Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats newsletter. We’re excited to announce a new partnership with Hudl. Hudl’s industry-leading tools – Sportscode, Instat, and Fastmodel – elevate the preparation, performance, and player development of WNBA and NCAA teams. We appreciate their support and look forward to working with them to help bring more insight about the women’s game to you.

You can find me on Bluesky and HHS on Bluesky, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Seattle’s next in line to clinch a playoff spot as an up-and-down season draws to a close (Photo credit: Chris Poss)

The final weekend of the WNBA regular season is upon us, with the next Friday edition of Tulin’s Treasures set to feature a comparatively slim slate of games to preview — just the four playoff series openers taking place a week from Sunday. A Seattle win tonight over New York would go a long way towards guaranteeing that the player known as “Slim” is playing next weekend, and could in fact guarantee it pending the results of the Sparks-Dream game. The Storm will host a Liberty team that can only hope its latest loss was rock bottom because time is running out for things to get worse before they get better.

Seattle would be in the playoffs with a win tonight if it came after a Sparks loss, or if it wins its final two regular season games. There are plenty of other ways for it to happen, with Indiana still in the mix and the Sparks having four games left, but those are the most immediate paths for the Storm to clinch. One more win will also guarantee Seattle a winning record, which Storm fans probably weren’t taking for granted in the midst of a six-game skid to start August. Seattle is 6-3 since then, but is coming off of a 91-85 loss to Los Angeles which kept it in the thick of the playoff race. The Storm let Los Angeles put up an offensive rating of 107.1 points per 100 possessions, falling to 5-14 (.263) when allowing opponents to post a rating better than 100.0. Seattle is 17-6 (.739) when holding opponents to an offensive rating of 100.0 points per 100 possessions or worse.

My beloved Liberty are coming off of a second straight lackluster effort to start this three-game road trip, one which is eerily similar to the road trips which preceded it. New York also had a losing record on each of its previous three road trips longer than two games, each of which also came immediately after an injury (to Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart, Isabelle Harrison and most recently Sabrina Ionescu). With or without Ionescu on the floor, New York is supposed to be better than posting offensive ratings of 86.3 and 78.4 points per 100 possessions with a chance to clinch a playoff berth in each game. I don’t even say that out of a sense of Liberty fan pride. Any team trying to win a meaningful basketball game should expect to be better than that. Teams with an offensive rating under 90 points per 100 possessions are 120-833 (.126) over the last 10 WNBA seasons. New York will most likely be the No. 5 seed in the playoffs, since the Valkyries are functionally two games back with three to play thanks to the tiebreaker. Whatever their seed, the Liberty have three games left to discover a playoff-caliber brand of basketball.

The Storm’s late-season surge has been keyed, unsurprisingly, by former WNBA MVP Nneka Ogwumike — “Madam President” to those who believe it’s time for WNBA players to be paid what they’re owed. If the Liberty are going to save their season, I really think it has to start with getting more from one of their own former MVPs, “Her Airguitarness” Jonquel Jones. I used the nickname no one but me uses mostly as a reminder that what I’m about to say comes from a place of fandom.

Ogwumike is coming off of her second straight 20-point game, tying Skylar Diggins for the team-high with 21 points on 7-for-17 from the field in the loss to the Sparks. It was just the sixth time Seattle has lost in her 19 games with at least 20 points (13-6, .684), which are tied for the fifth-most in the WNBA. Only A’ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum, Kelsey Mitchell (23 each) and Napheesa Collier (20) have more 20-point games than Ogwumike, who is tied for fifth with Dearica Hamby. No one else in the league has more than 16 games with 20+ points this season. Ogwumike’s latest 20-point game, the 150th of her career, also broke a tie with Storm legend Lauren Jackson for 10th on the WNBA’s all-time list (including playoffs, and in 124 more games than Jackson played). Candace Parker is next on that list, with her 152 coming in four more games than Ogwumike has played in.

Jones finished with 5 points on 2-for-4 from the field including 0-for-2 from deep while going 1-for-2 at the line in the loss at Golden State, spending much of the second half (when the Liberty at least played a bit better) on the bench despite being in no foul trouble. JJ has 11 points on 5-for-12 from the field (0-for-4 from beyond the arc) in the last two games while adding 10 rebounds and 5 assists, but largely offsetting those contributions with 8 turnovers and 6 fouls. The former regular season and Finals MVP was questionable for the loss at Phoenix due to an illness which caused her to miss the team’s win before heading on the trip, and I’m genuinely sorry if that illness is to blame for her last two games. She didn’t have an injury designation against Golden State, though, and she and the Liberty simply have to find a way to get her a lot more involved.

The Dream will be without MVP candidate and recently-named Eastern Conference Player of the Month Allisha Gray for the second straight game as she recovers from a knee injury, but her absence didn’t keep Atlanta from holding the Sparks at bay on Wednesday in their first of back-to-back meetings. Last night’s Aces win over the Lynx made it much less likely that Atlanta will be able to secure the No. 2 seed — they’ll need Las Vegas to lose at least once to Chicago or Los Angeles in the final three games, which doesn’t look very likely at the moment. Still, a win over the Sparks tonight and two over Connecticut next week would guarantee the Dream no worse than the No. 3 seed in head coach Karl Smesko’s first season.

Los Angeles can’t be eliminated from playoff contention with a loss tonight, but a loss combined with a Storm win and Fever win would end the Sparks’ hopes in every way except mathematically. If Seattle wins one more game and Indiana beats the Sky tonight and Mystics on Sunday, the Sparks will have to win their final four regular season games — and that assumes the Fever lose their finale to the Lynx and finish tied with the Sparks at 23-21. To their credit, the Sparks kept fighting to the very end on Wednesday despite the Dream maintaining control of the game, but it’s looking more and more like the 5-13 hole LA dug itself to start the season was simply too much to climb out of.