Happy Tuesday, Ball-Knowers!

It is officially ‘Playoffathon’ here at NCS. For those that have just joined us in the last year, welcome! ‘Playoffathon’ is where we as a crew lock in to make sure you don’t miss a minute of action or a moment of analysis of every WNBA postseason matchup. We’re live on YouTube every night following playoff games, and the newsletter will have write-ups the next morning.

So consider this column a kick off to what’s going to be an awesome month ahead.

Let’s get rolling!

Tyler previews what the Fever and Lynx must do to avoid Game Two elimination…

If you like Five Out in video or podcast form, it’s here too!

I’ll admit, it’s been fun to watch the original GOAT rivalry of the modern WNBA return. For the last few years, it’s felt as though A’ja Wilson’s dominance has been so absolute that to even find a parallel has been a challenge. But it’s easy to forget that the superstar A’ja needed to get through to truly state her ‘Best in the World’ case was Breanna Stewart, who by 2020 had already won two championship to go along with the laundry list of WNBA, college and prep accolades. In the last couple seasons, I’ve fallen victim to the idea that maybe Stewie wasn’t on a team that could allow her to recapture her form, or that her struggles from three point land capped some of the all-time upside.

But since the FIBA World Cup, Stewart has firmly re-asserted her place in the pantheon and now it feels like her and Wilson are playing their own game of ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’.

Stewart finished New York’s Game 1 win over Minnesota with 34 points on 11/18 shooting, 12 rebounds and 6 assists.

A few hours later, Wilson led the Aces in a blowout win over the Indiana Fever.

38 points on 15/19 shooting, 16 rebounds, 4 blocks.

Just GOAT stuff.

While the new generation of players will one day take the mantle, it has been enjoyable to see this resurgence from Stewart and a possibility that we may get the original Clash of the Titans that existed in the WNBA (Stewie vs. A’ja) before the 2020 Golden Generation arrived. They’ll have their moments, and still may in these playoffs, but sometimes it’s nice to appreciate the GOATs while you have them, and to be open to enjoying the show while they’re here.

The Golden State Valkyries are starting to feel like the 2025 College Football Playoff national champion Indiana Hoosiers. All throughout the year, Curt Cignetti’s team beat up on everybody with machine-like efficiency, a swarming defense and a death by a thousand cuts approach on offense. And even after they ran Alabama off the field at the Rose Bowl, it didn’t feel like they garnered any type of respect as a real deal national title contender until they stepped on the field for the game itself. Last year’s NBA champion New York Knicks were similar, being discounted as the presumptive runners-up while the winner of the Western Conference Finals was deemed the victor of the ‘real’ NBA Finals.

All season long the discussion has been ‘well, the Valkyries play pesky defense and kill you in a variety of ways offensively but that’ll look different come playoff time’.

Well, it’s playoff time and the Valks just erased the seven seed Dallas Wings in Game One. Yes, Azzi Fudd and Alanna Smith aren’t suited up for Dallas. Yes, Paige Bueckers looks like she’s playing 1v5 basketball out there. And while this Dallas team is a plus matchup for what Golden State likes to do, eventually we have to reckon with the idea that the Valkyries are just winning these games. How many more before we say, yes that’s a bonafide title contender?

Do they have a 1A scorer? Not particularly. But in light of other champions in other sports recently, I’m starting to wonder if we’re in an era where that just might not be as important if you are able to win collectively across the field/floor. It sure looks like Golden State is going to make a deep playoff run that way, and I’m planting the flag now because I will not feign shock if we wake up in mid-October and they’ve snuffed out every challenger en route to a title. They’re the real deal. Time to treat them that way, even if they don’t have the singular superstar we’re accustomed to.

Minnesota has a win-or-go-home matchup tonight in the Barclays Center against a surging Liberty team led by a similarly surging Breanna Stewart.

But other than that, how are things going? Honestly, not great!

Olivia Miles admitted that she was a little nervous in her first ever WNBA playoff game, which is understandable. Chris Demarco threw his best Liberty defender, the long and versatile Leonie Fiebich, on the rookie point guard to try and give her some trouble creating space and passing lanes in pick-and-roll. Miles looked visibly frustrated and started to press. The newly minted Rookie of the Year was held to just one assist in the first matchup.

But beyond the nerves she exhibited, which can obviously be settled with time and reps, the bigger concern is how out of sync Miles and Lynx superstar Napheesa Collier looked. It’s been a strange year for Phee, who is no doubt still dealing with some residue from her injury sustained around this time last year. The alarming thing is that this doesn’t necessarily look like a physical problem between the guard and forward. There were two possessions in particular in Game One where Miles looked off Collier, and another where Collier did the same to Miles. When Miles headed to the bench with frustration over another foul call in the second half, it was Natasha Howard who went over to help steady the rookie’s emotions.

Ultimately, the early season tea-leaf reading about potential discord between Collier and the Lynx organization might have been unfounded but it’s hard not to look at it now and wonder. If there’s another blowout tonight in Barclays, it may signal the end of a possible window for Minnesota and some big questions in free agency this winter. Those concerns can be staved off for another few days with a solid Game Two performance but, of all the teams in the playoffs right now, it feels like the Wings and the Lynx feel the most out of sync.

Blowouts are probably the hardest games to not draw conclusions from. If we had four close Game Ones, the easiest thing to do as a media member is to be balanced and even keeled. The issue is that, in a best-of-three series, it’s hard to not overreact to what we saw on Sunday. It wasn’t just the final score, in three of the four cases. Indiana was beaten into submission, Minnesota looked out of sync while Dallas just doesn’t seem to have the players to hang with Golden State.

The benefit of the doubt is that we tend to see this in the WNBA playoffs. There are a lot of results in past years where teams dominate game one, then lose close in game two before we see a more evenly matched game three. The Aces had this very situation occur last year against the Seattle Storm. And while the Lynx swept the Valkyries this time last season, the margin shrank from 19 in game one to just a single point in game two.

What makes this year feel somewhat different is twofold: we expected a lot more parity from seeds one through eight and the way in which the Fever, Wings and Lynx lost were microcosms of larger issues they’ve had for the past month or more. When the margins become smaller, every minute of every game has higher stakes. You can’t really punt on a game in a best-of-three series the way you can in a best-of-seven. In Minnesota’s case, they now have to try and win on the road against a Liberty team that seems to have their number. Indiana gets the benefit of being in Gainbridge Fieldhouse while the Washington Mystics are the only team that feels like they wouldn’t surprise anyone if they took game two in D.C. Sometimes overreactions are for the podcast bros and Twitter fingered keyboard warriors. But sometimes, that overreaction is warranted. We’ll find out starting tonight if there should’ve been patience preached or if the doomsayers weren’t wrong, just early.

I couldn’t help but notice that, outside of a couple choice individuals, most of the FIBA World Cup players performed pretty well in the opening game of the WNBA postseason. All throughout September, I’ve been curious how those selected to go to Germany, particularly the veteran players with a lot of miles on their respective engines, would handle high leverage games so close to the playoffs. Unlike the 2024 season, where the Olympics gave way to an additional month of regular season basketball, the World Cup landed snugly between the end of the regular and postseason.

It seems to have helped ramp up some players. Golden State and New York, who had a variety of American and French participants in FIBA action, played like they were ready for a title series. The Big Three of the Las Vegas Aces, specifically Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray, clearly have already settled into a high-stakes mindset. While A’ja Wilson didn’t participate in the World Cup, she came out of the gates swinging as well. Contrast that to players like Kelsey Mitchell, who looked a little off and Olivia Miles, who seemed a bit overwhelmed by the increased intensity.

There’s still two more rounds of basketball ahead so there is still a chance that those players can run out of gas. But it sure feels to me like the athletes who got a crash course in playoff-style hoops are the ones benefitting as we really get rolling into the title chase.