It’s the final weekend of the WNBA season, and the top seven seeds are locked into place. A Las Vegas win on Friday night clinched the two-seed, while Seattle guaranteed it would get a first-round bye and stay at four by beating the fifth-seeded Mercury at home on Friday night.
The top seven teams are locked into place. Here’s the breakdown:
1. Connecticut Sun
2. Las Vegas Aces
3. Minnesota Lynx
4. Seattle Storm
5. Phoenix Mercury
6. Chicago Sky
7. Dallas Wings
The intrigue heading into Sunday’s five-game WNBA slate is who will land the eighth seed: the young, up-and-down New York Liberty, the injury-plagued Washington Mystics, or the veteran Los Angeles Sparks?
After beating Washington on Friday night to stay alive in the race for eight, Betnijah Laney and the Liberty are still in position to potentially swipe the eighth seed. They do not play on Sunday, but by way of the Mystics’ tough matchup against Minnesota, have a clear path toward the franchise’s first playoff berth since 2017.
Fortunately for Washington, they control their fate. As long as the Mystics win on Sunday against Minnesota (easier said than done), they will once again enter the playoffs as a frisky eighth seed. However, star forward Elena Delle Donne is not expected to play and head coach Mike Thibault is in the health and safety protocol, meaning his son and lead assistant Eric Thibault will coach the must-win game.
The Liberty also need a Sparks loss, as well as a Mystics loss, to sneak into the playoffs. Los Angeles faces a Wings team coming off a double-digit loss to Las Vegas earlier this week.
Here’s the bottom line:
- If Washington wins, they are in.
- If Washington loses and Los Angeles wins, the Sparks are in.
- If Washington and Los Angeles both lose, New York is in.
Online sportsbooks routinely lack odds to get in on the fun in the WNBA, but FiveThirtyEight actually has the Liberty with the top chances of getting into the postseason. That’s likely a result of the statistical projections showing that both the Mystics and Sparks are underdogs in their games on Sunday, which makes sense because they both play teams that have better records than them.
The action tips off at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday as the Mystics host the Lynx, then continues in Dallas at 5 p.m. as the Wings host the Sparks.
