WNBA Pick: Detroit Shock vs. Connecticut

Written by Alleks

Thursday, 26 June 2008

VS.

Detroit Shock vs. Connecticut

The Connecticut Sun went more than three years between regular-season victories over the Detroit Shock. Now they have a chance to make it two wins in three days against the defending Eastern Conference champions. The Sun look to complete a home-and-home sweep of the Shock on Thursday as the East's top teams meet at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The rivals entered Tuesday's matchup tied in the standings, but they had been anything but equals in head-to-head play in recent years. Detroit (10-4) won nine straight games against Connecticut in the regular season dating to June 18, 2005, and the Shock also won a playoff series over the Sun in 2006 en route to their second WNBA title.They won all four meetings with Connecticut by five points or fewer last year, when the Sun finished 18-16 after winning 26 games in each of the previous two seasons.The Sun, however, have the WNBA's best record this year at 11-3, and they finally beat Detroit on Tuesday by dominating the fourth quarter of an 85-68 win.

Prediction

I watched first game in Connecticut and my position is as follows: Connecticut won with confidence by the help of referees and numerous mistakes from Detroit. Let's back to the game. Detroit leads 16-8 after 4:44 in 1 qt but than suddenly starts to make turnovers, miss 2-feets shots, allow Whalen to score 3 pointers from 7.5 metres, don't rebound after free throws, Sun hits another 3 pointer and oopps...Shock is shocked: 16:22 after first quarter. Episode 2: Shock found its rhytm 33:34 and 1 minute to play in 2nd quarter. Ford get fouled but referees don't whistle foul she jumps on the referee and gets technical foul. Result? 33-40 HT. Episode 3: Shock cut 12-points deficit to -5 with 6 minutes left to play in 4th quarter.. and referees gives technical foul to Shock bench.. Connecticut makes another run and Shock stopped to fight.. -17 points loss, with 8 turnovers only.. The main resons why Shock lost in Connecticut are: 15 allowed offensive rebounds, bad defence against Sun centers and powerforwards, lost discipline and referees decisions.

Not these teams will play in Detroit where Shock are 5-0 this season and 7-1 against Connecticut in last 3 WNBA seasons. Also this game is crucial for Detroit because if they will lose it they will lose season series and will help Connecticut to build 3-wins lead in Eastern Conference. Detroit can win this game by fixing some problems on defensive end and increasing they agressive play on offense. Also I doubt that referees will be on Sun side again today and after 17-points loss Shock should have a revenge mentality and if they have I see no problem for them to win this game.

Public goes with Connecticut because of their 8 wins in last 10 games and 5-1 ATS but I can't follow these trends in such situation. It's a must win game for Detroit and I think that their chances to win by 5 points and more are more than 50%.

Prediction: Detroit 83 - 76 Connecticut

Pick: Detroit (-4) @ 1.71 Bet365.com

Other WNBA picks with lower confidence:

Chicago vs. Pnoenix: Under 175.5 @ 1.95 Pinnacle

Houston vs. San Antonio Over 140.5 @ 1.87 Pinnacle

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