Hello, hoopheads! The Minnesota Lynx (30-7) took a big step towards locking up the top seed in the WNBA playoffs night, tallying a 77-66 win over the second-place Golden State Valkyries (25-10). That left the Lynx’s magic number to clinch the league’s best record at 4, and they can cut that in half with a win over the Valkyries in their fourth and final meeting next Monday. It’s conceivable that the Lynx will be able to seal the deal in that game, although they’ll need both a win at Washington and a Valkyries loss at Chicago on Friday in order for Monday to be the potential clincher. Unfortunately for the Lynx, Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles stepped on teammate Napheesa Collier’s foot in the fourth quarter and rolled her ankle, bringing a premature end to a night on which Miles was once again the best player on the floor. Miles tied teammate Kayla McBride for the game-high with 20 points on 8-for-10 from the field while adding 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks and 2 turnovers. That was just the fourth time a player has had 20/5/5/2/2 while making at least 80% from the field, and the first time a guard has done it. Miles joined perhaps the two best centers in league history not named A’ja Wilson, Lauren Jackson and Brittney Griner, as well as Collier at the peak of her MVPhee campaign (last June 14) in that exclusive club. It’s getting harder to deny the MilesVP case by the game, which only makes the prospect of her missing time with the ankle injury that much more of a bummer. With any luck, she won’t miss a game, but at the very least, this is a moment to be thankful for the World Cup break. There’s a lot more time for Miles to recover before the playoffs than there normally would be after an injury suffered 85% of the way through the season.
Last night’s other game saw the Washington Mystics (21-14) take advantage of my beloved New York Liberty (22-15) having lost on Tuesday and pull back into a virtual tie for sixth place with two games in hand by holding off the Toronto Tempo, who lost a 12th straight and were officially eliminated from playoff contention. It’s honestly in the eye of the beholder as to whether New York or Washington has the advantage in that virtual tie, as the Liberty hold the head-to-head tiebreaker, but the Mystics are a game ahead in the loss column. The win last night was Washington’s ninth in its last 11 games and improved the Mystic Babies’ record to 16-7 (.696) since a 5-7 (.417) start to the season. Dating back to the final night of Commissioner’s Cup play on June 17, when the Mystics beat the Connecticut Sun to improve to 6-7 (.244 and I’m happy to disappoint if you expected a 6-7 joke here), only the Lynx (19-4, .826) and Valkyries (16-5, .762) have better records than Washington. Kiki Iriafen led the way last night with 21 points on 8-for-12 from the field (66.7% and I’m still not doing it) to go with 13 rebounds for her 15th double-double this season. That’s tied with Liberty center Jonquel Jones — whose ankle is in my devoutly atheist prayers — for fifth-most in the WNBA, behind only Angel Reese (24), Jessica Shepard (20), A’ja Wilson and Iriafen’s own teammate Shakira Austin (16), who had 11 points and 10 boards last night to add to her own double-double total.
The main event of tonight’s three-game slate sees the Indiana Fever (24-12) visit the Dallas Wings (20-16) (8:00 ET, Prime Video/local affiliates) looking to maintain at least a half-game lead (and a crucial edge in the loss column) over the Las Vegas Aces (24-13) for the No. 3 spot in the standings. Indiana’s got the head-to-head tiebreaker over the reigning champs, as well, so it’s on pretty strong footing, but it also has a much tougher remaining schedule. The Fever are also looking to clinch the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Wings, who are currently the No. 8 seed, but would only be three games back with a win and, like the Aces, have an easier road ahead. The series is currently tied at 1-1, with both previous games having been played on Indiana’s floor. The first, an instant-classic 107-104 Wings triumph on the second day of the season, saw both Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell miss potential game-tying 3-pointers from nearly the exact same spot in the final seconds. The second meeting was a less memorable 98-87 Fever win last Friday, although it was plenty fun to watch as both Clark and Paige Bueckers finished with 29 points while the former took a 3-2 lead in their head-to-head meetings in college (1-1, both in the NCAA Tournament) and the WNBA (2-1 in Clark’s favor).
There was a time not all that long ago when the Wings’ season seemed to be going much better than the Fever’s, but suffice to say the tables have turned. A win tonight would make Indiana 20-7 (.741) since a 5-5 start to the season, and win or lose, the Fever will finish the night with the league’s third-best record in that span (since June 8) behind — honestly, I bet that you can guess which two teams at this point, as well as in what order. You’re right, it’s Minnesota followed by Golden State. Dallas, on the other hand, is 13-13 (.500) over the same span, before which it was 7-3, and boy does that .700 win percentage ever look better than the .556 the Wings are now sporting. The Wings and Fever’s fortunes have specifically diverged because of how they’ve performed against the league’s other winning teams — Indiana has gone 6-3 (.667) against them since the start of July, bringing its record to 9-9 following a 3-6 (.333) start, while Dallas has lost eight straight and 11 of its last 12 against winning teams, bringing its record to 6-15 (.286) after a 5-4 (.556) start. The good news for the Wings is that the Fever are the last winning team they’ll face in the regular season, but they also had some bad news yesterday with the announcement that the No. 1 pick in this year’s WNBA draft, Azzi Fudd, will have surgery to address the knee injury that has sidelined her of late, and thus will miss the remainder of the season. Mitchell is listed as probable after missing the fourth quarter of Indiana’s win at Toronto on Tuesday, her WNBA-record 20th straight 20-point game, due to what’s officially listed as an illness (she was described as having “overheated” by head coach Stephanie White). Clark is also listed as probable (back), as has been the case for three straight months and probably will be for the rest of her career (as I’ve noted before, this is called the Tom Brady treatment).
Elsewhere tonight, the Connecticut Sun (9-25) visit the Las Vegas Aces (24-13) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) in a rematch of the 2022 WNBA Finals, although that mostly just serves as a depressing reminder of how thoroughly and intentionally the Sun demolished a perennial contender. Las Vegas is starting a stretch of seven straight games against losing teams to close out the regular season following, and I’m hoping it’s going to take the fact that it lost to Atlanta on Tuesday to fall to 9-8 (.529) since a 15-5 (.750) start out directly on the Sun’s ass. Tonight’s other late game, the second half of the BezosVision doubleheader, sees the Atlanta Dream (22-13) visit the Los Angeles Sparks (12-23) (10:00 ET, Prime Video) with the hopes of at worst staying tied with the Aces in the loss column. The Aces have the head-to-head tiebreaker, so Atlanta will need them to slip up down the stretch if it’s going to snag a top-four seed away from Las Vegas, but one Aces loss could at least hypothetically be enough. The Dream also have a tougher schedule, including a home game against the Lynx heading into the World Cup break and consecutive games in Brooklyn against the Liberty to end the season, so they can ill afford to drop any games against inferior competition if they hope to remain as high as fifth, let alone move up further. This will be the Sparks’ first game since WNBPA President, 2016 WNBA MVP and champion with the Sparks and future Hall of Famer Nneka Ogwumike announced her intent to retire after the season. As I said on Bluesky yesterday after hearing the news, thanks for saving the league, Madam President. I genuinely believe the WNBA would be a dead league walking if Ogwumike and the rest of the union’s leadership didn’t coordinate everything from opting out of the old collective bargaining agreement to all of the league’s veterans taking short-term deals so they’d hit free agency simultaneously, all of which contributed to the players finally attaining something resembling fair compensation for their work. It’ll be an incredible movie someday if society holds out long enough for it to get made, and Ogwumike will rightfully be the main character.