Sky notebook: Guard Ariel Atkins shooting more aggressively, just like team envisioned when trading for her

Ariel Atkins wasn’t just some random offseason pickup for the Sky. They traded away the No. 3 overall pick to get her from the Mystics.

They brought in Atkins to shoot — a lot — and when she scored 21 points against the Mercury on 7 of 15 shooting Tuesday, that was a big step in the right direction. Atkins, who entered the game Thursday against the visiting Wings as the team’s leading scorer (12.3 points per game) and leading three-point shooter (43.9%) scored 17 points on 7 of 14 shooting in the Sky’s 97-92 victory.

“The shots are going to fall some nights, and some nights not, but . . . we want her to have that aggressive mindset,” coach Tyler Marsh said before the game. “We’re a more potent offensive team when she is, and then others are able to play off of her. That’s who we knew we were trading for.

“She’s acclimating really well, and the more comfortable she gets within our system and our flow, the more she’ll find her fit and be aggressive in those areas.”

Atkins, a two-time All-Star guard who has been selected to the first or second all-defensive team five times, was always ready to fire away when she played for the Mystics and took 12.4 shots per game for them last season.

She eased into her role with the Sky, though. She totaled just 28 points on 20 shots over her first three games before breaking loose in Phoenix.

“I was having a hard time figuring out how we were going to do things,” Atkins said. “We were learning what each other likes to do.”

Van Lith returns

Sky first-round pick Hailey Van Lith had just broken into the rotation as the No. 2 point guard last week when an ankle injury sidelined her. She felt strong enough to be available off the bench Thursday against the Wings after missing two games.

Van Lith rolled her ankle in practice before the May 17 opener at the Fever, but played through it for two games. As it continued to hinder her, the team decided it was best to sit her.

“The last thing I want to do is push my body through an injury because I’m scared that I’ll lose minutes,” Van Lith said. “I have to have more confidence in myself than that. The right thing to do was to rest my body.”

Marsh went into the season with Rachel Banham as his backup to point guard Courtney Vandersloot, but as Banham’s three-point shooting became vital and Van Lith made progress acclimating to the WNBA, he shifted Banham to shooting guard.

Marsh went back to that concept Thursday with Van Lith going in for Vandersloot late in the first quarter. Van Lith finished with two points in eight minutes.

One issue the Sky are tracking with Van Lith is her overall mileage after playing until the end of March with TCU in the NCAA Tournament, then turning around a few weeks later to start training camp. She was constantly on the go the year before that, too, while going to the NCAA Tournament with LSU and playing three-on-three in the Olympics. “It really has been an accumulation,” Van Lith said. “My body just hasn’t been able to rest.”

Scheduling quirks

The start of the Sky’s season has been very stop-and-go. After opening against the Fever, they had five days until their next game against the Liberty.

Now, after hosting the Wings on Thursday and visiting them Saturday, the Sky will get six days off before the Fever come to town for a game at the United Center.

† DePaul legend Mark Aguirre, a college basketball Hall of Famer and two-time NBA champion, was courtside for the game.