Though most of the playoff teams clinched their postseason berths days or even weeks ago, we had to go to the last day of the regular season to learn three of the four matchups. With all eight playoff teams sporting winning records, this is shaping up to be the most compelling first-round in WNBA playoff history. With that in mind, we will break down each first-round matchup and predict which teams will advance.

New York Liberty (5) vs. Phoenix Mercury (4)

Either one of these teams would have a decent shot to make the WNBA finals if they had avoided the 4-5 game. Instead, one of these teams will lose in the first round and the other will face an uphill battle against Minnesota in the next round.

Time has run out for the Liberty to act like an elite team and reigning WNBA champions. They have the most decorated starting five in the WNBA with two former MVPs, a Finals MVP, an All-WNBA player and an All-Defensive Team player. But even with all that talent, they finished the season fourth in offensive rating and sixth in defensive rating. That was good enough for the fifth seed but is significantly lower than the last two seasons, when they made it to the WNBA finals.

The biggest difference for the Liberty offensively has been the decline of Breanna Stewart. At 31 years old her career is far from over, but it is fair to question if her days of being the best player on a title team are. Stewart is a career 34.9 percent shooter on threes, but she shot just 24.1 percent this season. Her 18.3 ppg matched her career-low she recorded as a rookie in 2016, while her rebounds per game and effective field goal percentage were the lowest of her career. Stewart is certainly capable of getting hot in the playoffs, but I would bet against it. Phoenix isn’t quite as big as the Liberty but they have plenty of size to match up with Stewart and her teammates, most notably Satou Sabally and DeWanna Bonner. I don’t think Stewart is going to get many easy looks in the half-court. New York will likely look to push the pace as a way to juice their offense. They ranked fourth in pace during the regular season, one spot behind the Mercury.

With the possible exception of Stewart, we pretty much know what to expect from New York’s offense. They will play big lineups at times with 6’4” Leonie Fiebich at the two, and they will look for backup point guard Marine Johannes to provide a spark off the bench. The rest of the rotation will be quite interesting. Emma Meesseman came off the bench Thursday with Sabrina Ionescu back, and they could continue to play that way in an effort to get more defense in the starting lineup and more offense off the bench. What I really want to see, however, is how deep the Liberty go into their bench. Kennedy Burke is a three-and-D wing who ostensibly replaced Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, but she is not nearly as effective as Laney-Hamilton, especially on defense. Burke does provide yet more size on the wing and she shot 41.4 percent on 5.1 three-point attempts per 36 minutes, but I think Phoenix is going to make her prove it in the playoffs. Burke is a career 34.9 percent three-point shooter.

I’m still banging the drum for Rebekah Gardner to play more minutes. Gardner and Natasha Cloud are the only players I trust to defend the opposing team’s best guards, and she made 43.6 percent of her threes on 3.0 attempts per 36 minutes. Gardner probably needs to up her frequency to not be a negative on offense but given New York’s offensive firepower, I think they can afford to play her quite a bit.

Last week I called Kahleah Copper Phoenix's X-Factor, and I feel even better about that call after seeing their first-round matchup. Copper was not great against New York earlier in the season, but she scored 22 points on 7-15 shooting in their matchup two weeks ago. Copper is Phoenix’s third option on offense, but she is a former Finals MVP who is capable of taking over games or series. Perhaps more importantly, New York doesn’t have any great matchups for her. I think Natasha Cloud will get the first crack at slowing her down, but I’m not sure anyone can do it.

Alyssa Thomas is Phoenix’s de facto point guard, but I think sometimes the rest of the team gets caught ballwatching when she is running point. On the other hand, if she doesn’t start with the ball in her hand, there are too many possessions where the ball never finds her. Thomas averaged 17.3 points, 10.5 rebounds and 9.8 assists in four games against the Liberty. New York actually matches up with her pretty well, but I think Thomas is matchup-proof at this point. At the end of the day I think New York has too much talent, so I’ll pick Liberty in three.

Minnesota Lynx (1) vs. Golden State Valkyries (8)

I’m not sure any team had a chance against Minnesota in the first round, but I think this is an exceptionally poor matchup for Golden State. The Valkyries earned a winning record in their inaugural season by being very good on defense and shooting a ton of threes. The problem is that they are facing a team that does both of those things better than they do, and Minnesota doesn’t everything else well too. The Valkyries are third in defensive rating this season, behind just Atlanta and Minnesota. The difference is Minnesota is first in offensive rating while Golden State is 10th. Golden State leads the league in three point attempts but they finished 11th in three--point percentage. The Lynx slipped to seventh in three-point attempts but led the league in percentage.

Minnesota won all four regular-season meetings with Golden State, including two in the last five days. The Lynx won by 11.75 points on average. The Lynx can guard Golden State one-on-one while not helping off of shooters. The only player who could cause Minnesota some trouble is Veronica Burton, but the deadline trade for DiJonai Carrington gave Minnesota a lockdown defender they can put on the opposing team’s best perimeter player.

One of the reasons Golden State’s defense was so good this season was that they played the most zone defense in the entire league. That doesn’t work against Minnesota. The Lynx have at least four shooters on the floor at all times, and they are the best passing team in the league. Only the Liberty recorded assists on a higher percentage of their makes than the Lynx this season. Passing and outside shooting are the most surefire ways to beat a zone, and Minnesota will be prepared.

Minnesota might not be quite as inevitable as I thought earlier in the season, but they should still advance to the next round with no problem—Lynx in two.

Atlanta Dream (3) vs. Indiana Fever (6)

They were overtaken and overshadowed by the Las Vegas Aces, but Atlanta finished with a six-game winning streak of their own to finish comfortably in third. They were second in net rating at 9.3, and while they weren’t close to Minnesota (12.1) they were much better than third-place New York (5.2). Atlanta finished second in offensive rating and second in defensive rating, and if that’s not a title contender, I’m not sure what is.

That being said, I’m still not sure how Atlanta got there. Rhyne Howard led the league in three-point attempts but shot just 32.2 percent on 9.6 attempts. As a team, Atlanta was second in attempts and seventh in percentage, just slightly better than Golden State. I wonder if they will have to cut back on their diet of threes later in the playoffs. Then again, their ability to get up threes in bunches could give them an advantage if they advance to face the Aces or even the Lynx.

Defensively, this team has been outstanding despite playing Brittney Griner a career-low 20.8 minutes. I think Atlanta is going to need to dust Griner off in the playoffs at some point, but I just don’t think Indiana has enough healthy players to force Atlanta’s hand.

I believe it is a credit to the Fever and also a testament to the depth of talent in the league that Indiana was able to continuously pluck contributors off the scrap heap throughout the season. Odyssey Sims is averaging 26.4 minutes for the Fever, while Aerial Powers is averaging 20.0 minutes, her most since 2022. I picked ball movement as Indiana’s X-Factor but now i think it might be Aerial Powers. She has averaged as many as 14.4 ppg in the league, but that was the aforementioned 2022 season. Indiana’s starting lineup is good enough to compete with Atlanta but I don’t think the bench is. Powers is Indiana’s only real two-way player off the bench, and she’ll need a vintage performance if Indiana is going to take even one game. Dream in two.

Las Vegas Aces (2) vs. Seattle Storm (7)

This is another matchup of two similar teams. Both teams are six-deep with high-level talent but have very little at the end of the bench. Both teams shoot a decent percentage on threes but do not shoot a high volume. Neither team really has anyone who scares you behind the arc. Both teams underachieved for large swaths of the season. The biggest difference is that Seattle struggled down the stretch, going 7-10 since August 1. Las Vegas, on the other hand, ended the season on a 16-game winning streak, becoming just the fourth team in league history to win 15 games in a row.

The other major difference between these teams is their crunch-time performance. Seattle saw 29 of their 44 games go to clutch time, defined as a margin of five points or fewer with less than 5 minutes remaining. No other team had more than 25 such games. The Storm were 14-15 in those games, which is a big reason they struggled to make the playoffs even after they traded for a fourth All-Star in Brittney Sykes.

The Aces, on the other hand, went 14-5 in clutch games, including 7-0 during their 16-game winning streak. While I might be tempted to write this off as a small sample, there is some evidence to suggest this could carry the Aces through the playoffs. The last three champions all led the league in regular season clutch win percentage, including two Aces teams.

The Aces worked their way up to fifth in net rating for the season, and they have the best net rating in the league over their last 15 games. I’m still not convinced they are as good as Minnesota, but they should probably be considered the favorites to face Minnesota in the finals.

The Aces’s winning streak coincided with Jewell Loyd going to the bench and much like Brittney Griner in Atlanta, I want to see how far the Aces can go before they have to start Loyd again. Kierstan Bell has been getting the Kieth Bogans treatment and while “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” probably applies to this situation, I think Loyd is going to have to reenter the starting lineup at some point. She has been more effective off the bench, averaging 16.3 points per 36 minutes. She is shooting better from the field and from three and is attempting a lot more threes per 36 off the bench. If she can carry that performance over into playing 30+ minutes per night, the Aces will be as formidable as any team in the playoffs.