After jockeying for home-court advantage down the stretch of the regular season, the fifth-seeded Seattle Storm and host Las Vegas Aces will meet on Sunday night for Game 1 of their best-of-three, first-round playoff series.
The two-time defending champion Aces earned the No. 4 seed and the potential to have two home games in the series with Seattle thanks to a five-game winning streak to end the regular season. During that run, Las Vegas scored an 85-72 victory over the Storm.
A’ja Wilson, making a push for her third career WNBA MVP award, posted 21 points and seven rebounds in that win over Seattle — modest numbers compared to her regular-season averages of 26.9 points (league high) and 11.9 rebounds per game.
Teammate Kelsey Plum has advocated for Wilson to be named unanimous MVP, a major milestone in a year in which Wilson also led Team USA to a gold medal at the Paris Olympics. Wilson has played a key role in putting Las Vegas in position to become the league’s first three-peat champion since the Houston Comets secured four titles in a row from 1997-2000.
Depth could also play a significant role in the Aces’ title pursuit. Following Thursday’s regular-season-ending 98-84 win over the Dallas Wings, Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon touted the team’s strength off the bench.
“Just the quality of player from one through 12 is really good,” Hammon said. “Anybody’s number can be called over the course of the next month. … They should have a whole lot of confidence, not only in themselves, but in the person next to them.”
Seattle ran neck-and-neck with Las Vegas for the final few weeks of the regular season, closing the campaign with five wins in six games behind a pestering defense. The Storm allowed 78.8 points per game this year, the fourth-lowest average in the WNBA.
“I personally don’t really subscribe to the idea of peaking,” Seattle forward Nneka Ogwumike said. “I think that there’s obviously ebbs and flows to a season. … I do feel as though these few games, the rhythm we’ve been playing with is good going into the playoffs.”
The Storm ended the regular season with Thursday’s 89-70 rout of the Phoenix Mercury. Making the blowout all the more impressive was the fact that Seattle was without Jewell Loyd (knee) and Ezi Magbegor (concussion).
Loyd will be good to go for Sunday’s meeting, while Magbegor has already been ruled out.
Las Vegas took three games from the Storm during the four-game regular-season series between the teams.
–Field Level Media