We’ve arrived at the midway point of the Unrivaled regular season. It’s time to acknowledge how Angel Reese and The Rose Club are blooming at just the right time. These ladies have been riding high on an incredible 5-game winning streak. On this current winning streak they handed the best team in the league, the Lunar Owls, their first loss of the entire season. The leap that the Rose have made here recently can be accredited to two individuals, Chelsea Gray and Angel Reese. In that huge 72 to 63 upset win over the Lunar Owls, Gray and Reese combined for 48 points coupled by Angel’s 13 rebounds. From inside the arc they were automatic as they shot a spectacular 49.1 % from the field. During their other victories along this 5 game winning streak, Angel Reese’s domination of the boards has separated Rose from the rest of the competition. In 4 of those 5 victories, Angel has totaled double-digit boards. Her constant activity on the glass will play a crucial role in this team’s potential to win it all. They’re trending in the right direction as a unit, especially on the offensive end. Their points per game as a team has risen to the 3rd best in the league as of late and I only expect it to get better since they’re not shooting a ton of contested or rushed shots anymore. If they do want to keep adding onto this winning streak, they must continue to take care of the ball. 8.7 turnovers per game is their season average, which is entirely too much, especially when you’re a team trying to compete for a championship in this league. This is a key facet of their offensive game that they must continue to try and get under control if they want to leave Unrivaled as champions.
Laces Starting to Unravel
Unlike the Rose Basketball Club, the Laces are a team that are not trending in the right direction. In their last 5 outings, they’ve left in defeat 4 times. Of those 4 losses, 3 of them were by double digits, which draws quite the concern for them going forward. Since week 4, they’ve been struggling to score. Over this past weekend, they put up one of the worst scoring performances as a team throughout the whole competition. Against the Mist they only managed to score 49 points as a team and they gave up 65. They ended the game shooting 33.33% from the field on quality looks, but just couldn’t get them to fall. Previously before that matchup against the Mist, they had an even worse lackluster showing, but this time on the defensive side of the ball. Granted this game was against the best team in the entire league, the Lunar Owls, but that still doesn’t excuse how they surrendered 88 points, which is the second most points allowed by a team this year. We can’t ignore the fact that the Laces have been plagued with injuries. Kate Martin, Tiffany Hayes, and Jackie Young have all missed the last 3 games. This is extremely detrimental to their offensive production because they all average close to double-digits per game. Once they get healthy again, I do believe they can avoid skidding any further.
Lunar Owls Undefeated No More
One of the more intriguing storylines from this regular season was, who is going to beat the Lunar Owls and when will it happen? That question was finally answered on Saturday when the Rose finally accomplished what had seemed impossible. Rose was able to hold the red-hot Lunar Owls to 21.4% from behind the arc. They even limited the leading scorer in the league, Napheesa Collier, just to 16 points. Both teams hit the same number of 3’s with 3, but the difference in the game was the great disparity on the glass and amount of turnovers forced. Rose out-rebounded the Lunar Owls 40 to 26, primarily thanks to the rebounding machine that is Angel Reese. It was quite surprising that Rose were able to win even though they committed 15 turnovers as a team, but they were able to turnover the Lunar Owls 10 times, which is 4 more than they average on the year. The Rose might’ve given the other teams within Unrivaled the blueprint to beating the Lunar Owls. You must out-rebound them on the offensive and defensive boards, limit their 3-point opportunities, and hold Collier under 20. I still think that this was just a bad night for the Lunar Owls because I honestly don’t see Collier scoring under 20 again, especially in the playoffs.