{"id":914720,"date":"2026-09-30T01:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T01:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914720\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T01:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T01:04:10","slug":"is-it-time-for-the-wnba-to-lengthen-playoff-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914720\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it time for the WNBA to lengthen playoff series?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThat they\u2019re an eighth seed is really cruel for the No. 1 seed,\u201d Reeve quipped<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So as brutal as it was to be facing elimination after Sunday\u2019s 91-75 Game 1 loss<\/a>, it was a situation that Reeve and her team had braced for.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s every matchup,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about seeds this year. It wouldn\u2019t be shocking for any of the \u2018lower seeds\u2019 to be successful. It just wouldn\u2019t. Especially in a three-game series.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three. Game. Series.<\/p>\n

Long enough to feel fair. Short enough for randomness to still shake things up.<\/p>\n

The league has twisted the cube every way possible to find the best way to play a three-game series. Minnesota\u2019s predicament is the latest bug.<\/p>\n

From 1998-2009, home court was essentially delayed. The series started on the floor of the lower-seeded team, then Game 2 and, if necessary, Game 3 were played at the higher seed.<\/p>\n

Under that format, Game 1s were more unpredictable \u2014 teams with home-court advantage went 35-36 \u2014 and the format produced more series that went the full three games (41 of 71, or 57.7 percent) than any other.<\/p>\n

But the higher-seeded team still won 77.5 percent of the series.<\/p>\n

From 2010-15, and again in 2025, the higher seed got home-court advantage for Game 1, then the locations swung back and forth the next two games.<\/p>\n

Typically, higher seeds protected their home court in Game 1 (30-10). But lower seeds were still competitive when Game 2 shifted to their arena (18-22).<\/p>\n

The win-or-go-home Game 3s became the toss-ups. Higher seeds ended up with a slight edge, 11-9.<\/p>\n

So even if the Lynx bounce back Tuesday night in Game 2, they\u2019ll have a battle on their hands in the deciding game Thursday.<\/p>\n

From 2022-24, the higher seed got Games 1 and 2 at home and the outcome was undeniably lopsided. The higher seed won all 12 series and swept nine of them.<\/p>\n

The tipping point was when Stephanie White\u2019s Connecticut Sun swept Caitlin Clark\u2019s Fever<\/a> without Indiana getting to play a home game. Two weeks later, the league announced a return to the 1-1-1 format for 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a part of this league for a long time,\u201d said White, now on the Fever\u2019s sideline. \u201cI think the [current] format is the best of the worst-case scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n

Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this format, OK, we get two home games,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cBut in Game 3, the amount of pressure and tension that has built up at this point, throw everything out the door. Might as well be on the street playing basketball because I wouldn\u2019t consider that a huge advantage. Anything can happen in those game scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

The solution, to White, is simply extending the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe league is ready for a five-game \u2026 \u201d she said, then quickly adjusted<\/a>. \u201cThe league is ready for a seven-game series. Like, who are we kidding? Like, we\u2019re ready to play. But I understand that there are growth edges and growth opportunities. And I also understand where we are. So, it is an imperfect system. But it\u2019s better than what it was a couple years ago and we\u2019ll continue to grow it and make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reeve added another dimension. With expansion and free agency spreading talent across 15 teams, there\u2019s a higher level of parity than a decade ago when the Lynx, loaded with stars from Lindsay Whalen and Rebekkah Brunson to Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles, won four championships in seven seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn\u2019t have that before,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cWhen Whalen and Brunson were playing and you had the one seed and you were playing the eighth seed. Yeah, you had to play, but there wasn\u2019t real concern that you weren\u2019t going to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between a format that\u2019s proven to be volatile and talent stretching from the top to the bottom of the league, higher seeds \u2014 even ones as dominant as the Lynx were this season \u2014 aren\u2019t as invincible.<\/p>\n

Reeve acknowledged, though, that as stressful as it might be for her team, it\u2019s intriguing from the outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a truly wide-open championship is just fun for fan bases, fun for viewership, all the things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Julian Benbow can be reached at julian.benbow@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThat they\u2019re an eighth seed is really cruel for the No. 1 seed,\u201d Reeve quipped. So as brutal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-914720","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\/914720","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=914720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}