WNBA playoffs: Three decisive Game 3s highlight a balanced season

NEW YORK (AP) — It's fitting that many of the opening round playoff series are going the distance after the balanced regular season the WNBA had.

There will be three decisive Game 3s over the next two days. That's the first time that's happened since 2015. Last season all four opening round series were sweeps.

“You look at the standings this year how close it was, usually in the past it was clear cut who the top three were,” Phoenix forward Alyssa Thomas said after the Mercury routed New York on Wednesday night. “This year there was so much movement and it came down to the wire who was going to be the eight in the playoffs. Credit to how the league is growing and how balanced teams are. It continues to get better.”

The WNBA changed its playoff format this season giving each team at least one home game in the opening round which probably has helped. In the past few years, the better seeded team would have the first two games at home. Indiana and Seattle evened up their series on their home court Tuesday night and Golden State came within a basket of beating No. 1 seed Minnesota on Wednesday night to make it 4 for 4 on series going the distance.

“I think it's super intense. I think numbers don't matter no more. Everyone's 0-0,” Minnesota guard Courtney Williams said. “You can't take no team lightly. You saw that tonight. These folks came out and gave us a run for our money.”

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said that she expected her series to go a third game too.

“At no point in time did we think this was going to be a two-game series, at no point in time,” she said. “They played well enough to win obviously we hung in there and made one more basket then they did.”

While the Indiana-Atlanta and Seattle-Las Vegas series saw each team win games on their home court, Phoenix and New York bucked the trend. Both were victorious on each other's home court to force the third game.

“It didn't help us since we lost the first game at home,” Thomas said laughing. “It's just nice for everyone to get a home game. Two home games (in a row) last year is unheard of in a three-game series. In order to win a series, you got to win on the road. Tonight we won on the road. It's been a competitive couple of games.”

Back when the playoffs had East and West matchups instead of the top eight playing each other regardless of conference, opening series going the distance was more common.

In 2003 and 2004, three of the four opening series went three games. In 2008 all four went the distance.

The league went to a single-game elimination format in the first round from 2016-2021 before going back to best-of-three a year later.

“You see how competitive, how balanced this is,” said New York forward Breanna Stewart. “How important it is for these kind of series, you know, to be going back and forth. It’s kind of crazy. ... Hopefully for the fans and those people watching, they just get to enjoy it more. They get to see basketball more often.”

All the players and coaches wouldn’t mind an extra day or two before the decisive games. The format though is similar to the NBA, which basically played every other day in the first round this past season.

“I think that’s a tough thing as always, you see how competitive this league is talking about those turnarounds,” Stewart said of the 48 hours between Game 2 and 3 that all the series face.

Whoever wins Friday night's game between Phoenix and New York will also have a quick turnaround with Game 1 of the semifinals in Minnesota on Sunday.

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AP WNBA: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

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AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this story.