On Sunday, we were treated to a big day of WNBA playoff action as all four Game 1s were played in the best-of-three first-round series.
That means that four teams now sit on the brink of elimination. What happens next for those teams? Well, there are three options: a quick two-game exit, a Game 3 exit or a series victory.
Which of these 0-1 teams has the best chance to come back in this series? Let's take stock of where they are after Game 1.
Heading for a Game 2 exit
It's pretty clear that three of the four losing teams on Sunday were just completely overmatched.
We start with the Golden State Valkyries, who did a surprising job hanging around early on with the No. 1 seed Minnesota Lynx. It was close enough for long enough that I almost started tweeting some irresponsible things about the Valkyries making this a series, as Golden State led 28-21 after one quarter of play.
But Minnesota's defense took over from there, holding Golden State under 20 points in each subsequent quarter to win 101-72. In the end, the Lynx had an effective field goal percentage of 58.8 while the Valkyries were at 41.5 percent. Maybe the Valkyries can be more competitive in Game 2, but it doesn't really look like we should expect much.
Then there was the nightcap between the Aces and Storm. First, I want to say that this is the one game I didn't get a chance to watch because it tipped pretty late for me as the parent of a one-year-old who decided he needed to wake up at 5 a.m. on Sunday, and I was initially worried that I'd miss a good basketball game. I really thought the Storm's starting unit was good enough to make this a game.
But, uhh...yeah, that didn't happen. Vegas won every quarter on its way to a 102-77 Game 1 victory. This series is done, and I'm ready to declare that despite having a worse record than Minnesota, the Aces are the WNBA's best team.
Finally, there was the one actually competitive Game 1 between the Dream and Fever. For a while there, it looked like Indiana had a shot to take it behind Kelsey Mitchell's huge 27-point effort, but the Fever losing the second quarter by 10 points really kind of doomed them in the 12-point loss.
This Indiana team has the best chance of these three teams to force a Game 3, but after watching the team shoot 13.3 percent from deep, I just don't think it happens. The lack of reliable depth means that this team is going to wear down as games go on, and Atlanta having the duo of Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard negates the advantage that Indiana gets with Mitchell. Like, maybe the Fever have the best pure scorer on the floor, but the Dream have the second and third-best scorers, and they have Brionna Jones, who proved to be a very strong answer for Aliyah Boston. Naz Hillmon is also a very underrated part of what makes Atlanta so dangerous.
So, that's three series down. What about the other?
New York won Game 1, but at what price?
The New York Liberty might have been better off if they'd just found a way to lose in regulation, because the healthy version of this Liberty team could have overcome an 0-1 deficit. Now, the Liberty are up 1-0, but a fairly bad-looking injury to Breanna Stewart has the Mercury set up to win the next two games and take the series.
Obviously, this could all change if Stewart is good to go, but the injury looked bad. With about three minutes to play in overtime, Stewart drove the left baseline into a crowd of defenders. She went up and made the shot, but she landed awkwardly and immediately grabbed at her left knee.
At this point, I'm going to assume the worst until we hear otherwise. Stewart has a growing injury history and rushing her back for Wednesday's Game 2, even if nothing is torn, seems like a bad move.
This leaves the Liberty in a pretty precarious spot. New York went just 5-8 this season when Stewart was out. To make matters worse, just one of those five wins came against a playoff team. Going 1-5 against playoff teams without Stewie is not a good sign for New York's playoff hopes.
And that's not even to speak of this Phoenix team and what it's capable of. Phoenix managed to take Game 1 to overtime despite Satou Sabally shooting 2-for-17 from the floor. Sabally has struggled during her WNBA playoff career, but we have to expect a better showing than that in Game 2 and Game 3, right?
Add in some positive regression from Monique Akoa Makani, who shot 18.2 percent on Sunday, and you should get a Mercury team that scores closer to 80 points than the 69 it was held to in Sunday's overtime loss. Can a Stewie-less Libs team keep up with that? Talent-wise, you'd think so, but the results in 2025 with Stewart out aren't encouraging. If she misses the rest of this series, then I think the defending champs are in big trouble, and even if they manage to win, a second-round series against the Lynx awaits.