- Minnesota owns the WNBA’s top seed, and every series it plays starts at home, after Tuesday’s 96-77 loss at Indiana.
- Portland erased a 17-point Golden State lead and won in overtime, ending the Valkyries’ run at the top seed.
- Napheesa Collier called the showing “embarrassing” after a 29-point hole and a fourth defeat in five games.
- Rookie guard Olivia Miles sat out with a sore left calf, and Minnesota will decide on her again close to tip Thursday.
MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota will open the WNBA postseason as its No. 1 seed, a spot the Lynx locked up Tuesday not through anything they did in a 96-77 loss at Indiana. Instead it was the Portland Fire, who erased a 17-point Golden State lead and beat the Valkyries 90-82 in overtime to shut the only other road to the top.
The Spoiler
Minnesota had controlled the tiebreaker in the race for the top seed for weeks, and Tuesday made it official. The Valkyries scored the game’s first 17 points at Portland, a run the team said tied for the fifth-largest to open a game in league history, and still lost. Overtime went 13-5 to the Fire, with Carla Leite’s three-point play putting Portland ahead for good in the 90-82 finish.
Portland, long since eliminated, was playing the last game of its inaugural season with nothing at stake beyond the spoiler role, and it snapped a Valkyries winning streak with it. Golden State falls to 31-12 with one game left, and the No. 1 seed is off the table.
Thursday’s finale at Los Angeles decides whether Golden State lands the No. 2 or No. 3 seed. Minnesota, 32-11, opens the postseason at home whatever happens in its own finale.
Collier: ‘Embarrassing’
None of that softened what happened in Indianapolis. Indiana’s lead reached 29 and stood at 23 at the break. Coach Cheryl Reeve kept Napheesa Collier and the other four starters on the bench after halftime, and the second unit took the third period 30-14 to get within seven before Indiana closed it out.
“It’s embarrassing,” Collier said afterward. “We should be disappointed and embarrassed about the product that we put on the floor tonight. Not proud of what we did.” Four defeats in Minnesota’s last five games make this its worst run of the season, top seed or not.
Miles Is A Game-Time Call
Olivia Miles, who leads Minnesota in scoring and passed Caitlin Clark’s rookie points record Sunday with 21 in the win at Connecticut, went into Tuesday with her left calf flagged on the injury report. The training staff worked the leg out on the floor before the game, and Minnesota pulled her roughly an hour and a half ahead of tip. The right calf, not the left, cost her two games in July.
Miles told ESPN her plan was to test the calf at Wednesday’s practice. Reeve said the call on Thursday, when Indiana visits Minneapolis to close the schedule, will again likely wait until close to tip.
The WNBA Futures Board Hasn’t Moved
The title race Minnesota just backed into hasn’t shifted much on online sports betting boards. The Lynx are still -120 to win it all, the same number they carried in last week’s seeding preview, before Tuesday’s results were known. A price holding flat through a 19-point loss and a seeding-deciding spoiler means the market had already priced in the seeding math days ago.
A ticket bought before Tuesday gained nothing on the clinch and lost nothing on the blowout, because the number was never tracking the score. Golden State drifted from +650 out to +700 instead, while Las Vegas tightened from +700 to +650 and New York shortened from +1600 to +1300 as the bracket narrows with the regular season ending Thursday.
The full WNBA betting board appears below.
| Team | Odds |
|---|---|
| Minnesota Lynx | -120 |
| Las Vegas Aces | +650 |
| Golden State Valkyries | +700 |
| Atlanta Dream | +850 |
| Indiana Fever | +900 |
| New York Liberty | +1300 |
| Dallas Wings | +7000 |
| Washington Mystics | +7000 |
Both contenders finish Thursday, Minnesota against Indiana in Minneapolis and Golden State at the Los Angeles Sparks with the No. 2 seed on the line. Minnesota’s best-of-three first-round series against the No. 8 seed opens Sept. 27 at home.
