Share 
The USA closed out a 97-79 win over France to capture a fifth straight FIBA Women’s World Cup title on Sunday in Berlin. Two-time tournament MVP and New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds. Three young WNBA standouts, Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese, won their first senior national team gold medals along the way.
With the world championship in hand, they return home as the WNBA regular season resumes Sept. 17. There are four games left for every team and a very tight standings picture. While the playoff field is set, the bracket isn’t.
The Minnesota Lynx, Golden State Valkyries, Las Vegas Aces, Atlanta Dream, Indiana Fever, New York Liberty, Washington Mystics and Dallas Wings will play for the league title. The first round opens Sept. 27, and seeding determines who will host.
2026 WNBA Championship Contenders and Playoff Seeding
The Race For Home Court
Minnesota (31-9) and Golden State (29-11) have pulled away enough that the top two seeds look about as safe as anything gets in a league this competitive. However, Golden State still needs to finish with a better record than the Lynx outright since Minnesota owns that head-to-head tiebreaker.
Then, there is a little separation between teams. Las Vegas sits at 27-13, just one game clear of Atlanta and Indiana, tied at 26-14, who in turn sit two games ahead of a three-way logjam between New York, Washington and Dallas, all at 24-16. Even the Aces aren’t fully settled in at three: Golden State holds a two-game cushion over Las Vegas for the No. 2 seed, but the Aces hold the tiebreaker, so a tie flips that seed their way.
That logjam behind Las Vegas matters because of how the bracket works. The first round is a best-of-three, 1-1-1 series, and seeds one through four host Games 1 and 3. Seeds five through eight play the entire round on the road. The gap between finishing sixth and finishing eighth looks cosmetic on a standings page. It isn’t. It’s the difference between hosting a series and never enjoying home-court advantage.
The Three-Way Logjam at 6-7-8
The tiebreakers inside the Liberty-Mystics-Wings tie are tangled. Dallas owns the tiebreaker over New York, Washington owns it over Dallas, and New York owns it over Washington. If all three finish tied, the next criterion is winning percentage against teams that finish .500 or better. New York leads that category at 11-10, Washington is 11-11 and Dallas trails at 8-15. A three-way tie would therefore leave the Wings at a major disadvantage. Dallas needs to create separation in the standings rather than simply match New York and Washington over the final four games.
Strength of Schedule Down the Stretch
Schedule strength cuts against some playoff teams more than others. Las Vegas closes with the easiest remaining slate in the league: Seattle twice, Los Angeles and Phoenix, none of them playoff teams.
Dallas has the second-easiest remaining schedule, with Los Angeles, Phoenix twice and Seattle. The Wings do not face another playoff team, giving them a favorable opportunity to climb out of the No. 8 spot.
Atlanta plays Connecticut and Chicago before finishing with two road games against New York. Those final two meetings could reshape the seeding picture for both teams at once.
Washington’s finish is also relatively favorable, with two games against Chicago and one against Connecticut. The exception is a road game at Indiana, a matchup that could affect the positioning of both the Mystics and Fever.
New York has the toughest closing run of the three teams that are tied. The Liberty visit Minnesota and Toronto before returning home for consecutive games against Atlanta. Three of their final four games are against playoff teams.
Indiana has the toughest remaining schedule. Three of the Fever’s final four games are against postseason opponents, including a matchup with Washington and back-to-back meetings with the league-leading Lynx to close the regular season.
Five Players Who Could Decide Seeding
Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever
Clark is averaging 22.5 points and ties for the league lead in assists at 8.4 per game. She became the first player in WNBA history to post back-to-back 30-point, 10-assist games earlier this season. She’ll need that level of play again down the stretch, because Indiana’s closing schedule is tough: a road trip to Toronto, a home date with Washington, then two games against Minnesota, including ending the regular season at the Lynx.
Rhyne Howard, Atlanta Dream
Howard leads the league in steals at 2.3 per game and already tied the WNBA’s single-season 3-point record with 128 made. She gets two chances to break it in the two games that matter most for Atlanta’s seeding: back-to-back meetings with New York, fittingly against Sabrina Ionescu, the player whose record she’s chasing. Atlanta holds the No. 4 seed by tiebreaker over Indiana at the moment, and Howard’s combination of scoring and defense is key.
Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty
Stewart comes off a FIBA World Cup MVP performance and returns to a three-way race for the No. 6 seed. She’s averaging 20.4 points and 8.1 rebounds for a Liberty team that faces the toughest closing schedule of the tied Liberty-Mystics-Wings group, a road game at Minnesota plus a home-and-home with Atlanta that will decide whether New York keeps its tiebreaker edge over Washington. Stewart just showed the world that she can elevate her play when it counts. New York needs that elite-level play immediately.
Kiki Iriafen, Washington Mystics
Iriafen has already logged 20 double-doubles in 37 games this season, averaging 15.3 points and 9.4 rebounds. Washington’s remaining slate is mostly favorable, Chicago twice and Connecticut once. However, a road game at Indiana looms as the swing game for both teams’ seeding. Washington holds the tiebreaker over Dallas but not over New York.
Paige Bueckers, Dallas Wings
Bueckers is averaging 20.5 points and 5.9 assists on 50.6% shooting in her second WNBA season. She returns to a Wings team that needs her, especially with the tiebreaker math working against Dallas in the three-way tie. The Wings’ soft closing schedule against Los Angeles, Phoenix twice and Seattle, gives Bueckers a real chance to help separate the Wings from the pack.
Photo Credit: REUTERS
