Only four teams remain alive in the hunt for this season's championship, and they'll all be in action on Sunday when the semis start with a doubleheader featuring the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces against the Golden State Valkyries. The Atlanta Dream follow versus the No. 8 seed New York Liberty, who pulled off a major upset to be here. The rest of the best-of-five semifinals will follow the same pattern, with doubleheaders followed by off-days.
Game 2 of both series will take place on Wednesday, with both Game 3s on Friday. If necessary, the Game 4s will be on Oct. 11, followed by Game 5s on Oct. 14. Here is a closer look at Sunday's schedule: Before the semifinals begin, here are the teams our experts expect to advance: Watching the Liberty in the first-round series against the Minnesota Lynx, I felt the same way I feel when I wipe the smudge off my glasses: oh right, *this* is what things are supposed to look like!
For essentially the first time, the Liberty have looked like the championship contenders they were at the start of the season. Now, Atlanta is a much harder matchup for New York than Minnesota was, because the Dream have a lot of size and athleticism. The Dream won the season series 2-1 over the Liberty, with the final two games being fairly easy Atlanta wins to close out the regular season.
But I'm hesitant to look too much into those -- in the second one, Breanna Stewart sat out and the Dream had much more to play for. The X-factor for this series will be Leonie Fiebich. She had one point combined in those back-to-back losses to the Dream.
She is going to need to hit a couple of 3-pointers a game to open things up for New York. This is going to be a really physical, fun series, but the Liberty have the best player on the court in Breanna Stewart and the championship experience to come through in the clutch. I picked the Liberty to win the title before the season, and against the Lynx, they finally looked like they could actually do it.
Maybe they'll make me look like a sucker for believing in them again, but I can't help it. They've always had the talent, even without Satou Sabally, and the championship experience; against the Lynx, they had a newfound level of focus and cohesion. The Liberty won't be able to bully the Dream, but they're still the biggest team in the league and seemed willing to lean into that advantage in the first round.
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