Sep 20, 2025, 01:49 AM ET<\/p>\n
The Minnesota Lynx<\/a>, Las Vegas Aces<\/a>, Atlanta Dream<\/a>, Phoenix Mercury<\/a>, New York Liberty<\/a>, Golden State Valkyries<\/a>, Indiana Fever<\/a>, and Seattle Storm<\/a> made the 2025 WNBA Playoffs<\/a>. The Valkyries became the first expansion team to clinch a playoff berth in its inaugural season.<\/p>\n Check out key facts about the 2025 WNBA postseason below:<\/p>\n When do the WNBA playoffs begin?<\/p>\n The WNBA playoffs began on Sept. 14. The last possible date for the WNBA Finals is Oct. 19.<\/p>\n What is the format of the WNBA playoffs?<\/p>\n Per the WNBA website<\/a>, the top eight of the WNBA’s 13 teams make the playoffs. Teams are seeded based on their records in the regular season. The 2025 WNBA Finals will have a 2-2-1-1-1 structure in which the higher seed will host Games 1, 2, 5 and 7, and its opponent will host Games 3, 4 and 6. The bracket-style postseason will have three rounds of series play and maintain the format of best-of-three in the First Round and best-of-five in the Semifinals, followed by a new best-of-seven Finals.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n Which team won the 2024 WNBA championship?<\/p>\n The New York Liberty<\/a> defeated the Minnesota Lynx<\/a> 3-2 in the 2024 WNBA Finals<\/a> to win their first franchise title. Jonquel Jones<\/a> was named Finals MVP.<\/p>\n Has a team ever won three straight WNBA championships?<\/p>\n The Houston Comets<\/a> are the only franchise to win the WNBA title three seasons in a row. The Comets, who folded in 2008, won the WNBA championship in 1997, 1998, 1999 and again in 2000, the league’s first four years in existence.<\/p>\n Has a No. 1 pick ever won the WNBA championship in their first season?<\/p>\n As a rookie, Caitlin Clark<\/a> led the Indiana Fever<\/a> to a playoff berth in 2024. Only two No. 1 picks have won the WNBA championship in their first season — Tina Thompson<\/a>, the WNBA’s inaugural top pick in 1997, started for the Comets in their first of four straight titles, while Maya Moore<\/a> helped lead the Minnesota Lynx<\/a> to the championship in 2011, the same year she was drafted first overall.<\/p>\n Check out the ESPN WNBA hub page<\/a> for scores<\/a>, stats<\/a>, schedules<\/a> and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sep 20, 2025, 01:49 AM ET The Minnesota Lynx, Las Vegas Aces, Atlanta Dream, Phoenix Mercury, New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-288415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}