On Tuesday, four of the teams battling for homecourt advantage in the first round of the WNBA playoffs are in action, unofficially inaugurating the down-the-stretch race for playoff seeding.
The current No. 3-seed Las Vegas Aces host the No. 5-seed Atlanta Dream (9 p.m. ET, ESPN), while the No. 4-seed Indiana Fever visit the Toronto Tempo (7 p.m. ET, ESPN). The now No. 6-seed New York Liberty will be in Chicago the play the Sky (9 p.m. ET, WNBA League Pass).
With less than 10 games to play in the regular
season for all teams, every game carries extra weight, especially as teams aim to earn the most favorable position possible in what is shaping up to be a competitive postseason. There’s time to make up for an early or midseason loss, but this late in the season, every loss has more consequential ramifications.
That was certainly true over the weekend.
On Saturday, the Aces faced the Minnesota Lynx, where a win would have given them the season series win and put them just three game behind Minnesota for the top seed. The Lynx instead prevailed, all but guaranteeing that the Aces, now five games back, cannot overtake them in the standings.
On Sunday, the Dream likewise had the opportunity to take the season series over the Fever, giving them a significant edge in the effort to claim the No. 4 spot, or better, in the final standings. Indiana, however, out-executed Atlanta in the overtime affair to force a season series split and settle themselves into the No. 4 seed, at least for now.
The Fever should be able to pad their position on Tuesday against the tumbling Tempo. Losers of 10-straight games with a league-worst defensive rating of 115.5, Toronto should be fodder for Indiana’s electric offensive. If the Fever don’t douse the Tempo for at least 100 points, it will be an upset.
After coming up short against Indiana on Sunday, Atlanta must try for a bounceback win against the team they’ve proven incapable of beating. The Aces have seven-straight wins over the Dream; going back to the 2023 season, they’ve won 10 of 11 against Atlanta. Most recently, Vegas spoiled Atlanta’s Barbie Game, routing the Dream on the night designed to celebrate Angel Reese’s collaborations with Barbie.
That history, on top of the fact that the Aces are coming off a loss, seems to set this up as a sure Dream defeat. If some miracle happens on the Strip and Atlanta manages to steal a win in Sin City, the Aces, presuming a Fever win in Toronto, would slide to No. 4 in the standings. In the more likely event that A’ja and the Aces again assert their ownership over the Dream, Atlanta risks a standings slip if New York can win in Chicago.
The Liberty-Sky matchup, however, inspires less certainty than Fever-Tempo or Dream-Aces.
While New York is 8-2 in their last 10 games, that strong record masks some shaky performances, none more so than their near-disastrous 28-point fall-from-ahead loss to the Los Angeles Sparks last Thursday, which would have matched the biggest blown lead in WNBA history.
In this stretch of 10 games, New York’s only win over a playoff team required overtime, as they defeated the Wings in Dallas by one point. (The Liberty’s win over an Aces team resting A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young doesn’t count.)
The Liberty’s prior two wins over the Sky are indicative of the just-getting-by and skin-of-their-teeth nature of their recent “success.” In both matchups, New York escaped by a single point, twice surviving thanks to some clutch heroics from Sabrina Ionescu.
Although they remain without Sydney Taylor, in addition to the longer-term absence of Skylar Diggins, Chicago, surely, is due for some good fortune against New York, right?
A loss would trim New York’s sixth-place advantage over the Washington Mystics, a team with one of the more friendly end-of-season schedules. Sticking in the No. 6 seed might be the preferred outcome for the Liberty as, if the standings held as is, they’d be matched up against the Aces in the first round. Even excluding their previous, mostly meaningless win over Vegas, that rivalry matchup has brought out the best version of New York this season, suggesting it could give them a stronger shot of advancing to the second round—a near-must for New York after their offseason overhaul, headlined by the firing of former head coach Sandy Brondello, was seen as necessary after last season’s first-round exit.
If the standings remain static, Indiana and Atlanta also would be first-round combatants, a repeat of last season’s first-round series when the No. 6-seed Fever upset the No. 3-seed Dream. As Sunday’s game demonstrated, the contrast of styles—with a defense-first Atlanta team that struggles to score in the halfcourt against an offensively-potent Fever side with an exploitable defense—would make for an intense rematch, even before factoring in all the extracurriculars involved.
But before all that might materialize, Indiana, Atlanta, Vegas and New York must take care of regular-business, beginning on Tuesday night.
In the comments, share your takes on Tuesday’s games.
Do you expect Indiana to cruise to a fifth-straight win in Canada? Can the Dream finally beat the Aces? Or, will it be another Aces beatdown? Can New York not only win, but win in a way that doesn’t require some unsustainable crunchtime heroics from Sabrina? Or, will the Sky expose some of the Liberty’s on-going execution issues with their own inspired performance?
