{"id":858613,"date":"2026-09-24T05:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/858613\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T05:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T05:46:09","slug":"the-wnba-playoff-picture-sharpens-as-half-the-postseason-positions-are-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/858613\/","title":{"rendered":"The WNBA playoff picture sharpens as half the postseason positions are set"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The WNBA<\/a> playoff picture is sharpening as the regular season enters its final day.<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Lynx<\/a> have clinched the top seed and will face eighth-seeded New York in the opening round that begins Sunday. The Atlanta Dream<\/a> will be the four seed after beating New York on Wednesday night. They will play either Indiana or Washington. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody in the playoffs are capable of winning on the road and stealing a series,\u201d Atlanta coach Karl Smesko said. \u201cI definitely think it’s an advantage to have to play in front of your home crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indiana plays at Minnesota and Washington hosts Chicago on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Dallas is locked into the seventh seed and will face either Golden State or Las Vegas. The Valkyries<\/a> visit Los Angeles and the Aces<\/a> play at Phoenix.<\/p>\n

The Lynx clinched the top spot in the playoffs on Tuesday after Golden State lost to Portland in overtime. Minnesota benched its starters after an awful first half against Indiana. The Lynx reserves battled back, but fell short. Minnesota has dropped four of its past five games and has one game left at home against the Fever on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe margin for error throughout this regular season is incredibly small and you\u2019ll see that in the playoffs,\u201d said New York Liberty<\/a> star Breanna Stewart<\/a>. \u201cLike one through eight you don\u2019t know who will be playing at the end of October, which is exciting. I feel like for us we\u2019re going to get a fresh start when it comes Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart missed Wednesday’s game with knee soreness. New York also lost Jonquel Jones<\/a> to an ankle injury in the third quarter.<\/p>\n

With New York finishing at 26-18, this is only the second time in league history that all the playoff teams have won at least 59% of their games. The 1998 playoffs, which only had four teams, had all four teams at 60% or better.<\/p>\n

In the four major sports it’s rare to find the last place team in the playoffs with such a high win rate.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full WNBA coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The WNBA playoff picture is sharpening as the regular season enters its final day.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[3444,435,4804,14400,4677,1077,436,99,434,13016],"class_list":["post-858613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-minnesota-lynx","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}