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NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA playoff matchups are coming into form as the regular season came to an end Thursday night.
Heading into the last day of games, all eight playoffs teams were known, but three of the four opening round matchups were still up in the air. Now there’s a clear picture.
Minnesota, which clinched the No. 1 seed a few weeks ago, will face Golden State in the opening round of the playoffs that begins Sunday. The Lynx topped the Valkyries on Thursday night in the regular-season finale for both teams to drop Golden State to the eighth spot.
With the expansion team’s loss, the Indiana Fever moved up to the sixth seed. The franchise, which had its first season over .500 since 2015, will face third-seeded Atlanta. That was decided by the last game of the night when the Las Vegas Aces won their 16th consecutive game, beating Los Angeles. The Aces earned the two seed and will face Seattle, which moved up to seventh with Golden State’s loss.
Phoenix and New York are the four and five seeds and their first round matchup was determined before Thursday night’s games.
All four of the playoff series begin Sunday with Game 2 of the best-of-three series shifting to the lower-seeded team’s homecourt on either Tuesday or Wednesday
