Three games Tuesday night, and all three carry genuine intrigue. The Dream and Wings are the headliner — two 1-0 teams meeting in Dallas with the first real test of what this Atlanta roster looks like on the road. The Lynx head to Phoenix needing something after dropping a heartbreaker to open the season. And the Liberty travel to Portland on a mission to make a statement after New York's near-miss double-overtime win over Washington in their opener.

Atlanta Dream @ Dallas Wings | 8:00pm ET | Peachtree TV, KFAA

Both teams opened 1-0 in ways that demand attention. Atlanta beat Minnesota 91-90 in a one-possession game on Saturday — Allisha Gray carried the offensive load with 24 points, eight rebounds, and two steals, while Rhyne Howard contributed 15 points, six rebounds, five assists, and three steals. It was exactly the kind of performance that reminds you why this team's championship odds kept shortening all offseason. Dallas, meanwhile, did something even louder — they went to Indianapolis and beat the Fever 107-104 in a game that featured Arike Ogunbowale's 22 points and Paige Bueckers' 20, with Caitlin Clark's potential tying three-pointer coming up short at the buzzer.

Tuesday gives us these two 1-0 teams at College Park Center, and the matchup is genuinely difficult to read. Dallas plays fast — head coach Jose Fernandez is building an up-tempo system around the spacing and shooting that Ogunbowale, Bueckers, and Azzi Fudd can generate — and the Wings have already shown they can outscore a contender on the road. The question Tuesday is whether they can do it at home, against an Atlanta defense that was the second-best defensive unit in the league last season and remains built around Howard and Gray's ability to disrupt perimeter actions.

Angel Reese went 1-for-4 from the floor in the opening win, but her 13 rebounds and defensive presence in the win over Minnesota demonstrated that her impact registers well beyond the box score. Atlanta's offensive rating last season was second in the league under Karl Smesko, and the Dream's spacing is designed to free up exactly the kind of cutter and mid-range opportunities that Dallas tends to surrender. The Wings allowed 88 points per game defensively in 2025 — worst in the league — and nothing in their opener suggested that number is about to improve dramatically.

Dallas wins if Ogunbowale sustains the form she showed in Indianapolis, Bueckers continues operating as a primary creator with the poise she's shown through two games, and the College Park Center crowd gives this young team the energy to beat a contender in consecutive games. The Wings are explosive enough to win any game — Saturday proved it.

Atlanta wins if Howard and Gray reproduce Saturday's defensive performance and limit Ogunbowale's efficiency enough to force Dallas into a volume-shooting game, Reese dominates the glass again and generates second-chance opportunities, and the Dream's depth advantage wears down a Wings rotation that is still being defined under a new coaching staff.

Prediction: Atlanta -1.5, O/U 181.0. The spread is razor thin, which reflects how close the market views this game — and for good reason. Dallas earned its 1-0 record. But Atlanta is the more complete team, with a defensive system that has not yet been challenged the way Dallas's will be on Tuesday. Computer models back the Dream at 77% win probability — a significant lean on a game the market is treating as nearly a coin flip. Dream cover.

Minnesota Lynx @ Phoenix Mercury | 10:00pm ET | League Pass

Minnesota's season opener was a difficult watch. The Lynx trailed Atlanta by double digits before Olivia Miles and Kayla McBride brought them back to within one, only to come up short in the final possession. The near-comeback showed something real about what this group can be even without Napheesa Collier — Miles looked poised beyond her rookie standing, and McBride gave Minnesota exactly the perimeter shooting it needs to stay competitive. But the Lynx still couldn't close, and Tuesday in Phoenix is a tough follow-up.

The bigger picture for Minnesota is managing a stretch of games without their best player. Collier, who averaged 22.9 points per game last season and finished as runner-up for MVP, is recovering from ankle surgery and is not expected back until sometime in June. That means the Lynx could be without her for potentially the first 15 to 20 games of the season — a significant deficit for a team that was built around her two-way dominance. Minnesota needs to find wins before she returns, not just survive. Every road loss in this stretch is a hole the Lynx will have to dig out of once Collier is healthy and the roster becomes the team it was projected to be.

The Mercury are riding a wave. Phoenix upset the defending champion Las Vegas Aces on Saturday, snapping a 16-game Aces winning streak, with Kahleah Copper and Alyssa Thomas combining to carry the offense and the defense making Wilson's life difficult enough to change the game's trajectory. Then on Sunday, the Valkyries handed the Mercury a 95-79 loss in Golden State, which complicates the momentum narrative somewhat — but Phoenix remains a team with real confidence from Saturday's win and the home court advantage that Footprint Center provides, especially early in the season.

Minnesota without Collier is a team that needs points from multiple sources to keep its halfcourt offense functional, and Phoenix's defensive scheme — built around Thomas's positioning and the ability to take away primary ball-handlers — is designed to make exactly that difficult. McBride has to shoot efficiently for the Lynx to have a legitimate chance. Miles needs a cleaner game than her opener, where she showed instincts but also the expected rookie moments of hesitation against WNBA-level athletes playing at full speed.

Minnesota wins if McBride gets hot from the perimeter early enough to loosen Phoenix's defensive shell, Miles runs the offense crisply and avoids the turnover-prone stretches that hurt the Lynx in the final minutes against Atlanta, and the Lynx's defensive identity — still formidable even without Collier — limits Copper's ability to create in transition.

Phoenix wins if Thomas controls the paint on both ends and makes Minnesota's offense work through secondary options, Copper builds on her Saturday performance with another high-efficiency scoring night, and the Footprint Center crowd gives Phoenix the home-game energy that could define its early-season identity.

Prediction: Phoenix -3.5, O/U 167.5. Minnesota is competitive without Collier, but asking the Lynx to close out a road game in Phoenix — in a hostile building, against a team that just beat the defending champions — is too much right now. Computer models agree, projecting Phoenix at roughly 65% win probability despite the modest spread. The Mercury's home opener should deliver the result the line suggests. Mercury cover.

New York Liberty @ Portland Fire | 10:00pm ET | Local Broadcasters

New York needed overtime — and then some — to put away Washington on Sunday, escaping with a 98-93 double-overtime win that exposed some of the defensive communication gaps you'd expect from a team still learning a new system under Chris DeMarco. Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones were excellent. Satou Sabally showed flashes of the versatile, physically imposing wing the Liberty signed her to be. But Sabrina Ionescu remains out with an ankle injury, and the Liberty's offense looks meaningfully different without her ability to create advantages off the dribble and draw defensive attention that opens the court for everyone else.

Portland is 0-2. The Fire lost their home opener to Chicago 83-98 on Saturday, and while the deficit was narrower than it looked — Portland competed for a half — the talent gap between an expansion team in its first week and a championship contender is real. Bridget Carleton, the veteran anchor of this roster, gives Portland a capable perimeter scorer who plays within the team's structure. The rest of the rotation is still finding itself, with head coach Nadia Sidiakova managing the developmental process in real time. Tuesday's game at Moda Center is the Fire's third in five days, and the fatigue variable is worth noting.

The storyline worth watching is how the Liberty respond to Sunday's near-stumble. Championship-caliber rosters use a close call against a weaker opponent as a calibration tool — they find what wasn't working, fix it in practice, and come out sharper. DeMarco is a first-year head coach dealing with all the early-season variables simultaneously, but this roster's talent is deep enough to cover for a lot of system-building inefficiency. A road blowout in Portland would be a clean response.

Portland wins if the home crowd — still energized by the novelty of WNBA basketball in the Pacific Northwest — keeps this game close through the first half and the fatigue differential that has built up over Portland's five-game stretch is less real than it looks, and Carleton has one of those veteran nights that makes a more talented opponent work harder than expected.

New York wins if Stewart and Jones re-establish the dominant frontcourt presence that was intermittent against Washington, the defensive rotations that broke down in overtime tighten up against a Portland offense that is still developing, and the Liberty treat Tuesday as the kind of corrective performance that championship teams use to reset after an unexpectedly difficult game.

Prediction: New York -13.5, O/U 172.5. The spread is large, but the Liberty are the right team to be laying double digits against an expansion team coming off back-to-back losses and playing its third game in five days. Computer models project New York at approximately 87% win probability — the most lopsided of the Tuesday slate. New York's talent advantage should be evident from the first quarter. Liberty cover.

Dream-Wings is the game. Two 1-0 teams, a legitimate spread argument in both directions, and a matchup that gives us our clearest read yet on whether Dallas's opening-night win over Indiana was a statement or a surprise. Phoenix-Minnesota tells us whether the Lynx can find consistency without Collier against a team with real defensive capability. And New York heads to Portland with something to prove after Sunday's overtime escape — the Liberty's response to adversity is one of the more interesting early-season storylines in the league.