Two WNBA matchups headline Saturday’s slate, and both home teams are poised to cash. Let’s break down the WNBA odds and find some smart bets today!
Los Angeles Sparks vs. New York Liberty
Saturday, July 26, 2025 – 7:00 PM EDT at Barclays Center
Assessing the Sparks’ Current Win Streak
A superficial bettor will look at the win streak that the Sparks are enjoying and find it tempting to invest in them as an underdog tonight. But there is a reason why oddsmakers still have the Liberty favored by eleven: a team’s strong stretch of play is not inherently meaningful or relevant.
For tonight’s game, the Sparks’ win streak is not meaningful because of who they’ve been beating. This streak is not relevant to tonight’s game, because the Liberty presents unique matchup difficulties.
Breaking Down the Streak
To explain, Los Angeles’ victories have come against Washington and Connecticut, and beating the Sun is particularly meaningless, as they are a 3-20 team.
While Washington is much better than Connecticut, the key thing is that the Mystics do not rely on shooting threes. By a large margin, they rank dead last in three-pointers attempted per game.
Perimeter Defense Matters
So, one concrete reason why the Sparks’ winning streak cannot interest bettors is that their perimeter defense has not been tested, so there is no reason to think that their perimeter defense has improved. On the season, they allow the second-most three-pointers made per game.
They just don’t have the personnel or the coaching staff to handle offenses that do a better job of shooting three-pointers than the likes of Washington and Connecticut.
For example, when they gave up 98 points to Seattle, the Storm accumulated 13 three-point makes, converting half of their attempts from deep.
New York’s Shooters
On offense, New York has the three-point shooting talent to continue to expose the Sparks’ vulnerable perimeter defense.
Obviously, Sabrina Ionescu is key here. The elite shooter who once faced off with Steph Curry in a three-point shooting contest is coming off a performance in which she scored 29 points while converting four of her eleven three-point attempts. She helps explain why the Liberty ranks number one in three-point attempts.
New York’s Rim Protection
But the Liberty aren’t a top-tier team only because of their shooting; relevant to this game, they are the second-best team at limiting opposing field goal efficiency within five feet of the basket.
Together, center Jonquel Jones and forward Breanna Stewart total nine All-Defensive Team selections. This lethal duo reliably stabilizes New York’s interior defense, which will limit a Los Angeles offense that is one of two teams to attempt more than 26 field goals within five feet of the basket.
New York will make the Sparks pay for relying so heavily on scoring in this space.
Sparks vs. Liberty Pick
The Sparks are who they are: they can maybe beat even decent teams if they match up well against them, but now they face a great team that poses a tough matchup for them.
New York is also playing well and is performing more impressively, having won five straight games, with each of its last three wins coming by 13 or more points. Most recently, the Liberty victimized a tough Phoenix team that ranks third in the standings.
With their strong three-point shooting and their stout interior defense, they will victimize the Sparks by an even greater margin.
Seattle Sparks vs. Washington Mystics
Saturday, July 26, 2025 – 7:30 PM EDT at CareFirst Arena
Will Seattle Get Revenge?
I see bettors assuming that the Storm will avenge their last game against Washington, where they lost by five points. But did, for example, the Storm even come close to beating Golden State on June 29 after Golden State beat them on June 14?
An assumption that Seattle will get revenge is unjustified, especially with the Storm playing on the road.
Value in Washington
No, let’s not outsmart ourselves with scintillating but baseless talk of revenge. The simple truth is that Washington is a home underdog tonight after it won by five points in Seattle, even though the Mystics could have played better.
It’s not like the Mystics performed magically well. They were actually unusually bad from behind the arc, making three of their fourteen three-point attempts.
The Mystics are underdogs at home because this is a team that you will often find betting value in. Before the season, people generally expected them to be much lower in the standings than they are.
Washington’s Matchup Edge
Seattle doesn’t have the inside scoring to punish Washington’s defense like the Sparks just proved to have and like other teams that rely extensively on scoring within five feet of the basket proved to have when they faced Washington.
The Storm prefer to score in the mid-range spaces that the Mystics defend well and, on defense, prove vulnerable to Washington’s well-rounded offensive attack that can exploit the weaknesses that Seattle generally shows against teams that, like Washington, rely extensively on scoring inside the arc.
*21+ Seek help with a gambling addiction at 1-800-GAMBLER
*The line and/or odds referenced in this article might have changed since the content was published. For the latest information on line movements, visit OddsTrader’s free betting odds tool.
