WNBA Heat Check: Atlanta Dream Are Scorching (8-2 Last 10)

Form is the story the standings tell slowly and the last ten games tell fast. Right now the fast version of WNBA is easy to summarize: Atlanta Dream are rolling, Toronto Tempo are reeling, and the gap between those two feelings is enormous.

Who's hot

Start with Atlanta Dream. They have won 8 of their last 10, and they have not been sneaking past anyone: the points margin over that stretch is +110, which breaks down to about 97.0 scored and 86.0 allowed per game. That is the arithmetic of a team winning on merit, not on bounces.

Indiana Fever are the closest thing to company at 8-2, with a +83 points margin that says the record is no fluke.

And do not sleep on Minnesota Lynx, quietly 8-2 across their last 10.

Some context helps: across every club in the sample, scoring sits at 86.7 points per game right now. Atlanta Dream are beating the league's own pace by 10.3 a game.

The deep freeze

Toronto Tempo are the cold front. They have gone 1-9 over their last 10, and the -138 margin underneath means the losses have not even been close, roughly 13.8 points a game the wrong way.

Connecticut Sun are not far behind on the misery index at 2-8.

The middle of the table is where the real congestion lives: Dallas Wings (5-5) and Las Vegas Aces (5-5) are separated by almost nothing, and one good weekend reshuffles the whole neighborhood.

The board

The top of the ledger, at a glance:

Worth remembering

Records fib a little and points margins fib less. When the two columns disagree about a team, trust the margin, it is the slower liar.