The 2024 WNBA regular season has concluded. The playoffs have arrived.
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The first round of the WNBA playoffs is a best-of-three series. The higher-seeded teams will host the first two games. This means the lower-seeded teams will play in front of their home crowd if they can steal one of the first two games.
First-Round Matchups
The New York Liberty are chasing their first WNBA championship in franchise history. New York, the top seed after cruising to a 32-8 regular-season record, will take on the eighth-seeded Atlanta Dream. Atlanta limped to the Olympic break with a miserable 7-17 record, but they went 8-8 after the break to solidify the last playoff spot.
The fourth-seeded Las Vegas Aces and the fifth-seeded Seattle Storm face off in a clash of the titans. Las Vegas has won the past two WNBA championships but is no longer the favorite to win this season. Seattle boasts one of the top defenses in the league, but a lack of shooting will limit the Storm’s chances of contending for a championship.
The sixth-seeded Indiana Fever could benefit the most from the first-round format. Since the Olympic break, the Fever have a 3-2 record on the road and 6-3 record at home. Their first-round opponents, the third-seeded Connecticut Sun, are only 4-3 at home since the Olympic break. One of those home losses came at the hands of the Fever in late August.
The hottest team in the league is the second-seeded Minnesota Lynx. They are an incredible 13-2 (one of the losses in the last game of the season where the Lynx rested their stars) after the Olympic break. This includes wins over the Liberty and the Sun in the last week of the season. They will take on the seventh-seeded Phoenix Mercury. The Mercury are a veteran team with a formula to pull an upset.
Although they can catch fire from the three-point line, their defense has been one of the worst in the league this season.
But like every underdog in the field believes, it just takes one good game, and the series-clinching game is on home court.
Narrowing the Focus
Indiana played nine games in May. Seven of the nine came against top-tier playoff teams. The Fever won only one of the nine games.
Things change.
After finally getting time to catch their breath, reflect and practice, the Fever won seven of their first eight games after the Olympic break. Wins against Phoenix, Seattle and Connecticut proved it wasn’t a fluke.
Like last season’s playoff preview, it’s important to find statistics that reflect the current state of the WNBA. Teams like the Fever are completely different from their earlier forms. Their first nine games skew the data and don’t reflect how they’ve played recently.
The Olympic break, from July 18 to August 14, creates an interesting dynamic for the WNBA every four years. The league comes to a screeching halt as many of its stars compete for their national teams.
To capture where each team sits in terms of the upcoming playoffs, a narrower view of the season statistics is necessary. Therefore, analyzing games since the Olympic break and eliminating the results from non-playoff teams paints a clearer picture.
In doing so, four teams emerge as true championship contenders. They are the only four to have records of .500 or better and a positive net rating (point differential per 100 possessions).
Minnesota and New York are not a surprise. They have consistently been among the best teams from the beginning of the season. Las Vegas is also not a surprise as they have the best player in the league (A’ja Wilson) and have won the last two championships.
The fourth team to have a winning record with those qualifications is not Connecticut or Seattle. It’s the Fever.
The Essential Factors
The WNBA is all about shooting and turnovers.
This season, teams won 79.8% of their games when having a higher eFG% (effective field goal percentage) than their opponents. Having a lower TO% (turnover percentage) resulted in a 66.8% winning percentage. Incredibly, teams who won both the shooting factor and the turnover factor were 117-7 (0.944) this season.
In games against playoff teams after the Olympic break, three teams (Minnesota, Indiana, and Las Vegas) have a higher eFG% than their opponents. The Lynx have been elite on both ends of the floor. In eight games, they’ve won all eight by shooting an absurd 57.5% eFG% while holding opponents to 47.4%. Both are best among playoff teams.
Four teams (Seattle, Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Minnesota) have a lower turnover percentage than their opponents. Seattle and Atlanta, both of whom struggle shooting from the perimeter, rely on their ability to take care of the ball to remain competitive on the offensive end.
Las Vegas and Minnesota are the only two teams to qualify in both categories. New York has a 5-3 record despite not qualifying in either category. To be successful, they had to live in the extremes of the other two factors. They are 12.5 percentage points better than their opponents in offensive rebounding percentage (first in OREB% and DREB%), and their free-throw factor difference is also first.
Connecticut, like New York, has a lower eFG% and a higher TO% than their opponents. The Sun have not been able to win the other factors to the extent that the Liberty has. This explains their 3-6 record against playoff teams after the Olympic break.
The beauty of the playoffs is the uncertainty. There is a heightened state of intensity. As the stakes rise, so does the competition. Adjustments abound and stars emerge.
Let the madness ensue.
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