The WNBA playoffs get underway tonight, which means it’s a great time to sit on your couch and watch basketball for four straight hours.

It’s also a great time to place some bets on the games. High-stakes hoops are always fun to watch — with something on the line, it’s only that much more exciting.

If you’re thinking about getting started on sports betting with one of the first-round games tonight, look no further. We’ve taken a look at the numbers to get you set for what to expect.

We’ll refresh you on some of the basics in our breakdown of the matchups below, but for more details on how basketball betting works in general, you can check out our primer.

No. 7 Dallas Wings at No. 6 Chicago Sky (8 p.m. ET, ESPN2)

Remember when the Sky signed Candace Parker and were thrown into the championship contender discussion?

Well, those hopes aren’t dashed, but finishing .500 and getting the exact same No. 6 seed as they did last season probably weren’t part of Chicago’s plans.

On the other side, Vickie Johnson, in her first year as head coach, managed to navigate her young Wings team through several ups and downs and into the playoffs for the first time since 2018.

In terms of the betting lines for this game, sportsbooks like the Sky. PointsBet has the spread set at Chicago -5, meaning that you can bet on the Sky to win by at least six or you can bet on the Wings to come within four (including winning).

So, which side should you take? Dallas won two of the three matchups with Chicago during the regular season, including one in which the Wings’ lead swelled to over 30 in the first half before a late Sky run.

But both teams have faltered since then. The Wings entered the break with a net rating (margin per 100 possessions) of 1.8, which was in the top half of the league. Since returning, that number has fallen to -5.9.

Chicago is in a similar boat. The Sky’s net rating dropped from 3.1 pre-break to -1.3 afterwards, and they have only covered the betting spread in three of their 12 games since the Olympics.

With neither team entering the playoffs on a high note, momentum should be a wash, so talent and experience could be what wins the day. The entire Dallas Wings roster has combined to play 164 career playoff minutes. The Sky have four players who have individually played significantly more than that, including Candace Parker, who has logged ten times that many playoff minutes.

The Dallas franchise is headed in the right direction, but this game is about the Sky exorcising their playoff demons from the last two seasons. Roll with Chicago -5.

PointsBet has the over/under for this matchup at 167, so you can bet on whether the teams will combine for more or fewer than 167 points. Each of the first two matchups between Dallas and Chicago flew by this number — 172 and 191, respectively — but the third fell short at just 156.

Historically, playoff games have tended to be a little slower than regular season ones, but shot-making has also slightly improved in the playoffs. And teams with at least three days of rest have taken advantage of those fresh legs and pushed the pace.

I expect the Sky to get back to their identity as an up-tempo scoring machine while a young Dallas squad tries to match their pace, so I’m taking the over in this one.

No. 8 New York Liberty at No. 5 Phoenix Mercury (10:00 p.m. ET, ESPN2)

Somehow, somehow, the New York Liberty are playing playoff basketball tonight.

Never mind that they spent Sunday afternoon hanging out in their living rooms with the rest of us, rooting for two different games to go their way. Never mind that they have the lowest net rating of any playoff team in WNBA history. Never mind that they won two games a season ago.

They’re here.

Tonight, the new kids on the block bring their unique brand of swag to the desert to take on a Mercury team that’s almost paradoxically boring. Phoenix has played in this round in each of the six seasons of the new WNBA playoff format, including four times as the No. 5 seed.

The opener Thursday night isn’t the only game with a massive disparity in playoff experience. While Liberty players collectively have played 829 playoff minutes, just a few more than Wings players, only 17 of those have come from someone other than Sami Whitcomb or Natasha Howard.

And that number dwarfs in comparison to the playoff court time Brittney Griner and Diana Taurasi have seen.

The other problem New York may face is keeping Griner out of the paint. The Liberty are perimeter-oriented by design — it’s how their five-out system set the WNBA record for 3-point rate this year.

But on defense, that means their thin front line can run into trouble on the interior at times. New York allowed the second-most shots in the restricted arc during the season and the most since the break.

Combine that with their league-worst turnover rate and the lowest rebounding rate among playoff teams and you have a recipe for an early exit. I’ll take Phoenix -9.5.

As far as the over/under of 165, it starts to get tough to predict. Among all of those obstacles the Liberty face, they should ride what got them here — the 3 ball. They have shooters all over the place, and they are capable of erupting at any moment.

If the Liberty squad that started the season 5-1 on better than 40 percent shooting from deep shows up, this game will easily pass the 170-point mark. But there’s also a version of this Liberty team that shoots 4-for-25 from beyond the arc, like they did in June against Chicago, or 7-for-25, like they did just nine days ago.

It’s because of that variance that I’d probably stay away from betting this total, but if I had to lean one way I’d go with the over due to Phoenix’s league-leading offense since the break and New York’s difficulties matching up on defense.

Calvin Wetzel is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports, covering basketball and betting. He also contributes to Her Hoop Stats and Bet Her. Follow him on Twitter at @cwetzel31.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.