Minnesota and New York will meet again in the WNBA postseason, the first since their electric 2024 Finals matchup. This series may be an opening matchup between the one seed Lynx and eighth seed Liberty, but there will be no shortage of firepower brought by both teams.
Minnesota comes into the postseason with the league’s best regular season record, led by rookie phenom Olivia Miles, who swept the Rookie of the Month award throughout the season. Despite being the bottom of the bracket, this New York Liberty team is thought of by many as being a dark horse championship contender with their deep cast of stars like Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, and Jonquel Jones.
These two teams met up three times in the regular season, with the Liberty winning two of those contests. This is also only the second time Minnesota and New York have met up in a playoff series, the last ending with the Liberty winning a WNBA title in five games.
Series Schedule:
- Game 1: Target Center – Sunday, September 27
- Game 2: Barclays Center – Tuesday, September 29
- Game 3 (if necessary) : Target Center – Thursday, October 1
Matchup We Can’t Wait to Watch
Napheesa Collier vs. Breanna Stewart: In any other recent season this would be the marquee and most talked about matchup going into the playoffs. However, due to Collier missing most of the season to injury and the status of Stewart heading into these playoffs still a question mark due to knee soreness, the battle between two perennial MVP candidates has taken a bit of a backseat. However if both are healthy for this series, their performances are going to be crucial for their respective teams.
On September 18, the lone matchup this season when both were healthy, Stewart was dominant in a 93-81 Liberty victory. Her 24 points came on 8-17 shooting from the field (including 2-3 from beyond the arc and 6-8 from the free throw line), she corralled 10 rebounds and dished out four assists with no turnovers. It was a vintage performance for the future hall of famer.
But Collier has just as much in her bag. Since returning from injury on July 22 she has averaged 16.8 PPG on 50% shooting from the field, 44.4% from three-point distance and 85.8% on free throws.
When each of these players match up against one another, it to be a varied diet of fadeaways, face-up jumpers, and strong drives to the basket. These two former UConn greats have similar games and seem to bring out the best in each other when. It’s a heavyweight matchup that will be must-see television.
X-Factors
Olivia Miles: It may seem obvious to include an All-Star and MVP candidate as a factor in this series, but there is a lot we don’t know about Miles heading into this postseason run. Despite her complete dominance of the league this season, Miles remains a rookie entering her first playoff matchup. There’s also the question of health, as Miles has sat out the last two games for Minnesota with calf strain. If she’s unavailable or limited in her play, the Lynx will need to make big adjustments if they hope to move on to the next round.
New York’s depth: The Liberty have dealt with their own injury woes this season (and may be experiencing them now with both Breanna Stewart’s and Jonquel Jones’ status for the playoffs in some doubt), but the silver lining to that situation is that it’s allowed their reserve players to take on new and expanded roles. For example the Liberty have had 6’11” backup center Han Xu step out further from the basket on offense, asking her to shoot more threes, which can open up the lane for the guards and disrupt the opposing defense in all kinds of ways.
Han Xu is going to let it fly. My favorite thing is Han initiating the Wheel here, calling for the corner cut so she can slide to the corner for a 3.
— Steve Jones (@stevejones20.bsky.social) 24 May 2026 at 16:04
The Liberty’s bench also includes impact guards like Marine Johannes, Rebekah Gardner, and Pauline Astier. We haven’t even gotten to someone like Rebecca Allen whose veteran experience has put her in a number of key playoff situations where she has found success.
This isn’t to say that during the playoffs the Liberty are going to go deep into their bench each night, but their depth is in stark contrast to Minnesota who did not play as many players over the course of the season. This gives New York a luxury of having more cards to play to exploit different lineups that Minnesota rolls out and if one of these bench players gets a hot hand over the course of a game (looking at you, Johannes), it could swing the outcome.
Bold prediction
In 2025, three of the four first round playoff series went the full three games. And when I look at this matchup, it’s hard to see either of these two sweeping the other. So my prediction for the series is that it’s going to go the full three games.
However, that in itself is not much of a bold prediction. That is why I think that the New York Liberty are going to get the upset series win.
Minnesota may have the better season record and have looked every part the best team in the league for large stretches of the season, even without their best player in Collier for long stretches.
I think though that with both teams dealing with injuries, New York is better prepared to be without one or more of their best players and still win in the playoffs. If some combination of Stewart and Jones misses time this postseason, head coach Chris DeMarco has lineups he has already deployed this season that include reserves like Rebecca Allen and Han Xu sharing the court with regular starters like Ionescu and Leonie Fiebich.
That depth is going to be enough for the Liberty to carry the torch into the second round of the playoffs.