The point guard position in basketball can make or break a team’s offensive identity. It comes with finding balance in knowing when they need to find a teammate or to take the shot themselves. When it comes to the WNBA, that floor general role comes with a tall task that not every guard can do.

“I think it’s a combination of having humility but also having that self-confidence,” guard Lindsay Allen said. “It’s just about knowing when to inject yourself and knowing when to get the ball to those players and let them do their thing, when to feed them and when to get their confidence up and keep them going.”

The Chicago Sky’s starting lineup changed on June 16 for their second game against the Indiana Fever, bringing in Allen and Chennedy Carter to replace Dana Evans and Diamond DeShields respectively.

Since the switch, the Sky went .500 over 12 games and averaged 22.8 points in the opening frame. With Evans as the starting point guard, the Sky went 4-8 with an average of 18.4 points in the first quarter. 

Now, while much of the actual scoring comes from Carter’s explosiveness, it’s Allen’s ability to run the offense as a playmaker that has led to the Sky ‘punching first’ and not climbing out of deficits early — something the Sky have preached to be a part of their identity since training camp.

“I just try to play with pace, provide good energy,” Allen said. “Especially coming off the bench, it’s important to come off the bench ready to play and ready to go. I think when you start, you have a little bit more time to feel it out, but you still want to start strong and like we talk about punching first. For me, it’s the same mentality either way.”

The Sky have a +/- of +2.4 with Allen in the standard starting rotation of Chennedy Carter, Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso and now former guard Marina Mabrey. Even with bench contributors, the Sky’s +/- has stayed on the positive side with Allen as the point guard. Her assists nearly doubled from 2.3 to 4.4 per game along with doubling her assist ratio from 27% to 41.4%.

“She’s a leader. When you need that floor general, that one who steers the ship in the way the ship should be steered, she does that,” head coach Teresa Weatherspoon said. “She does it very well. Knows how to get everyone involved, knows when to inject herself. Those things are very important but she also starts everything for us on the defensive side of the ball as well. Leadership.”

The numbers prove it with Allen putting up some of her best career numbers defensively in Weatherspoon’s system. She’s hit career-high averages in steals (0.9) and blocks (0.2) and has her second best defensive rating of 95.3. Across the board, she’s putting up personal-best numbers as a member of the Chicago Sky compared to her prior 6 seasons with 4 different teams.

Heading into a very impactful and important Olympic break, this gives the Sky and Allen more practice time to help build that offensive identity heading into the second half of the season. There’s still kinks that need to be ironed out, but the best way to accomplish that is to practice and strengthen the chemistry if the Sky want to make a postseason push.

“I think we’re still trying to figure out our go-tos offensively, not in terms of players but in terms of plays we can run that’s good movement where everyone gets a touch, the ball moves, players move and how we can really manipulate the defense to get them to shift and move and not really key in on one specific player. We have talented scorers who can go get a bucket but it’s better for us over the long haul if we can get everybody touches and everybody moving in our offense,” Allen said.

The Sky’s first game back from the break will be Kahleah Copper’s homecoming when the Phoenix Mercury come to Wintrust Arena on August 15.