WNBA Preview: Playoff picture, five matchups to watch this week

As the 2025 WNBA regular season nears its conclusion, four playoff spots are secured, and four remain open. The ensuing 11 days will feature numerous intriguing matchups, with the results having implications for how the postseason bracket shapes. Yet, for all that remains unknown, the most recent week of WNBA action provided some clarity for certain teams.

The Aces locked up a playoff spot with their 79-74 win over the Sky. Here’s a long overdue hat tip to them, because — wow. Las Vegas surpassed New York’s and Minnesota’s nine-game winning streaks from earlier this season, now holding a WNBA-best 12 straight wins. Over the 12, Becky Hammon’s squad has delivered the league’s best offense (113.1 offensive rating) behind complete two-way dominance from A’ja Wilson. At the same time, Chelsea Gray and Jackie Young continue to thrive as versatile shot-makers and facilitators. Between the Aces’ play in clutch situations and overall strong play on both ends of the floor, they are currently showing glimpses of a team that could make noise in the postseason, something that seemed far-fetched prior to the All-Star Break.

With a win on Friday over the Wings, the Dream joined the Aces and Lynx as one of three teams to clinch a playoff spot, before the Mercury clinched a day later with a victory over the Liberty. Neither organization is unfamiliar with the postseason, as each team reached the playoffs in 2024. Yet, both teams’ consistent play since the start of the season has kept each team near the top of the standings throughout. Phoenix’s success is worth another mention, given the nearly complete roster turnover from 2024 to 2025 – Alyssa Thomas and her MVP-caliber season have played a significant role in it.

However, positive news was not the only type of information spread to WNBA organizations last week. The Mystics, one of the surprise teams of the first half of the season that produced three 2025 all-stars (two rookies!), saw their once-promising campaign receive an expiration date after suffering a blowout loss to the Valkyries on Saturday. The loss grouped them with the Sky, Sun, and Wings as four teams who are officially eliminated from playoff contention. The group of four is set to take in one additional member, which will be determined very soon.

Here are the games worth paying attention to during the last full week of the regular season.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Los Angeles Sparks @ Seattle Storm

(Monday, September 1st at 10 p.m. ET on NBA TV)

Arguably, the biggest game of the week comes on the first day of the month. The Sparks went into Seattle on August 1 and came away with a double overtime victory thanks to a Dearica Hamby game-winner. Nine days later in Los Angeles, history repeated itself as the Storm, with a newly acquired Brittney Sykes, fell victim to another Hamby game-winning shot. Now, the seventh-seeded Storm, separated by just one game in the loss column from the ninth-seeded Sparks, will square off again in a critical game for the standings. Given their recent history and the stakes, there’s a good possibility tonight’s matchup ends up being as good as the previous two.

Indiana Fever @ Phoenix Mercury

(Tuesday, September 2nd at 10 p.m. ET on NBA TV)

There are several talking points ahead of Tuesday’s game — DeWanna Bonner vs. her former team, Alyssa Thomas’ MVP case, Caitlin Clark’s health — but none more important than how this meeting impacts the standings. There’s a chance the Mercury and Fever could meet in the first round of the 2025 postseason. On Tuesday, Phoenix will likely have the luxury of rolling out the same starting five that took the court in the first two matchups, including the most recent 35-point win over Indiana. Meanwhile, Indiana will have a different group of five this time around — a group that has experienced some highs and lows recently over one of the most critical stretches of the season. The Fever are fighting to hang onto the eighth seed while the Mercury are trying to climb up the top half of the playoff picture. A competitive and entertaining matchup should follow.

Minnesota Lynx @ Las Vegas Aces

(Thursday, September 4th at 10 p.m. ET on Prime Video)

The Aces have a 15-3 record post-All-Star Break. One of the three losses was a respectable 10-point defeat at the hands of the Fever, while the other two were season-altering, 31 and 53-point losses to the Lynx within eight days of one another. The first loss (31 points) prompted a change to the Aces’ starting unit, and the second (53 points) may have scared the Aces straight, given their undefeated record since. Meanwhile, Cheryl Reeve’s team has lost three of its last five games, and although a one-seed for the playoffs is locked up, building some momentum and recapturing some of its prior success ahead of the postseason seems necessary. In addition to the battle between the league’s top two teams, fans who tune in will get to see two MVP hopefuls go at it.

New York Liberty @ Seattle Storm

(Friday, September 5th at 10 p.m. ET on ION)

When will the defending champions finally return to full health? It seems like one key player can’t return from injury unless another player sustains one and has to exit the rotation. At the time of this writing, New York’s main starting lineup of Jones-Stewart-Ionescu-Cloud-Fiebich has only tallied 107 minutes together across 10 games. They’re in fifth place in the WNBA standings following a road loss to Phoenix — two games in the loss column behind the Mercury and two above the Valkyries. While their championship nucleus of a year ago remains mostly the same, they’ll want to at least get more reps together down the stretch of the season. Seattle is 2-0 against New York this year, however. Moving to 3-0 against the defending champions would prevent the Storm from falling any spots in the standings, which is important with only a handful of regular-season games remaining.

Dallas Wings @ Los Angeles Sparks

(Sunday, September 7th at 6 p.m. ET on NBA TV)

If the Wings can make it to this game with a healthy Paige Bueckers, fans should be in for a fun viewing experience, regardless of who else is available to play. The likely Rookie of the Year frontrunner went into Crypto.com Arena in mid-August and walked out with the highest-scoring game of any WNBA player this season and one of the best rookie performances in league history — those alone should be enough for folks to want to catch Sunday’s contest. However, the bigger story here concerns Los Angeles’ side. The Sparks are still on the outside of the playoff bracket and need to make up ground – losing games would not help them achieve that.