The board did the August 22 thing again
Four days ago the five biggest Edge Gaps on the WNBA board all failed the matchup gate, we dropped four, and the drops saved us twice. Tonight is a rerun with a different lead: the two largest gaps on the board are both Kelsey Plum overs — +33 and +32 on the raw numbers — and both point directly into Washington's 2nd-ranked guard defense. Hit-rate history still doesn't know who's guarding you tonight.
But we're not treating the gate as infallible, because it isn't: its season-long drop record is 4 saves, 2 bad drops — good, not gospel. So one Plum leg publishes under the flagged-conflict rule — one per card, labelled, smallest — and the card treats it as what it is: a controlled experiment on our own rule, with an 88% season window on one side and the league's second-best guard defense on the other. Whatever happens, we learn something and it goes in the ledger.
Injuries are the slate tonight
Every game carries a flag, and the cascade matters more than the headline: Diggins out guts Chicago's shot creation (and quietly helps the CHI@CON Under more than any stat); Griner and Nelson-Ododa day-to-day could push Connecticut playmaking toward Saniya Rivers — the one named risk on our cleanest leg; Suarez out and Whitcomb questionable for Phoenix pushes minutes toward Mack and usage toward Plum, which cuts FOR the Plum test and mildly AGAINST the Mack Under. We priced all of it leg by leg rather than pretending the report was clean.