Chicago Sky vs Connecticut Sun Point Spread Picks

Connecticut is 9-27 and getting outscored by 8.0 points per game this season, so I'm not pretending this is a hidden-quality team. But Chicago isn't the team to hang a big number on either. I had the total in the Sky's game two nights ago, and it cashed comfortably as Indiana ran them off the floor, 113-90, the same offensive funk that shows up whenever Chicago runs into a team capable of guarding them. The Sky's defense is legitimately good, second-best in the league in points allowed, but that identity comes with an offense that ranks 13th, and a 13th-ranked offense on the road doesn't reliably put a bad team away by a wide margin. Connecticut's rough stretch has mostly come against the top of the standings, not a defense-first club that struggles to score itself. Getting a comfortable cushion of points against a team built like that feels generous. Connecticut is the right side on the spread tonight.

Chicago needed 31 points from Sydney Taylor just to fall by one to New York Tuesday, a 95-94 loss that came with the Sky already down Skylar Diggins for the year and DiJonai Carrington banged up enough to be day-to-day. Connecticut isn't playing well either, dropping its third straight road game in a 92-84 loss at Washington, but the margin matters: that's an eight-point game against a good team, not the kind of number that suggests real separation between these two clubs. I won't pretend Connecticut's season has been anything but rough, a 2-10 mark in conference play that says plenty about how far off this roster is. But Chicago is the one absorbing real losses to its rotation right now, not just to form, and a thinned-out Sky team that barely survived Tuesday's finish shouldn't be favored by this much. Connecticut has kept its recent losses to manageable margins rather than getting run off the floor, and that pattern is the more useful signal tonight than either team's record. Take the Sun on the spread tonight. 

The Chicago Sky dropped a 1-point road game in Dallas last night, survived a fourth quarter that nearly came apart on them, and now travel to Connecticut without a day off. That schedule spot matters when the opponent is a Connecticut team that hasn't played since Thursday — two full days of recovery the Sky won't have. Chicago is 4-11, and the Sun are 2-15, but this line reflects the record alone without accounting for the situation. Connecticut has enough at home to be live: Brittney Griner forces any road team to account for her presence in the paint, and the Sun put up 97 points against Toronto's defense four days ago. The offense isn't dead. Chicago can't close road games — consecutive 1-point losses tell the same story — and tonight they arrive in Connecticut fatigued after a cross-country back-to-back. At this price, the Sun needs to win roughly four times in ten to show a profit, and against a road team running on fumes with a history of late-game collapses, that's a realistic bar. Go with Connecticut tonight.

The Chicago Sky opened the season looking like a different organization — a defensive-first identity that held opponents to 38.1 percent from the field, best in the WNBA. That version of the Sky is gone. After jumping out to a 3-1 start, Chicago has lost five straight, the most recent a blowup at Washington that wasn't particularly close. The defensive cohesion that made them look like contenders has evaporated, and nothing in the offense has picked up the slack. The Connecticut Sun are 2-9 and not a good team — no case to be made otherwise. But they just won on the road against Los Angeles, and the market is pricing this like there's a meaningful talent gap between these two clubs. Right now, there isn't. At these odds, the Sun needs to win this game roughly three times out of ten to show a profit. Given how badly Chicago has collapsed, that’s not a hard bar to clear. Back Connecticut on the moneyline. 

Connecticut has won five of nine, with the offense averaging 81.2 points. The defense, however, is still a problem, ranked 10th in points given up (85.9 per game) and last in shooting allowed (46.49%). They come off losses to Minnesota and Atlanta, surrendering 94 and 93 points. Connecticut is on a 10-8 run OVER the total. Chicago is 11th in the 13-team league in points given up (86 per game) and 10th in shooting allowed (44.86%). These teams met three weeks ago in a 94-84 Connecticut win that sailed OVER by 20 points. Play Connecticut/Chicago OVER the total.