Sharp Bets for Round 1 of WNBA Playoffs: 2 Bets for Sky-Liberty & Sun-Wings – How Will Tied Series End?

The first round of the WNBA playoffs is coming to a close and we have two important Game 3 matchups to look forward to on Tuesday and Wednesday night. We’ll break down our recommended bets for both, the odds for which came from OddsJam. 

Chicago Sky vs. New York Liberty Pick: Sky -7.5 | -104 at FanDuel

9 p.m. ET

On Tuesday night, the 2-seed Chicago Sky and the 7-seed New York Liberty will battle it out in New York for the chance to move on to the second round of the WNBA playoffs. While the Liberty were able to steal Game 1 behind a big fourth quarter, they were absolutely crushed in Game 2, losing by a WNBA-record 38 points to the Sky.

Game 3 will be the first to take place in New York, but after the way Game 2 played out, confidence in the Liberty to close out the series at home is fairly low. 

While this series being pushed to three games is obviously not ideal for the Sky — and not what they likely expected going into this series — Game 2 was far more indicative of the talent difference between these two teams.

Game 1 was closely matched throughout, but the Liberty were never truly in Game 2 as they were down 21 points by the end of the first quarter. While we’re not expecting a second historic blowout, we do expect the Sky to punch their ticket to the second round of the playoffs.

They’re the more skilled team and they’ve shown that both in the regular season and their brief time in the playoffs thus far. We’ll be taking the Sky -7.5, available for -104 at FanDuel. 

While we’ll be taking the Sky at -7.5, we would recommend line shopping on OddsJam, as different books may have preferable odds for greater or lesser point differentials. They may also have better odds on Sky -7.5 as we get closer to the game.

Connecticut Sun vs. Dallas Wings Pick: Over 164.5 | -110 at FanDuel

9 p.m. ET

On Wednesday night, the final first-round game of the WNBA playoffs will occur between the 3-seed Connecticut Sun and 6-seed Dallas Wings.

Much like the series between the Sky and Liberty, this series has included one large blowout in favor of the higher seed (a 25-point victory in Game 1 by the Sun), as well as a relatively close win in favor of the lower seed (a 10-point victory by the Wings, despite a 13-point fourth-quarter collapse).

It would be easy to say that Game 1 is most indicative of who both of these teams are, as that game aligns the most with both of their records and what they’ve shown throughout the season. But Game 2 has to be acknowledged — in the first quarter, the Sun scored only 7 points, and in the fourth, the Wings scored only 13. Both of these teams have shown that they can be very feast or famine in these playoffs, as they each also had a 30+ point quarter in Game 2. 

In the playoffs thus far, the combined score of Game 1 was 161 points, and the combined score of Game 2 was 168 points. With that in mind, oddsmakers have set the main line for the over/under for Game 3 at 164.5 points.

We’ll be taking the over, as even with the slow start by the Sun and the late collapse by the Wings, they were able to exceed this total. With both teams showing that they have the offensive firepower for 30+ point quarters, Game 3 should be a high-scoring one.

We’ll be taking Over 164.5 Total Points Scored, available for -110 at FanDuel. As with our bet in the Sky/Liberty matchup, we do always recommend line shopping with OddsJam to find the best lines available at a wide variety of sportsbooks before locking in your bets.