RBD breaks down Indiana vs Los Angeles with a sharp betting angle tied to back-to-back scheduling trends and early-season handicapping models.
Indiana Fever at Los Angeles Sparks
WNBA Pick and Analysis
On Tuesday morning I was like a truffle pig snorting around in the soil for mushrooms.
I was digging deep into some numbers and found something very interesting.
It began as a search for a WNBA stat.
According to my Mark Your Calendar notes from my weekly review article on Monday, May 11, I pointed out four teams who will be playing in B2B’s on Sunday.
Two of them were playing each other, Toronto and Atlanta. This made me want to go back to last year’s schedule and see if I can find any B2B’s where both teams play the night before.
And if so, what were the results.
There was only one.
On July 5th LA and Indiana were both in the Game Two spot.
The total was 163.
The game landed on 176, an Over by 13 points.
So I found what I was looking for, more reasons to take Toronto and Atlanta Over on Sunday.
BUT – then I noticed a mistake.
When I mark my calendar with reminders of back-to-back spots, I use the weekly schedule.
I look at the current day’s games and then look at the date above it to see if any teams played the night before.
I saw Toronto and Atlanta playing on Sunday, and I saw both teams played on the game above Sunday’s date.
The problem is the date above it was Friday.
The WNBA had no games scheduled on Saturday.
So the games mentioned in my last article are not B2B spots.
There were two B2B’s scheduled in the first THREE days of the season.
Over the next SIX weeks there are only four of them.
And that’s with two more teams added to the schedules this season!
Is there anything about this league that’s not amateurish and screwed up???
But my truffle hunt wasn’t in vain.
Since there was only one WNBA game to look at from last season I had a thought – what happened in the NBA when both teams played the night before?
It takes a LOT of time ‘capping this particular angle, so I figured I’d just look for the first five incidents, using the first day of the season as my starting point.
I was working on the theory that legs that are tired from playing the night before find it difficult to play at a fast pace, and can’t get back up court and play tough defense, too.
I expected to find an edge on Overs.
I was wrong.
The first five spots I saw ALL stayed Under the posted total.
Might be an anomaly, right?
I decided to look for one more.
And found another spot. And it also stayed Under.
The Under was now 6-0.
And making this truffle I dug up even tastier is this – they stayed Under by an average of 11.5 points.
That’s a perfect 6-0 edge with a double digit advantage!!!
The last game I charted was November 22nd, Washington/Chicago.
Guess what my handicapping homework is going to be for the rest of the week.
I’ve covered about 1/3 of last year’s schedule.
With a data sample of six games it means I’ll likely end up with somewhere around 18 games that qualify.
What good does this situational play do me now?
It has no immediate value as teams don’t play B2B’s in the postseason.
But one of the things that separates winning bettors from losing bettors is winners make notes for future use.
And at the start of the next NBA regular season, I’ll look back on notes made from this season and I’ll see the Ov/Un record of games when both teams play the night before. And I’ll use it to my advantage.
Tonight’s Pick
Today, WF2 says LA should be the Favorite over the Caitlin’s.
WF2 is 0-2 on Hm teams.
Both teams are 0-1 SU to start the season.
Indy lost at Hm to Dallas by three points.
LA got slaughtered at home by Vegas, losing by 27 points.
Without a lot of 2026 data to look at I decided to check last year’s H2H (Head-to-Head) meetings.
But first, to see if last year’s games have any relevance, I needed to look at lineup changes between last year’s teams and this year’s.
The Sparks had a major change, adding Nneka Ogwumike. That’s a big plus for them.
Indy pretty much stayed the same, player-wise, but did make a big change – they finally dumped head coach Christie Sides (a closeted Clark hater.)
Sides sucked at managing her players and game situations. The change was way overdue.
New HC Stephanie White returns to Indy where she coached in 2015 and 2016, including one WNBA finals appearance. Just two years ago she won the WNBA Coach of the Year Award, as coach of the Connecticut Sun.
H2H the Sparks took three or four last season, including both games at Hm in LA.
But, and it’s a big but, Caitlin Clark didn’t play in any of the four games. That’s not just a big but, that’s a Lizzo-size butt.
Last season as Rd Favs Indiana was 6-6 ATS, but they were 8-4 SU and the Caitlin’s can be bought for a pretty cheap price tonight at just -1′, meaning they only need to win SU by two points. And the line opened at Indiana -2′, which means some LA money is coming in.
I’ll take the Clarks but I’ll wait a little bit to see if I can get that hook off so I only need to win SU.
My play:
Indiana (wait to buy)
Recap: 2-0
Record: 2-2
Review:
Waiting to buy Minnesota was the right move as the line went from +4′ when I wrote the article in the morning to as high as +5′ by tip off.
It didn’t matter though, the Lynx won SU.
My other play was NY/Port Ov 173′.
Again, I made a good move by buying it early as it closed at 175.
And again it didn’t matter as they combined for 194, easily surpassing the number I got by 20 points.
