Storm vs. Mercury is the WNBA’s past and future

The WNBA came up with a dramatic new playoff format in 2016, and, honestly, it rules. The league eliminated the West and East Conferences, plus also gave a dramatic two-round bye to the league’s top two seeds. These new-look playoffs ensure that, conservatively, about 75 percent of the WNBA’s regular season contests have a significant impact on the postseason. This, by itself, is a revelation.

The new playoffs also mean that, instead of dragging on early-playoff mercy-killings for weeks, the WNBA gives its fans this truly maniacal week of four single-elimination games. As seeds No. 1 and No. 2 take some well-earned R&R around the casa, seeds No. 3-8 have been whittling each other down to just two remaining contestants. Now we’re down to four semifinalist teams, who have been paired off and are about to begin best-of-five series. While the Atlanta Dream and Washington Mystics face off against each other on the other side of the bracket, here’s what the series looks like between the Phoenix Mercury and the league’s No. 1 seed, the Seattle Storm.

How the Mercury got here

Thanks in large part to Diana Taurasi’s proven game-takeover ability, the Mercury are the unparalleled masters of the single-elimination game. In each of the three years of the new playoff format (2016-2018), Phoenix has comparatively loafed through the regular season, going 16-18, 18-16, and then 20-14 this year. After last night’s road victory over the Connecticut Sun, though, the Mercury are an incredible 6-0 across single-elimination games, making this their third straight semifinal appearance.

The playoff bracket lined up in Phoenix’s favor when their first single-elimination game opponent turned out to be the Dallas Wings. In 2018, the WNBA had seven strong playoff contenders — and the Wings were the eighth seed. Despite the historic scoring prowess of dominant center Liz Cambage, the Wings limped in with a 15-19 record, and had fired their coach earlier this month. A roster decimated by injuries meant that a player who the Wings signed this week — Maggie Lucas — saw the floor for 19 minutes in this all-or-nothing contest. (Although: Lucas played very well!) Phoenix easily handled Dallas, 101-83.

From there, the Mercury had less than 48 hours to make perhaps the most daunting journey in American professional sports — to rural Uncasville, Connecticut, to face off against the Sun. Without any name-brand stars on their roster, Connecticut instead relied on an ultra-efficient ten-deep rotation on their way to building the league’s second-best net rating in the regular season. If there were ever a game to prove the value of postseason experience, this was it: while Taurasi icily went 5-for-10 from downtown on her way to 27 points, Connecticut suddenly decided to tinker with their lineups. For the first time all year, All-Star Chiney Ogwumike was brought off the bench, going only 1-for-5 in only 19 minutes while getting regularly scored over by the much-larger Griner. Jonquel Jones was inserted into the starting lineup and, despite going 13-7-7 (as a center, with no turnovers!), Jones was only given 26 minutes on the floor. After holding just a one-point advantage going into the fourth quarter, Phoenix ground out gut-check time, winning 96-86.

Phoenix’s mastery of the winner-take-all game has not paid any dividends in the best-of-five semifinals. Between facing the Minnesota Lynx in 2016, and the Los Angeles Sparks in 2017, the Mercury have yet to win a semifinal game, going 0-6 across those two series. Is it a matter of fatigue? Is it a case of Phoenix simply being the slightest of tiers below the WNBA’s reigning powers in the Lynx and Sparks? Whatever the case, there is cause for existential urgency in Phoenix. Taurasi is now 36, and since the apparent dynasty-building draft addition of Griner in 2013, the Mercury have won “only” one championship (2014).

How the Storm got here

For the entire season, Seattle has been the absolute class of the WNBA, going 26-8, with a dramatic lead in overall net rating and a historically great offensive attack. When I examined the Storm’s sudden new identity as a contender, in late July, there was still concern that their stellar record might falter thanks to a dramatic amount of late-season road games against difficult opponents.

Welp, Seattle leapt over that hurdle with remarkable ease. The Storm closed the regular season on a three-game winning streak, and they haven’t played a road game since August 12. They won’t play another one until August 31, when the series moves to Phoenix for Game 3.

Plus, during this week when the Storm have been resting at home, the playoff bracket has definitely begun to arrange itself in their favor. The other semifinal series features the two other teams who offer Seattle’s most difficult matchup problems. The Dream are the only team with a winning record against the 2018 Storm, going 2-1. The Mystics went 1-1 against Seattle with Elena Delle Donne healthy, handing the Storm a season-worst 23-point loss. Seattle had established their league dominance because they had won the season series against every other potential opponent: Minnesota (2-1), Los Angeles (2-1), Connecticut (3-0), and, yes, Phoenix (2-1).

The regular season match-up

This series is a poetic bookend to the start of the season, when the Storm and Mercury were virtually banded together. After playing both preseason games against each other, Seattle opened their season with a home-and-home against Phoenix.

The first game, from May 20, was a 87-82 Mercury win. In a way, though, it was a relic from a previous year of Storm basketball: Seattle started Crystal Langhorne at power forward, who had started all but one game in that spot since the start of the 2014 season. This game is also Langhorne’s most recent appearance in the starting lineup: in each of the following 33 games, Coach Dan Hughes would start Natasha Howard. While Langhorne is a two-time former All-Star with an efficient mid-range game, Howard would prove to be the key to unlocking the full potential of Seattle’s star trio of Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart, and Sue Bird.

In fact, Seattle’s starting lineup — which also includes veteran small forward Alysha Clark — would begin to meaningfully discover their chemistry during their very next game, on May 23 against Phoenix. The Mercury jumped out to a quick 13-2 lead, and for a moment it looked like Seattle’s entire season — if not their entire years-long rebuilding project — was doomed to mediocrity. But then one of the most important plays of the entire WNBA season happened.

After Loyd earned a steal, Seattle pushed in transition. The ball went to Bird, on the wing, and Howard prepared to set a screen for Bird. Importantly, it is the 6-foot-2 Howard — and not the 6-foot-4 Stewart — who matches up on both sides of the floor against Griner, the league’s most imposing interior presence. Right as Griner prepared to defend the Howard-Bird pick-and-roll, Howard slipped the screen before setting it and cut hard to the basket. All-time assist maestro Bird quickly hit her with the pass, and it wa an open lay-up:

With Griner on the perimeter instead of at home in the key, Phoenix was unable to guard the action. Seattle went back to it on the next two possessions, getting buckets each time, for a quick six-point burst. After starting in that 13-2 hole, Seattle rocketed out to a 13-point lead by halftime, and coasted to an 87-71 victory.

These possessions are important because they are the genesis of Seattle discovering their own version of the Death Lineup — a five-player unit that can both out-space and out-defend any combination that the rest of the league throws at them. Seattle’s new starting lineup is, at the very least, equally at potent as the Golden State Warriors’ five space-bending guys: if you look at the WNBA’s best seven players, by net rating, five of them are Seattle’s starters.

Specifically, this is one of the first times that a WNBA team has had an answer for Griner, who produces among the absolute legends on a per-minute basis. Griner’s game is that of the dominant, but paint-bound center. This style is, yes, quickly becoming a relic in the NBA, but there are good reasons why Griner’s skillset is still effective in the WNBA. Namely: Griner has a very meaningful proportional size advantage over almost every other starting 5. In other words: if Hassan Whiteside was 7-foot-6 or 7-foot-7, wouldn’t so many of the NBA’s floor-stretchers be at the mercy of his paint-bound ways?

Suddenly it takes an elite offensive attack of your own in order to overcome the offensive damage that 7-foot-7 Whiteside would inflict on the other end. It literally requires a lineup with three All-Stars, including at least one Hall of Famer (Bird), and one likely MVP winner (Stewart). And even then, with just one mismatched skillset — Langhorne instead of Howard — all of the advantages are lost.

When the teams met for the third and final time, on July 31, Seattle had spent months refining their offensive attack, and they took care of Phoenix, 102-91, in a game that had a 20-point margin after three quarters. Nobody in Phoenix’s starting lineup registered a positive plus-minus. Bird was +19 in just 23 minutes.

Griner can still put up great offensive numbers against Seattle’s defensive scheme of guarding her with Howard, and then sending aggressive double-teams. In the three games against the Storm, Griner averaged 24 points on 56.3 percent shooting — and both numbers are above her season averages. Still: Griner’s plus-minus was a combined -28 across those three games, with one of the worst defensive ratings on the Mercury against Seattle.

Final call

Even in the few short weeks since July 31, the Mercury have responded to an injury with an inventive lineup change of their own: All-Star small forward DeWanna Bonner has been moved to power forward. The Mercury now resemble Dwight Howard’s Orlando Magic teams of yesteryear, with four floor-spacers surrounding a dominant center. Dallas and Connecticut found themselves unable to handle Bonner in this new role, as she dropped two strong 20-10 games in the elimination rounds. However, in the regular season Seattle would in fact use the 5-foot-10 Loyd to guard the 6-foot-4 Bonner. While that speaks volumes about Loyd’s defensive skills, the space-savvy Storm will be better equipped to handle tracking a fourth perimeter player.

Taurasi, Griner, and Bonner will all find ways to put massive points on the board throughout the series. They are all too good to each be contained on a nightly basis. (Well, and also, Phoenix doesn’t have any strong scoring options outside of their big three.) Despite the individual offensive outpourings that are sure to come from Phoenix, the team’s entire offensive attack does not completely neutralize any of Seattle’ big three stars in the way that they, in turn, neutralize Griner. Phoenix is a far tougher out than their regular season record indicates, but they won’t be able to overcome one of their three stars moving backwards in plus-minus. Seattle in 4.