Hello, hoopheads! After 43 games over the last 16 days, there’s just one night of conference play left in the 2026 edition of the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup before the championship matchup is set and the league stops acting like Major League Baseball pre-1997 and lets Eastern and Western Conference teams play each other again. Three Eastern Conference teams have already wrapped up their Cup runs, with Atlanta having done so over the weekend while Indiana did it in a 113-91 win over Toronto in last night’s lone game. The Fever got 21 points and 14 assists from Caitlin Clark (albeit on 5-for-15 from the field and with 6 turnovers) and a hot shooting night from someone whose name you can read elsewhere while winning their fourth straight game and setting a franchise record for points in a regulation-length game. The win streak immediately follows a loss to the New York Liberty that guarantees Indiana won’t play for the Commissioner’s Cup even though it can tie for the best record in Eastern Conference Cup games if New York loses tonight at Chicago. Clark had her second 20-point, 10-assist game during the win streak and fourth so far this season, which is four times as many as the rest of the league has combined (Jessica Shepard had the only other one so far in her 20/20/10 game). Clark’s already halfway to the single-season record eight 20/10 games that she had as a rookie in 2024 (Alyssa Thomas had the next-most in a season with five in 2023). On the losing side, Toronto’s season-long injury woes got even worse when top scorer Brittney Sykes was helped off the floor midway through the third quarter after seemingly suffering a noncontact foot injury. The game had been tight up to that point (Toronto was down 3 points at the time), but Indiana cruised the rest of the way against a Tempo squad already missing rookie Kiki Rice and Nyara Sabally. Poor Sandy Brondello fled to a whole different country after the Liberty let her go, but she still can’t escape the injury bug that ravaged her 2025 team.
Moving on to tonight’s games, in something of a rarity, the first game I’m going to tell you about isn’t the one I’m most excited to watch nor the first one chronologically. Instead, it’s the one which will determine how much, if anything, is determined by two concurrent games when the Las Vegas Aces (10-4) look to lock up the Western Conference’s spot in the Commissioner’s Cup championship game in a visit to the Phoenix Mercury (4-11) (10:00 ET, USA Network/local affiliates). This is also the first meeting between last year’s WNBA Finals participants since the Mercury avenged their loss in that series by walloping the Aces on their Ring Day to open the season, since which time Phoenix is 3-11 (and has lost three straight) while Las Vegas is 10-3. The reigning champs are, however, coming off of their second 30-point thumping of the season on Monday at Dallas, and as such they still need either a win tonight or some help, which I’ll detail in a moment, to get into the title game.
I don’t think there’s a whole lot to read into the Aces’ penchant for lopsided losses, given that Las Vegas took several similar whoopings last season and eventually reeled off a historic win streak and championship run, not to mention that the Aces are still 10-4 and on the verge of a third berth in the first six Commissioner’s Cup title games (which New York has also attained). The truth is, all the Aces have really needed to do to win so far this season is play just a little bit of defense — they’re 9-0 when holding opponents to offensive ratings under 110 points per 100 possessions according to Her Hoop Stats. When the defense didn’t show up in their biggest game so far, they just went out and hung an offensive rating of 133.3 on the Minnesota Lynx, owners of the best defense of the league. That’s the one win among the five times they’ve allowed ratings of at least 115, and now I’m going to say something that’s somewhat remarkable given I’m talking about an active dynasty and title favorite. Only the expansion teams have allowed 115+ ratings on more occasions than Las Vegas (8 for Toronto, 6 for Portland), while the Aces are tied with the Connecticut Sun for the most such games among non-expansion teams. Some will read that as an indictment of the Aces’ defense, but what I see is reason for the league to be terrified of what happens when the champs decide to play defense not just every night, but for 40 minutes a night.
If the Aces lose, then the Minnesota Lynx (11-3) can clinch the title game spot with a win over the Los Angeles Sparks (7-7) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). If, like me, you’ve been playing at lot of 53-0 lately while watching W games and the World Cup and the Phillies and all the other sports, you’ve probably been frequently reminded of the Lynx and Sparks meeting in the 2016 and 2017 WNBA Finals among other memorable encounters throughout the last decade. Most of the faces have long since changed, of course, but some notable ones are either still around, or have left and returned, and I’m sure Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve and her assistants/former players Lindsay Whalen, Rebekkah Brunson and Janel McCarville will have some feelings about seeing Nneka Ogwumike in a Sparks jersey again. This is the first meeting of the season between the old rivals and the first of a six-game stretch which sees the Lynx play just once at home (unless they host the Commissioner’s Cup title game). That home game will be on Sunday, when the Lynx host Washington after making a stop at Ballhalla on Friday. They’ll then follow the Mystics to the nation’s capital to start a three-game road trip which also goes through Dallas and potentially their first meeting with the Liberty this season. If the Lynx end up in the Commissioner’s Cup title game, they’ll face the Liberty two days after the game in Dallas and the game in Brooklyn three days later will only be their first meeting in the sense that the title game doesn’t count towards regular-season stats. The Lynx will also be hosting the title game should they end up in it, which can happen not only with a win and Las Vegas loss, but with a loss, a Vegas loss and some help.
The best game of the night, and the one I’d be writing a thousand words or so about before moving on to the rest were it not for Commissioner’s Cup implications, sees the Dallas Wings (9-5) visit the Golden State Valkyries (9-5) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass) in a game which will determine who represents the Western Conference in the Commissioner’s Cup title game if the Aces and Lynx both lose. Should that happen, both of those teams and this game’s winner will be 5-2 in Commissioner’s Cup games, and the tiebreaker will come down to who won this game. If it’s Dallas, then all three tied teams are also 1-1 in head-to-head Cup games and the Lynx almost certainly advance because they have a 60-point edge on Dallas in point differential and a bigger one on Vegas. If Golden State ends up in the three-way tie, Las Vegas advances because it’s 2-0 in the head-to-head matchups. On top of that, this is the first meeting of the season between two teams I thoroughly enjoy watching, who are (obviously) tied in the standings and who play extraordinarily different brands of basketball. In fairness, the Valkyries play a pretty different brand of basketball than anyone else in the league, averaging about two possessions per 40 minutes (79.6) than any other team in the league. Washington and Phoenix are tied for 13th at 81.5 possessions/40 while the 14 teams who aren’t Golden State are all within a range of 3.6 possessions/40 (Indiana leads the way at 85.1). Dallas sits 9th (82.0 possessions/40), which doesn’t sound that high, but the Wings thrive on moving the ball better than perhaps any team in the WNBA, evident in the league’s most assists per game, second-highest assist rate and second-lowest turnover rate. Golden State is 4th in opponent turnover rate and can both disrupt and slow down an opposing offense better than probably any team in the league, but the Valkyries have struggled to stifle ball movement (14th in opponent assist rate) despite being third in defensive rating according to Her Hoop Stats.
With all due respect to my beloved Liberty, this is already getting long, so tonight’s three remaining games are getting turbo previews to reflect their limited stakes. My Libs (10-4) visit the Chicago Sky (4-9) (8:00 ET, USA Network/local affiliates) looking to extend the WNBA’s longest active win streak to seven straight, with the location of their Commissioner’s Cup title game likely coming down to whether they face Las Vegas (it’s almost certainly at home) or Minnesota (it’s on the road). The Sky have dropped eight of nine since beating the Lynx to improve to 3-1 and losing then-top scorer Rickea Jackson for the season in the process.
The night’s first tip is one of two games with no Commissioner’s Cup implications at all when the Washington Mystics (5-7) visit the the Connecticut Sun (2-13) (7:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass), which is unfair because the Mystics are so young that the Sun might mistake them for a birthday party and assume it’s a practice. The other meaningless game, at least from a Cup-centric perspective, sees the Seattle Storm (3-12) visit the Portland Fire (7-9) (10:00 ET, local affiliates/League Pass). This is the first meeting this season between Portland and Seattle, although the two cities have of course battled many times throughout the course of the Indie Rock Wars, which show no signs of stopping after over four decades of fighting.