Unrivaled: Led by Napheesa Collier, will Lunar Owls ever lose?

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Friday’s pair of Unrivaled games were not close. Lunar Owls defeated Phantom 94-76, and Rose defeated the Mist 71-63.

The Lunar Owls are now 7-0 and, far and away, the best team in this inaugural season. Rose is beginning to establish, now just one game under .500.

Lunar Owls soar to 7-0

Lunar Owls wasted no time controlling the tempo and pace of this game against Phantom. After a Napheesa Collier 3-pointer, they jumped to an 11-7 lead. Sabrina Ionescu and Brittney Griner continued being a productive duo for Phantom, closing the gap down to just one-point with two minutes left in the first.

However, Lunar Owls were a combination of good and lucky during the closing minutes. Shakira Austin scored the last four points for her team, including a buzzer-beating tip in to enter the second up 32-26.

In the second quarter, Satou Sabally and Katie Lou Samuelson both became a bit more active offensively, and Phantom started building momentum. Sabally cleaned up the glass, and after a Samuelson bucket, the lead was back down to four. Phantom then ended the half with Griner and Natasha Cloud scoring back-to-back baskets and were down by just one point at the break.

In the third, the tides changed permanently in Lunar Owls’ favor. They went on a 13-0 run and led 77-60. During this stretch, Skyla Diggins-Smith found her groove and scored eight points. Leading 83-68 entering the fourth, only an epic collapse by Lunar Owls could flip this result. No such event occurred, and they added a seventh W to their win column.

Allisha Gray led the team in scoring with 23 points on 7-for-12 shooting, and Collier scored 20 points and grabbed six boards. For Phantom, Griner was their player of the game, scoring 23 points along with her five rebounds.

Reese, Rose blossom against Mist

In the second game of this doubleheader, Rose got their win thanks to a very efficient 15 points from Azurá Stevens. She went 6-for-9 from the field and scored the game-clinching basket over her Los Angeles Sparks teammate Rickea Jackson. Kahleah Copper was the team’s leading scorer with 21 points, and Angel Reese was queen of the boards with 12 rebounds.

In the defeat, Jackson led the way with 17 points, but the team’s 3-point shooting was awful. They went 1-for-10 from deep. A team can’t shoot that poorly from 3-point range and expect to win any games.

This contest was one of the best Reese has had. She was so dominant inside during the opening minutes, cleaning up the glass and putting the ball back in the rim. Midway through the first, she had Rose up 10-4. They were up 23-14 against Mist at the end of the quarter.

DiJonai Carrington tried to get Mist’s scoring going to start the second period. Aaliyah Edwards then had a nice basket at the 1:54 mark. Free throws by Breanna Stewart and Jackson then kept Mist’s deficit under 10 points by the end of the half.

But similar to Phantom in the previous game matchup, Mist had a scoring drought in the third that eliminated their chances for victory. Rose went on a 7-0 run and was back up by 13. A single-digit run might not seem like much, but considering these are seven-minute quarters and the fourth is based on the winning score, this type of drought really backs a team into a corner.

Rose was ahead 60-47 in the fourth quarter and played just good enough to win. Mist were far better in this frame, but with a huge lead, Rose was able to close things out with some breathing room down the stretch.

Next up

On Saturday evening, Laces and Vinyl return to the court (6 p.m. ET, TruTV), with both clubs riding multi-game losing streaks. Laces will hope to see Alyssa Thomas return to the lineup, with “The Engine” reinvigorating a team that was seeming to run out of gas in their second-straight loss last Saturday.

Vinyl will need strong scoring games from both Arike Ogunbowle and Rhyne Howard, in addition to continued strong play from Dearica Hamby, to avoid a five-game skid.

Then, Mist and Lunar Owls meet in a rematch of the league’s opener (7 p.m. ET, TruTV), pitting the clubs captained by co-founders Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier against each other. As has been evident, Collier has the superior club, and it would be surprising if the result of this game contradicts that. Especially if Mist continues to struggle to shoot the 3. It is impossible to imagine them becoming the first club to defeat Owls, the league’s highest-scoring and best-shooting team, without an incredibly hot shooting night.