Sky-Fever Preview
The Chicago Sky have been unbeatable at home in 2019. It's on the road where they are still searching for a victory.
Winning at home, however, has not been easy for the Indiana Fever of late.
A third consecutive overall victory would give the Sky that first road win and hand the Fever their third straight home defeat Saturday night.
Chicago (3-2) won three in a row just once last season, that coming over the final three games of June. However, the Sky can accomplish that feat a little earlier in 2019 following impressive home victories over Seattle on Sunday and 82-75 against Phoenix -- during which they went 12 of 23 from 3-point range -- on Tuesday.
"We want to be a team that's hard to play against," first-year coach and general manager James Wade told the Sky's official website. "We want to be known as a winning team."
If Chicago really wants to be considered that kind of team, they'll need to find some success on the road. The Sky have won their three home games by a combined 18 points, but lost at Minnesota and Washington by 18 each.
The good news, perhaps, for Chicago is that it's won three straight games at Indiana. The most recent came 115-106 in a wild double-overtime affair on Aug. 18. Diamond DeShields (15.4 points per game), who had 25 points versus Phoenix, and Courtney Vandersloot (9.8 ppg, 8.4 assists per game), who added 17 with eight assists against the Mercury, each scored 24 for the Sky in that win at Indiana.
Chicago should have even more confidence knowing the Fever (4-3) lost to both Phoenix and Seattle in their last two home games, although only by a combined nine points.
Indiana played its first four games of June at home before Thursday's 76-72 victory at winless Dallas. Veteran Candice Dupree had 20 points and Kelsey Mitchell (15.7 ppg) added 18 as the Fever shot 42.2 percent and used a strong third-quarter effort to help top the injury-riddled but pesky Wings.
Dupree, 14 of 25 from the floor in the last two games, matched a season high for points Thursday.
"I am comfortable having the ball in my hands and I only take shots I know I can make," said Dupree, averaging 12.3 points in her 14th WNBA season, told the Fever's official website.
The ex-Sky forward totaled 52 points in the last two games against her former team in 2018.
Chicago's Katie Lou Samuelson, the fourth overall pick in this year's draft, is slated to miss about three weeks with a wrist injury. Samuelson is averaging 2.3 points over three games.
