Making Gains Thanks to Offense
The Chicago Sky are a playoff team if they keep it steady for the remainder of the season. The team is 4-4 with a positive net rating (0.4) since the All-Star break. The reason? More efficient offense. Chicago’s offensive rating (109.2) is fourth in the WNBA during this span, and its effective field goal rate (52%) is third.
Kahlea Cooper has been lights out from the field. She’s averaged 24.4 points with shooting splits of 49.6/44.2/90.2. She even torched Las Vegas to the tune of 37 points on 12-of-18 shooting in a losing cause. But how long can she maintain these WNBA stats?
Chicago is 8-3 when she’s shooting better than her season average of 46.1%. Two of these losses are against Las Vegas and Connecticut, two of the top three teams in the WNBA standings. Cooper can’t do it all by herself. She’ll need support from the team, namely the bench.
The Sky’s bench is a sore spot for the team. Even Cooper got triggered when a reporter asked her a question regarding the second unit’s lack of production.
“What they gotta do? What they do last game? That’s a real question?” Cooper replied rhetorically during the press conference. “You for real?”
Chicago’s bench was outscored 18-12 in the loss to the Lynx. In the previous game, a win over Dallas, the bench put up 33 points. The latter is unsustainable, as the unit averages 18.3 points. It is second-last in the WNBA with a plus-minus of -1.4.
Against New York, a team Chicago has beaten three out of the last four meetings, Cooper will need all the help she can get.
New York, the New Number One Team?
New York’s blowout win over Las Vegas was an exclamation mark to its post-All-Star surge. The team is 8-2 since the break, leads the NBA in net rating (10.5), and is second in every category on offense. The team is also doing this with Breanna Stewart struggling.
The 2018 MVP is still putting up 21.9 points but shooting just 42.5% from the field. Fortunately, the team has been able to work around it. Courtney Vandersloot led the team in a win over the Sparks. And three other players scored in double digits as New York beat the Lynx.
“We just proved to ourselves what we’re able to do,” Ionescu told the Associated Press about the team’s recent record. “We’ve set the level of how we need to play every single game in order to be at our best … we’re not sitting here jumping for joy that we beat them. It’s just a wake-up call of how good we can actually be, and that’s the standard of New York basketball.”
As the Sky vs Liberty betting preview, the team has solid WNBA odds to finally snap its betting skid against the visitors. New York scored just 82 and 77 points going 1-1 and 0-2 ATS in its previous two meetings. The Sky’s defense has been subpar since the break. And New York has held opponents to under 70 points in its last three games.
The Liberty are favored by 12.5 and a heavy -750 on the moneyline. The total is set at 168 flat.
Given their recent form, the Liberty should cover the double-digit spread. Either that or this Sky vs Liberty betting preview will feature another upset.
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