With the Atlanta Dream sweeping the regular season series with the Indiana Fever yesterday and the Connecticut Sun beating the New York Liberty, the Eastern Conference playoff field is finally set.
The full playoff schedule is available at WNBA.com (click here).
We'll have previews and such later, but for now we take a look back at the regular season series for the two pairings to get a preliminary sense of how they match up.
Below are the scores of the relevant regular season meetings for each series (with links to the stats via Lynx Data, with efficiency, Four Factors, plus/minus, and miscellaneous stats).
Indiana Fever (1) vs. New York Liberty (4)
Regular season series: 2-2 split
First game: Thursday, September 15 at 8 p.m. EDT (ESPN2) in Indianapolis
Date | Location | Score | Note |
June 10 | Indiana | 81-80 Liberty | |
June 11 | New York | 86-80 Fever | |
August 13 | Indiana | 82-71 Fever | First meeting post-Kara Braxton trade First meeting after Briann January injury |
September 9 | New York | 83-75 Liberty | Erin Phillips out |
Connecticut Sun (2) vs. Atlanta Dream (3)
Regular season series: 2-2 split
First game: Friday, September 16 at 7 p.m. EDT (NBA TV) in Uncasville, CT
Date | Location | Score | Note |
July 31 | Uncasville | 99-92 Sun | McCoughtry came off the bench |
August 19 | Atlanta | 94-88 Dream | First meeting after Shalee Lehning injury |
August 21 |
Uncasville | 96-87 Sun | |
September 6 | Atlanta | 85-74 Dream |
Notes:
- This might actually be the best possible pairing for the Fever, considering the Dream swept them and the Sun just blew them out 83-55 in Connecticut recently. This should be an exciting series.
- The Sun won home court advantage with yesterday's win against the Liberty and that's probably a good thing: the Dream have won 11 of their last 12 home games while the Sun have only lost twice at home all season, tying the Seattle Storm for best home record.
- Another small note looking ahead: with the Seattle Storm's win against the Chicago Sky last night, the Storm won the privilege of home court advantage over the Dream should those teams meet in the WNBA Finals.
There is clearly more parity in the Eastern Conference, but who would you consider the favorite to make the Finals given the final seedings?
Feel free to drop your insights and links in the comments.
For a look at the Western Conference Playoff pairings, click here.