The Washington Mystics didn’t just win their franchise-record 27th game of the 2026 WNBA season last night. They also clinched the No. 7 seed in the 2026 WNBA Playoffs after the Dallas Wings lost 87-86 to the Phoenix Mercury on Monday.
Washington also has some things going for them heading into Thursday when they host the Chicago Sky at Capital One Arena. With a win, the Mystics could clinch the No. 6 overall seed.
The top three seeds are currently held by the Minnesota Lynx, Golden State Valkyries
and Las Vegas Aces. If the playoffs began today, a No. 7 Mystics team would play against the Valkyries who are No. 2. But if the Mystics win tomorrow, they would play against the No. 3 Aces. Either way, this team is playing with house money. Few would have thought that Washington would be playoff bound this season with the youngest roster in WNBA history.
Now, I don’t want to sound like a Debbie Downer, but I’ll have to qualify the Mystics’ 27 wins, which nominally breaks their 2019 record of 26 wins. Back in 2019, the WNBA season was 34 regular-season games. This season, there are 44. Next year, there will be 50. A high-performing team is expected to win well over 20 regular-season games once there are more games to play.
Assuming Washington goes 28-16 this regular season, that would be the equivalent of a 22-12 regular season back in 2019. Still a very strong record. And yes, the Mystics would have done so facing a lot of adversity. But unless this year’s Mystics win the championship, I’m not on the “this is the winningest Mystics team ever” bandwagon. Rather, I’m on the “this is the Mystics team that will start their next era of dominance” bandwagon.
And the latter seems like a better bandwagon to hop on in my eyes.
