Stephen Nover

Don't look at the season ERA's of these two starting pitchers. Just know that Hunter Greene and Chris Sale are in excellent current form.

Greene didn't allow a hit in six innings against the Cubs during his last start this past Friday. Greene is one of the top strikeout pitchers in baseball with 80 K's in 56 innings. Greene will have closer Alexis Diaz available after Diaz was held out of Wednesday night's game.

Sale has given up just eight earned runs in his last five starts spanning 32 1/3 innings. He's allowed only three runs during his last three home starts spanning 20 1/3 innings.

Minnesota has the worst record in the WNBA at 0-5. The Lynx are desperate for a victory. But to achieve that, they'll have to play much better defense than they have during their last three games when they surrendered 90 or more points.

I can see the Lynx doing that against the revamped Sun, who are second-from-the-bottom in both field goal percentage and free throw percentage. Minnesota has played Las Vegas and Dallas, the two top scoring teams, during two of its last three games. Now the Lynx are stepping down in offensive class.

Minnesota is not a fast tempo team. The Lynx's Cheryl Reeve is one of the better coaches in the league and she is stressing defense in this game.

The Suns might be the third-best team in the WNBA behind Las Vegas and New York because of their defense. Connecticut ranks third in fewest points allowed per game and is No. 1 in 3-point defense. The Sun have gone Under in eight of their last nine (89 percent) road games.

The Heat are the first play-in team to ever make the NBA Championship Series. But they need more time to rest and recuperate after upsetting the Celtics on the road this past Monday in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

Even if they had ample time to prepare, though, I don't see the Heat staying within double-digits of the home Nuggets in Thursday's Game 1.

The Nuggets have been idle since May 22. They've won six in a row and are 42-7 at home this season, including 8-0 in the playoffs.

If the Heat thought Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were a load, wait until they encounter Nikola Jokic and James Murray. Jokic is the best player in the NBA and Murray had a series for the ages in Denver's four-game sweep of the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. Murray led all scorers in that series averaging 32.5 points while shooting 52.7 percent from the floor, hitting 40.5 percent of his 37 3-point attempts and sinking 19-of-20 free throws.

The Nuggets outrebounded the Lakers and they surely will out-rebound the undersized Heat.