The New York Liberty (32-8) will host the Atlanta Dream (15-25) at home. WNBA The playoffs will be a best-of-three series featuring two-time MVP Breanna Stewart, one-time MVP Jonquel Jones, the league's all-time leading rebounder Tina Charles and all-star guards Sabrina Ionescu, Rhyne Howard and Alisha Gray.
While the Liberty undoubtedly has the advantage in this series, here's everything you need to know ahead of the No. 1 vs. No. 8 matchup.
Liberty Dream Playoff Schedule:
Game 1 will take place on Sunday, September 22nd at 1pm ET in New York (broadcast on ESPN).
Game 2 will be on Tuesday, September 24th at 7:30pm ET in New York (broadcast on ESPN).
Game 3, if necessary, will be played in Atlanta on Thursday, Sept. 26 (time TBA, broadcast on ESPN2).
Regular season series: New York wins 3-1
Players to watch:
Liberty: Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones, Betnija Rainey Hamilton
Dream: Alisha Gray, Ryne Howard, Tina Charles
Prediction: Two and free.
Liberty Should Easy win. After all, New York has been the best team all season, and two-time MVP Breanna Stewart is playing at an MVP level again this year. After losing in the Finals last season, the Liberty returned as a better team in almost every way this year, and has had the best record in the league most of the year. Stewart started the year slowly (by her own lofty standards), but she's been coming back recently. Over the past 10 games, she's averaging 22.7 points on 49% shooting and 41% from the field on 3-pointers.
Rookie Leonie Fiebic has also been a big contributor to the rotation, emerging as a sixth-round MVP candidate and establishing herself as one of the league's best three-point shooting threats. Jonquel Jones has shown glimpses of her former MVP self, and Betoniah Laney-Hamilton missed a few weeks recovering from knee surgery but should be healthy and ready to impact games as an elite two-way player.
Still, the Liberty enters the postseason after a stretch of its worst basketball of the season. They lost three of their final four games at home and nearly squandered a 20-point lead against the Wilson-less A's two weeks ago. They ultimately lost two of their final three games to end the season and looked uncharacteristically drained of energy in the final weeks. It's a small sample size of struggle, an inevitable downward trend in a 40-game season, but it came at an unfortunate time.
Meanwhile, Atlanta secured the eighth seed on the final day of the regular season, overcoming a slow start to the year and defeating the Chicago Sky and Washington Mystics to clinch the final postseason berth. The Dream have been a .500 team since the Olympics, led by Rhyne Howard (19 points per game after the break) and Tina Charles (17 points, 11.8 rebounds).
Howard will likely need to have a monster series for Atlanta to have any chance of pulling off the upset. So will Charles, who has turned back the clock and become a force in the post. (She also became the league's all-time leading rebounder on Thursday.) Alisha Gray, the Dream's second-leading scorer this season with 15.6 points per game, will also have her hands full defensively in this one.
But make no mistake: the Liberty are the overwhelming favorites to win the championship. This season, the Liberty have a net rating of +11.7, while the Dream have a net rating of -3.6. The Liberty have two former MVPs and the league's Third best defenseA first-round loss would be a major upset, but the bigger question is whether this team has what it takes to be WNBA champions and whether they can beat the Lynx, Aces, Sun or any other team that could stand in their way of winning the title.
The big question: Will Sabrina Ionescu find her rhythm?
Photo by Catalina Fragoso/NBAE via Getty Images
Oddly enough, Sabrina Ionescu is the X-factor here. The All-Star guard shot just 33.3 percent from the field after the break, and the Liberty looks like a completely different team when she's not making shots. Ionescu has the ability to be the best shooter in the game, and while she hasn't been the most accurate this season, this recent form doesn't reflect what she can be.
She hit a career-high in three-pointers last year and has taken a step forward in her overall game this season, especially around defense and playmaking, but her shooting will need to be more consistent if the Liberty is to achieve its ultimate goal of a WNBA championship (though her unusual misfire against the Dream might be manageable if everyone else makes baskets).
