WNBA 2024 Playoff Preview: Three-Peat for A’ja’s Aces? Miracle Run for Caitlin Clark?
The 2024 WNBA regular season concluded Thursday night after a record-breaking year for attendance, ratings, and just overall attention on this league. The main catalyst for this was the sensational, record-breaking season from rookie Caitlin Clark, the No. 1 overall pick who has the Indiana Fever in the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
But there was also the record-breaking rebounding from rookie Angel Reese in Chicago, which did not qualify for the tournament. Then we can never forget about A’ja Wilson, who broke the single-season scoring record, will win her third MVP this season, and she has the Las Vegas Aces ready with a chance for a three-peat.
Perhaps the most exciting regular season will give way to the most memorable postseason in WNBA history. Make no mistake about it, the WNBA would die for a Finals between Wilson’s Aces and Clark’s Fever, and the bracket does work out for that to happen as they cannot meet until the WNBA Finals.
Let’s look at the playoff format, the current championship odds, a preview of the four first round matchups, and our best bets for who will win it all in the WNBA this October.
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WNBA Playoff Bracket and Current Championship Odds
In the WNBA, the top eight teams by record qualify for the playoffs where they are seeded, regardless of conference, by best record. The first round is a best-of-3 series with the higher seed getting the first two games at home and the lower seed getting Game 3 at home if necessary. The semifinals and WNBA Finals are both best-of-5 series.
Here is how the semifinals will be decided as there is no reseeding after the first round:
- Winner of No. 1 vs. No. 8 vs. winner of No. 4 vs. No. 5.
- Winner of No. 2 vs. No. 7 vs. winner of No. 3 vs. No. 6
Here are the current WNBA championship odds via FanDuel. Teams are listed in order of descending odds rather than by seed:
- No. 1 seed New York Liberty (+125)
- No. 4 seed Las Vegas Aces (+250)
- No. 2 seed Minnesota Lynx (+350)
- No. 3 seed Connecticut Sun (+800)
- No. 6 seed Indiana Fever (+2400)
- No. 5 seed Seattle Storm (+3700)
- No. 7 seed Phoenix Mercury (+12000)
- No. 8 seed Atlanta Dream (+24000)
Notice how the championship odds align perfectly with the seeding except in the cases of the Aces and Fever because of the impact of superstar talents like Wilson and Clark. It also should be noted that one day after posting these odds, the Fever went from +3000 to +2400 to win it all as bets started pouring in on Clark and company.
WNBA 2024 First Round Playoff Series Matchups
No. 1 New York Liberty (32-8) vs. No. 8 Atlanta Dream (15-25)
- 2024 series record: New York leads 3-1
- Series betting odds: Liberty -2500, Dream +1200
This would be a shocking upset. The Liberty have only lost consecutive games once all season way back in May. They did lose to the Dream, 78-67, in Thursday’s final game of the regular season, but that was a game where most of the starters played minimal minutes as their playoff seed was locked up.
The Liberty finished 32-8 for the second year in a row, but they still paled in comparison to the Las Vegas Aces, the team they lost to 3-1 in the WNBA Finals. But this year, their 32-8 record was the best in the league and the Liberty were the most statistically-dominant team in the WNBA this season. They rank No. 1 in Offensive Rating, No. 3 in Defensive Rating, and their Net Rating (+11.7) cleared the next-closest team by a full 3.0 points. They shoot and make more 3-point shots than any team this season.
New York is led by a group of veteran players:
- Breanna Stewart: 2-time champion, 2-time Finals MVP, 2-time MVP, and the highest points per game average (23.1) in WNBA playoff history (min. 20 games played).
- Sabrina Ionescu: 3-time All-Star, No. 1 overall pick by the Liberty in 2020.
- Jonquel Jones: 2021 MVP, 5-time All-Star, 4-time All-WNBA, 3-time All-Defensive.
That’s a couple of MVPs trying to help Ionescu win her first championship and finish the job they couldn’t do last year. The Dream are unlikely to stand in the way of that dream. Atlanta plays one of the slowest-paced offenses and averages the fewest points per game in the league, making it hard to keep up with the offensive prowess of the Liberty.
The nicest thing we can say about the Dream in this matchup is that in 3-of-4 meetings this year, they forced the Liberty to shoot no better than 40% from the field, something they only did in seven other games all season.
But with the Dream already losing by 17 and 21 points at home to the Liberty this year, it would be a surprise if this series even needed a Game 3 in the first round.
No. 2 Minnesota Lynx (30-10) vs. No. 7 Phoenix Mercury (19-21)
- 2024 series record: Minnesota leads 3-1
- Series betting odds: Lynx -900, Mercury +610
Only an 81-80 loss back in June prevented the Lynx from sweeping the Mercury 4-0 this season. Minnesota is a very good team led by coach Cheryl Reeve, who has a strong argument for the greatest coach in WNBA history. She’s won four championships with Minnesota, she has the most playoff wins (42), and she has the highest playoff win percentage (.646) for anyone with at least 15 games coached.
But Reeve is seeking her first championship since the 2017 season, and the Lynx have not gotten past the first round since 2021. Led by the league’s No. 2 defense, the Lynx have a great shot to beat the Mercury since Phoenix has struggled to score against them this season. The Lynx have held Phoenix under 77 points in 3-of-4 meetings, and they are 20-2 when they do that this season.
Minnesota got a big year out of Napheesa Collier, who averaged 20.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, and made her fourth All-Star team. She’ll try to fend off an aging Mercury team with stars like Brittney Griner (33) and Diana Taurasi (42). But it was 30-year-old Kahleah Copper who led the Mercury in scoring this year, her first with the team, with a career-high 21.1 points per game. Copper helped lead Chicago to a championship in 2021.
But I would trust Reeve, Collier, and that defense to get the job done in the first round. Phoenix has not been stellar on either side of the court this season and they are only 3-7 in their last 10 games coming into the playoffs. The Mercury is also just 4-18 (.182) against teams .500 or better this season, the worst record in such games among this year’s playoff field.
No. 3 Connecticut Sun (28-12) vs. No. 6 Indiana Fever (20-20)
- 2024 series record: Connecticut leads 3-1
- Series betting odds: Sun -196, Fever +164
By the betting odds, this is easily the closest first-round series in the WNBA playoffs. That’s the Caitlin Clark effect, but it also speaks to the historic turnaround the Fever had this year in making the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
The 2024 Fever are the first WNBA team to ever start 0-5 and still win 20 games. They also are the first team to start 2-9 or worse and finish with 20 wins. Things were not clicking early for Clark, the team played a ton of games in a front-loaded May schedule, but once she figured things out, she set numerous WNBA records this season.
Many were rookie records like the most points, assists, and 3-point field goals, but she also set other records like the most assists in one game (19) in WNBA history, and she already has tied the career record with five games of 25 points and 10 assists. She is rewriting the record books and exceeding the hype.
It’s hard to put too much stock into the early-season stats for the Fever since they weren’t playing with any real cohesion or confidence yet. That includes losing the first and fourth games of the season to the Sun. In their most recent meeting on August 28, the Fever won 84-80.
Beyond Clark, Kelsey Mitchell has been an effective scorer, and Aliyah Boston had a good second season for Indiana. The Fever have taken on the identity of Clark’s Iowa teams from college in their run-and-gun style that produces a lot of points and also allows a lot of points. But she has made this style work and is doing it in the WNBA too.
In fact, there’s a very amusing backstory to this matchup with the Sun as Connecticut’s DiJonai Carrington tweeted in April that Clark may lead the league in assists this year to which her teammate Alyssa Thomas laughed.
Not only did Clark lead the league, but she broke Thomas’ single-season assists record in the process. Ouch.
But this could be a great series as it pits the high-flying offense of Indiana against the No. 1 defense from Connecticut. We know defense usually wins out in the playoffs, but the Sun were just 8-8 when allowing at least 78 points this season. The Fever have scored at least 78 points in 31-of-40 games (77.5%) this season. They were also 14-5 when getting to at least 85 points.
If there’s going to be an upset in the first round, it would be in this series on the back of Clark taking over a couple of games for the Fever. However, Clark had just 5 games this season where she did not exceed 5 assists, and every game against Connecticut was part of that sample. The No. 1 defense may be the only one that has figured out how to neutralize her as a passer, and Clark has yet to score more than 20 points in a game against the Sun too.
But again, two of those games were in the first week of her career, and Indiana is not the same team it was in May.
No. 4 Las Vegas Aces (27-13) vs. No. 5 Seattle Storm (25-15)
- 2024 series record: Las Vegas leads 3-1
- Series betting odds: Aces -460, Storm +360
Imagine that, the higher seed was 3-1 in the regular season in all four playoff series this year. But while this should technically be the closest series given the 2-win difference between the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds, the Las Vegas Aces still have very good odds to advance thanks to A’ja Wilson, who will runaway with her third MVP award this year.
Caitlin Clark is the new face of the WNBA, but Wilson is still the best player and she has the Aces in position to complete the three-peat after winning back-to-back championships already. She’s basically the Patrick Mahomes of the WNBA. But like Mahomes in 2023, Wilson is facing a difficult season as this team only finished 27-13 after it was 34-6 in 2023.
It was a bumpier ride this regular season, but Wilson still broke the single-season scoring record and averaged 26.9 points per game while also averaging 11.9 rebounds. She still has Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young to help her with the perimeter shooting and secondary scoring.
This team knows how to win in the postseason, and Wilson finished the regular season with an 8-game winning streak in the games she played.
Wilson also had a 20-rebound game against Seattle earlier this season. In the only game the Aces lost to Seattle, they shot a season-worst 31.3% from the field, which is unlikely to happen again.
The Storm are above average on both sides of the court (No. 5 in Offensive Rating, No. 4 in Defensive Rating) but not spectacular at either. They still have Jewell Loyd as their leading scorer (19.7 points per game), and she helped the team to championships in 2018 and 2020. But their core are all over 30 now with Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith both 33.
The Aces are the premiere team right now and are 16-3 in the playoffs the last two years. Look for them to advance here.
Best WNBA Picks for the Playoffs
With the way the bracket is set up this year, we cannot see a rematch of last year’s Finals between the Liberty and Aces. That would be the matchup in the semifinals, and that one may end up being the true WNBA Finals for 2024.
It feels worth noting that the Aces were 0-3 vs. Liberty this season, though Wilson was not available for the last meeting in September, a 75-71 loss for Vegas.
Frankly, the bracket sets up poorly for that dream matchup of Clark’s Fever and Wilson’s Aces in the Finals, a matchup that you could see going Vegas’ way too. It would be similar to Clark’s college career in the way she could get Iowa to back-to-back national championship games only to lose to stacked teams. I could definitely see a bet on the Aces to beat the Fever.
But Clark will likely have to get through the top two defensive teams (Suns and Lynx) just to reach the Finals, which is asking a lot from a rookie. However, if any rookie was ready to make some history, it’d be her.
But I do like the way things align for the Liberty this year after coming close last season. If they can get past the Aces in the semifinals, or get a huge break with a Seattle upset, then they should be able to take care of anyone else from the other side of the bracket as they just have too much offense and are plenty good enough defensively.
At the end of the day, I’m riding with the Liberty to end the Aces’ three-peat shot, but these are all the WNBA picks I would take a look at before this postseason gets started:
- WNBA 2024 Championship Winner – New York Liberty (+125 at FanDuel)
- WNBA 2024 Finals MVP – Breanna Stewart (+270 at FanDuel)
- WNBA 2024 Finals Exacta – Las Vegas Aces to beat Minnesota Lynx (+500 at FanDuel)
- WNBA First Round Correct Score – Indiana Fever win 2-1 vs. Connecticut Sun (+280 at FanDuel)
- WNBA 2024 Finals Exacta – Las Vegas Aces to beat Indiana Fever (+1800 at FanDuel)
- WNBA 2024 Finals MVP – Caitlin Clark (+3400 at FanDuel)
It should be a fun month and hopefully a historic postseason that will wrap up this season nicely for the WNBA.
Related Articles:
- WNBA Rookie of the Year: The Contradiction Between Team Record and Double-Doubles for Angel Reese
- Caitlin Clark: Changing the WNBA, Living Up to the Hype, and Silencing the Noise
- NBA Finals Recap: Future Is Bright for Luka Doncic and the Boston Celtics, But What About the Rest of the NBA?
- When Will We See an NBA Team Come Back from a 3-0 Deficit in a Best-of-7 Series?
