WNBA Playoff Picture: Every scenario in play on the final night of the regular season

The most exciting WNBA season in recent memory is carrying the tension right down the final night of regular-season action. All 12 teams will be playing on Sept. 19, the last night of the regular season, and five of those six games will have playoff implications.

Right now, five of the eight playoff seeds have been decided:

• The New York Liberty are locked in at No. 1
• The Minnesota Lynx are locked in at No. 2
• The Seattle Storm are locked in at No. 5
• The Indiana Fever are locked in at No. 6
• The Phoenix Mercury are locked in at No. 7

That leaves us with two serious contenders — the Connecticut Sun and Las Vegas Aces — jockeying for the No. 3 seed and a trio of teams — the Atlanta Dream, Washington Mystics and Chicago Sky — still hoping to claim the No. 8 seed. While the matchups are still not set, we do know that homecourt is settled and the Liberty, Lynx, Sun and Aces will be the four teams hosting Game 1s of their respective series.

It's going to be a busy night and the spiderweb of possible scenarios is dizzying. Here's everything you need to know about the final season and how things could work out.

WNBA schedule for the final night of the regular season

WNBA playoff scenarios for the final night of the regular season

Connecticut Sun WNBA playoff scenarios:

• If the Sun win, they are the No. 3 seed
• If the Sun lose and the Aces lose, the Sun are the No. 3 seed
• If the Sun lose and the Aces win, the Sun are the No. 4 seed

The Sun control their own destiny — a win over the Chicago Sky gets them a matchup with the Indiana Fever and a chance to avoid the New York Liberty until the WNBA Finals.

Las Vegas Aces WNBA playoff scenarios:

• If the Aces win and the Sun lose, the Aces are the No. 3 seed
• If the Aces win and the Sun win, the Aces are the No. 4 seed
• If the Aces lose, they are the No. 4 seed

The Aces need a little help to move up, needing both a win over the Dallas Wings and a loss by the Sun to move into the No. 3 seed. If they stay at No. 4 they'll still have homecourt advantage in a tough first-round matchup with the Seattle Storm.

Atlanta Dream WNBA playoff scenarios:

• If the Dream win, they are the No. 8 seed
• If the Dream lose, the Sky lose and the Mystics lose, the Dream are the No. 8 seed
• If the Dream lose, the Sky lose and the Mystics win, the Mystics are the No. 8 seed
• If the Dream lose, the Sky win and the Mystics win, the Mystics are the No. 8 seed
• If the Dream lose, the Sky win, the Mystics lose and the Mercury lose, the Sky are the No. 8 seed
• If the Dream lose, the Sky win, the Mystics lose and the Mercury win, the Dream are the No. 8 seed

The Dream also control their destiny and a win over the Liberty locks them into the No. 8 seed and a first-round matchup against New York. However, if they lose, things get extremely messy. The Mystics hold the tie-breaker over the Dream if those two teams finished tied in the standings. The Sky hold the tie-breaker over the Dream, but only if the Mercury also lose on the final night of the season — a win by the Mercury would make them a team "at or above 0.500" which factors them into the tiebreaker process and would put the Dream ahead.

If all three teams finished tied in the standings, the Mystics would get the No. 8 seed by virtue of the best combined head-to-head record against the other two teams.

Chicago Sky WNBA playoffs scenarios:

• If the Sky lose, they're eliminated from playoff contention
• If the Sky win, and either the Dream or Mystics win, the Sky are eliminated from playoff contention
• If the Sky win, the Dream lose, the Mystics lose and the Mercury lose, the Sky are the No. 8 seed
• If the Sky win, the Dream lose, the Mystics lose and the Mercury win, the Sky are eliminated from playoff contention

Washington Mystics WNBA playoff scenarios:

• If the Mystics lose, they are eliminated from playoff contention
• If the Mystics win, the Sky lose and the Dream lose, the Mystics are the No. 8 seed
• If the Mystics win and the Dream lose, the Mystics are the No. 8 seed regardless of what happens with the Sky
• If the Dream win, the Mystics are eliminated from playoff contention

Possible first-round WNBA playoff matchups

While there are just three seeds up for grabs tonight, it means just one first-round matchup is already locked in with the rest to be decided on the final night of the regular season.

The schedule for the first-round hasn't been released yet but will probably be rolled out sometime on Friday, Sept. 20. The first-round will begin on Sept. 22.

WNBA Draft Lottery scenarios for the final night of the regular season

In addition the playoff implications, there are WNBA Draft lottery odds on the line tonight. LIke the NBA, the WNBA holds a lottery to determine the draft order among teams that miss the playoffs. However, rather than determining the odds by the most recent season's record, they use the previous two seasons combined. That means the draft lottery odds heading into the final night of the regular season look like this:

What happens with the Mystics and Sky on the final night of the season, as well as whether the Wings win or lose, will determine the odds for slots No. 2 through No. 4. It's conceivable that the Mystics, Sky and Wings could all finish with identical two-year records, in which case the tie-breaker is the record in the most recent season. The Wings would have the clear edge in that scenario and the Sky and Mystics would, again, come down to what happens in the final game as they're currently tied in the 2024 standings.

The final wrinkle here is that the Dream have already traded the rights to their first-round pick to the Mystics. If the Sky were to slip into the playoffs based on one of the unlikely scenarios above, the Mystics could have have two lottery picks and even if they make the playoffs themselves, they'll still have at least one.