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Las Vegas Aces clinch No. 1 overall seed in WNBA playoffs – ESPN – ESPN
Rebecca Lobo breaks down the biggest storylines before the 2023 WNBA playoffs tip off on Wednesday. (1:38)
The Las Vegas Aces clinched the No. 1 seed in the WNBA playoffs after Washington Mystics defeated the New York Liberty on a buzzer-beating shot Sunday afternoon on the final day of the regular season. The eight-team playoffs begin Wednesday.
The Mystics’ Brittney Sykes took a inbound pass from Natasha Cloud with 5 tenths of a second left and hit the shot for a 90-88 victory. The Liberty finish the season 32-8, putting them in second place. The Aces didn’t need to win their finale to get the top seed, but they did, 100-85, over Phoenix to finish 34-6.
“If you had said 34-6 to me back in May, I would have jumped at that in a second,” Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said. “And here we are. The amount of energy and effort [the players] put into being professionals, their approach to the game – they were so good.”
New York and Washington have a few days off until facing each other again. The Liberty will host No. 7 seed Washington, 19-21, in a best-of-three first-round series starting Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The Aces, who also were the top seed last season when they won the franchise’s first championship, will face the No. 8 seed Chicago Sky, 18-22, in the first round. That series starts Wednesday (10 p.m. ET, ESPN) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In the other first-round series openers, the No. 3 Connecticut Sun, 27-13, will host the No. 6 Minnesota Lynx, 19-21, on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN2), and the No. 4 Dallas Wings, 22-18, will host the No. 5 Atlanta Dream, 19-21, on Friday (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).
The first-round winners will meet in the best-of-five semifinals.
