WNBA Heat Check, Atlanta Dream 9-1 in Their Last 10

Ten games is not a season, but it is a mood, and moods decide a lot of games. The current mood around WNBA: Atlanta Dream keep winning, Toronto Tempo keep losing, and everybody else lives somewhere in the weather between.

The warm end of the table

Start with Atlanta Dream. They have won 9 of their last 10, and they have not been sneaking past anyone: the points margin over that stretch is +156, which breaks down to about 95.7 scored and 80.1 allowed per game. That is the arithmetic of a team winning on merit, not on bounces.

Right behind them sit Las Vegas Aces, 8-2 over the same kind of stretch and +126 on points margin, quieter, but pointed the same direction.

Washington Mystics (8-2) round out the warm end of the ledger.

Some context helps: across every club in the sample, scoring sits at 85.8 points per game right now. Atlanta Dream are beating the league's own pace by 9.9 a game.

The cold end

Then there is Toronto Tempo. A 1-9 stretch is ugly on its own; pair it with a -163 points margin and it stops looking like bad luck. They are being outscored by about 16.3 points a game, and no scheduling quirk explains that away.

They have company at the cold end: Connecticut Sun, 2-8 over the same window.

In between the extremes it gets crowded, New York Liberty at 6-4 and Minnesota Lynx at 6-4 are basically sharing a seat, and the next series either way will split them.

The board

Here is the warm half of the form table, last ten games for every club:

One more thing

One reading tip before you go: points margin travels better than record. A fat margin with a modest record usually means the wins are coming; the reverse usually means they are not.

Next up on the slate: Atlanta Dream against Washington Mystics. Check back after that one goes final.