Aces, Storm top seeds in 8team field
After an abridged 22game season, the WNBA playoff field is finally set and will tip off Tuesday with defending champion Washington taking on Phoenix in a singleelimination game. Chicago will face Connecticut in the other openinground game later Tuesday night.
It went down to the last day — and the last game — of the regular season before the field was set.
Las Vegas and Seattle already knew Sunday they would be the top seeds in the postseason before their matchup on the season’s final day. The Aces clinched the No. 1 seed by beating the shorthanded Storm, who were missing stars Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird to foot injuries. Both have a week to rest as Seattle and Las Vegas earned doublebyes into the bestof5 semifinal series that begin Sunday.
The Aces are the top seed for the first time. They were in a threeway battle for No. 1 and had to beat Los Angeles on Saturday and Seattle on Sunday to secure the berth.
“Who would have thunk it?” coach Bill Laimbeer said. “We end up with the best record in the league for the regular season. That’s a pretty good accomplishment for our basketball team. … We realize we’ve won nothing. We put ourselves in a position to get into a series with only four teams remaining and that’s an accomplishment in itself.”
While Las Vegas and Seattle played for seeding Sunday, the Mystics played to get in.
Washington needed a victory in its final game, beating Atlanta, to earn the final playoff spot and a chance to repeat as WNBA champions — a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Los Angeles did it in 200102.
“The work we’ve done the last few weeks when most teams would have quit has paid off,” Mystics coach Mike Thibault said. “It’s a great, great testament to how they’ve hung in. It’s just a wonderful feeling anytime you win. But to do it how we’ve done to get in, it’s a great feeling.”
The Mystics, who lost 12 of 13 games at one point during the season, have now reached the playoffs four years in a row and in seven of the past eight years. This might have been their most improbable appearance over that stretch since the team was missing four starters from last season’s championship run, including league MVP Elena Delle Donne.
There is no margin for error in the postseason. The league switched to the singleelimination format for the first two rounds of the playoffs in 2016.
Los Angeles and Minnesota earned byes into the second round by finishing third and fourth and await the winners of Tuesday night’s games.
Only once has a team not seeded in the top two advanced to the finals. Washington did it as the three seed in 2018 by beating secondranked Atlanta. The last three years the No. 1 seed has won the championship. That could change this year since the playoffs are being played in the bubble in Bradenton, Fla., and there is no travel between games. Also, with no fans, teams have no real homecourt advantage except for the artificial one created by the league.