Happy Sunday! Welcome to The Next’s Daily Briefing, featuring the daily Watch List. Day 85 of the WNBA season and the final day of the regular season is finally here! The day we have all been anticipating, dreading, waiting for, you name it. By the day’s end, there’ll be no more theorizing about who’ll be in the WNBA playoffs and who won’t be.
To help you keep track of it all, I’ve made an explainer graphic you can keep with you throughout the day that has every scenario each team could use to get either the No. 1 seed (in the case of the Sky and Aces) or into the playoffs (in the case of the Lynx, Dream, Liberty and Mercury). You can find it below:
Oh, and if you’re wondering which of those teams are relying on each other to help them through today, here’s a chart that shows just that:
Happy watching!
But first, read…
- As promised, our Lucas Seehafer takes you behind the scenes of the Lynx’s celebration of Sylvia Fowles’s career after her final regular season home game
- Our Jackie Powell brings you inside the mind of Liberty star guard Sabrina Ionescu, her on-court mentality and how she’s helped lift up New York when they needed it most
- Our Arie Graham explores how missing Arike Ogunbowale affects the Wings and the pieces that will step up in her absence
- Our Matthew Walter details how Chelsea Gray’s acceleration post-All-Star is contributing to the Aces’ success and what it means for their championship hopes
- For ESPN.com, Alexa Philippou tells the story of Napheesa Collier’s return to the court just 10.5 weeks after giving birth and the five-week sprint that got her there
Watch List, Sunday, Aug. 14
Minnesota @ Connecticut, 1 p.m., ABC, SN
Atlanta @ New York, 2 p.m., ESPN3 (Local: YES App, Bally Sports South)
Indiana @ Washington, 3 p.m., ESPN3 (Local: Monumental, Indiana Fever Livestream)
Seattle @ Las Vegas, 3 p.m., ABC, NBA TV Canada
Chicago @ Phoenix, 5 p.m., Amazon Prime Video (Local: Bally Sports Arizona, Marquee)
Dallas @ Los Angeles, 7 p.m., League Pass (Local: Spectrum Sportsnet, Bally Sports Southwest, NBA TV Canada)
