The 8-Seed Just Swept the 1-Seed. The Liberty Were Never a Normal 8-Seed.
The Liberty are the first team through to the semifinals — the first time in WNBA history a No. 1 seed has been swept in the opening round, and nobody left in this bracket wants to see them next.
The New York Liberty finished the regular season 26-18, stumbled into the playoffs as the eighth and final seed, and got handed a first-round date with the Minnesota Lynx, the team that sat atop the standings for most of the season.
Then they swept them. In two games. By a combined 32 points.
It is the first time in WNBA history that a No. 1 seed has been swept in the opening round. The Liberty are the first team through to the semifinals, and nobody left in this bracket wants to see them next.
Game 2: 87-71, and it was never that close
Tuesday night at Barclays Center, the Liberty closed it out with the kind of complete performance that makes the seeding look like a clerical error. Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones each scored 21 points, with Jones adding 13 rebounds. Sabrina Ionescu put up 18 points and seven assists. New York jumped to an early 10-point lead and never fully lost control.
The defense did the real damage. Minnesota shot 38.2 percent as a team and managed just 71 points, after an offense that had been the league's most consistent all season. Napheesa Collier, who the Lynx were counting on to hit her peak in October, finished the series with 26 total points and never looked comfortable. Rookie of the Year Olivia Miles, unanimously named the day before, went 1-of-8 for five points in Game 2 and totaled 16 points on 20 shots with two assists across the whole series.
Minnesota led for 3 minutes and 23 seconds in the entire series. All of it came in Game 1.
Game 1 set the tone
Sunday in Minneapolis, Stewart dropped 34 points and 12 rebounds, her third career 30-point playoff double-double, as New York stole home-court advantage immediately. Collier and Natasha Howard both fouled out. Kayla McBride missed her first five threes. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said afterward she felt no pressure because she is "already in the Hall of Fame," which is the kind of quote that sounds a lot worse after your team gets swept by an 8-seed.
Courtney Williams put it plainly: "New York is a great basketball team. You dig a hole for yourself and try to get out of it."
Why the 8-seed was a lie
This is the same core that won the franchise's first championship in 2024: Stewart, Ionescu, Jones, and Leonie Fiebich. They got bounced in the first round last year by Phoenix and spent this season looking ordinary, opening 13-12 and cycling through lineups under first-year head coach Chris DeMarco. Then they finished 13-6 down the stretch with one of the league's best post-All-Star-break offenses.
FanDuel gave them 14-to-1 title odds before the playoffs, sixth best in the league. That number is already a museum piece. As Jonquel Jones said after the clincher, the Liberty "understand who we are as a team... we feel like we can play with anybody and beat anybody." When a roster with a championship and a Finals MVP says that, it is not bravado. It is a resume.
What's next
The Liberty advance to a best-of-five semifinal against the winner of the Dream-Mystics series. The championship they are actually chasing is still weeks away: the WNBA Finals, now a best-of-seven, begin October 17.
For Minnesota, it is a third straight heartbreaking playoff finish and an offseason full of uncomfortable questions. For New York, it is the most dangerous sentence in sports: the 8-seed with nothing to lose just remembered it knows how to win.
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