Unrivaled: Can Mist, Breanna Stewart make an improbable playoff push?

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The playoff push will define Week 6 of Unrivaled’s inaugural season, with multiple matchups proving critical to clubs’ playoff positions and/or hopes. Entering Week 6, the standings are:

Lunar Owls (9-1)
Rose (6-4)
Laces (5-5)
Vinyl (4-6)
Mist (3-7)
Phantom (3-7)

The Push to Playoffs continues Rose BC have now moved into 2nd and are on a 5 game win streak Who do you have as your last 3 clubs making the Unrivaled Playoffs? ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/PlBXODPBfd

— Unrivaled Basketball (@Unrivaledwbb) February 26, 2025

The week begins on Friday, Feb. 28 with Vinyl meeting Laces at 7:15 p.m. ET, followed by Mist and Phantom going at it at 8:15 p.m. ET. Both games will be broadcast on TNT.

Which team can earn a playoff edge?

Vinyl and Laces last played in Week 2, when Laces won 83-79. Since then, Laces have experienced a roulette of roster changes due to injuries. While Alyssa Thomas returned, albeit on in minutes limit, in Laces’ Tuesday loss to Mist, it is unclear how available she and the club’s other mostly-absent roster regulars will be on Friday.

If Thomas and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton are available, along with stalwarts Kayla McBride and Stef Dolson, Laces should have enough to compete with Vinyl and hopefully hang on to the third spot in the standings. If Tiffany Hayes and/or Jackie Young are active, Laces chances of not only maintaining their third position, but also of eventually reclaiming second place from Rose will be favorable. Injury misfortune, in short, is the only thing preventing this team from being a playoff shoo-in.

Last week, Vinyl dealt with their own roster disruption, going 1-1 without Arike Ogunbowale. The club established some positive stretches of play with the starting group of Dearica Hamby, Rhyne Howard and Jordin Canada, which shouldn’t be surprising since Hamby and Howard played together in the 3×3 competition at the 2024 Olympics, while Canada has been WNBA teammates of both Hamby and Howard.

Canada’s initiation instincts, in particular, helped the club find more of an offensive flow, with the point guard totaling 13 assists across the two games. It will be interesting to see how the potential return of Ogunbowale will impact things. Her explosive scoring ability will always be valuable, but, thus far, she and Howard have been an uneven fit in the Unrivaled format, with only one of the two star guards seemingly able to get it going in a single game. If they can ignite together on Friday, Vinyl will be spinning, tying Laces in knots.

Which team can avoid the cellar?

Breanna Stewart, Courtney Vandersloot and Sabrina Ionescu have gone from WNBA champions with the New York Liberty to Unrivaled cellar dwellers with Mist and Phantom, respectively. Through five weeks of play, neither team has been able to find the balance between cohesion and versatility that is the key to Unrivaled success.

Mist relies too much on jump shooting, and as shot variance has not fallen in their favor throughout much of the season, they’ve taken lots of Ls. Head coach Phil Handy also has struggled to find the right lineups, failing to combine Mist’s supreme shooters (Stewart, Jewell Loyd and Rickea Jackson) with their athletic, aggressive players (DiJonai Carrington and Aaliyah Edwards).

When Phantom has found success, it’s been due to Ionescu catching fire from behind the arc or Brittney Griner beasting on the inside. While Satou Sabally has had a number of highly-productive games, her more isolation-inclined offensive stylings have failed to lift Phantom as a whole. Like Mist, Phantom lack the dynamism and diversity that can consistently trouble opponents.

So, which club sinks into sixth place and which club clings to more-respectable fifth place likely will be determined by how many jumpers Mist makes or if Phantom can get BG going. Last time, matching 29-point performances by Griner and Sabally took Phantom, sans Ionescu, past Mist.

Owls, Rose back in action on Saturday

On Saturday, league-leaders Lunar Owls and Rose will be back on the court. Owls will take on Vinyl at 6 p.m. ET, with Rose meeting Mist at 7 p.m. ET. Both games will be broadcast on truTV.

Previously, despite missing Hamby, Vinyl held the high-scoring Lunar Owls to 67 points, losing by 10 points in the relatively low-scoring affair. This time, expect a high-scoring showdown. Vinyl certainly need both Ogunbowale and Howard to be on their games to stick with an Owls side that likely is still smarting over their first loss.

In the first matchup between these two clubs, Chelsea Gray slammed the door with her signature clutch shotmaking. Clutchness, in contrast, has been hard to come by for Mist, as the club has fumbled away multiple wins with poor fourth quarters. For Mist to keep their slim hopes of a playoff berth alive, they’ll need those fortunes to reverse—and fast.