Game on! Seattle, Minnesota set to start series

The Seattle Storm and Minnesota Lynx took the court Tuesday night, two days after Game 1 of their WNBA playoffs semifinals was postponed because of inconclusive COVID-19 tests.

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said three players on the Storm had inconclusive results Sunday from tests they took the day before, so the league decided to postpone the scheduled opener of the best-of-five playoffseries.

“The health and safety of all players and staff continue to be our top priority,” Englebert said. “After comprehensive consultation with health and safety specialists following the additional testing of Seattle’s players and staff as well as the implementation of contact tracing, we feel confident in moving forward with the Storm and Lynx taking the court for Game 1 of their semifinals series.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and are coordinating with medical specialists.”

The Storm players had undergone additional testing and two of the three had been cleared to rejoin the team.

The third player is still awaiting the results of a secondtest. A player needs to have two negative tests taken 24 hours apart to be cleared to play.

“We’re expecting the final results at some point this afternoon,” Engelbert said. “We do expect to know for sure if that player will be able to take the court or require further evaluation.”

The first game of the series was set to tip at 9 p.m. EDT. It was originally scheduled to be the earlier game Tuesday, but the league switched it with the other semifinal, Sun versus Aces.