3 bold predictions about the WNBA playoffs: Records will fall this postseason originally appeared on The Sporting News
The 2025 WNBA playoffs begin Sunday afternoon with a slate of four games. Eight teams will begin the battle to be crowned WNBA champion — and while the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx are the favorites, this postseason will feature more of The W’s trademark intensity throughout, which could lead to a few surprises along the way.
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Let’s make a few bold predictions about the playoffs before the action begins in Minnesota, where the Lynx will host the expansion Golden State Valkyries at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday.
The Las Vegas Aces will sweep their way to the Finals
The Aces ended the regular season on a 16-game winning streak; the WNBA record is 18 successive wins, set by the Los Angeles Sparks in 2001. Between the playoffs and the regular year, the Aces are going to break that record on their way to a fourth WNBA Finals appearance in six seasons.
The second-seeded Aces begin the playoffs with a best-of-three series against the seventh-seeded Seattle Storm, a talented but inconsistent team that is likely to make significant personnel changes in the offseason. Led by A’ja Wilson, Las Vegas should sweep here.
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Vegas then would meet either the Atlanta Dream or the Indiana Fever in the best-of-five semifinals. The Aces swept the upstart Dream across three regular-season meetings, and Vegas last faced the Fever — ravaged by injuries — on July 24, more than a week before the winning streak began.
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Wilson, Chelsea Gray, Jackie Young and Jewell Loyd all know what it takes to win a title. Vegas flipped the switch in August, and the Aces show no signs of slowing down as the playoffs loom.
Atlanta’s Rhyne Howard will break the record for most points in a playoff game
Last September, Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier torched the Phoenix Mercury for 42 points in a first-round playoff game, tying a record held by two other players.
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This September, Dream guard Rhyne Howard will break that record by scoring 43 — tying her career-best — in the first round against the Fever.
Howard is one of the WNBA’s most underrated stars. The top pick in the 2022 draft, Howard is a three-time All-Star who tied her career-high at 17.5 points per game this season, even though she missed 11 games. She is an aggressive shooter who has taken her production to another level since head coach Karl Smesko’s arrival.
Howard scored 36 points in a playoff game against the Dallas Wings two years ago, making her the youngest player to score 30-plus in the postseason. The 25-year-old is primed to make a run at Collier’s record against a banged-up Fever team as Atlanta seeks to win a playoff round for the first time in nine years.
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The Mercury will sweep the Liberty
It’s been a weird season in New York, and it will end in the weirdest way possible: the champs will suffer a two-game sweep in the first round against Phoenix.
Despite finishing with identical 27-17 records, the Liberty lost the tiebreaker to the Mercury as Phoenix won three of four regular-season meetings. New York hasn’t been healthy for much of the season — though its big three of Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart are all ready to go for Sunday — and head coach Sandy Brondello has warned that the Liberty’s poor rebounding metrics could doom them in the postseason.
The Mercury have a top-five defense that led the league in turnovers forced for much of the season. Phoenix’s own big three of Kahleah Copper, Satou Sabally and Alyssa Thomas finally has started to gel in recent weeks — and playing the first game of this series at home is a huge advantage against a Liberty team that finished 10-12 on the road.
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It has been four years since a defending WNBA champion failed to win a game in the following postseason. The Liberty’s inconsistency and unpredictability makes them particularly vulnerable to a short playoff stay this season.
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