The eight WNBA playoff teams were decided in August, as there’s a 10-game gap between the eighth-seeded Dallas Wings and the ninth-seeded Los Angeles Sparks, but there’s a lot left to play for still, as none of the eight playoff teams has clinched its seed yet. All three teams between the sixth and eighth seeds are tied, with the Minnesota Lynx and Golden State Valkyries likely battling for the top see and the Las Vegas Aces, Atlanta Dream, and Indiana Fever battling for third.
Pretty much any matchup between two teams in the playoff picture, therefore, could conceivably be a first-round preview. Tonight at 8 p.m. ET, the New York Liberty will host the Dream in what could easily be a preview of the 3-6 or 4-5 series.
Both of these teams are pretty healthy, since the three-week FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup break helped nagging injuries heal. Reserve forward Brionna Jones (leg) will miss the rest of the season for Atlanta, while only developmental contract player Elizabeth Balogun (who has yet to make her WNBA debut) is listed on the injury report for New York. The Liberty will also be without Satou Sabally, who’s on leave from the team as she continues to recover from a severe concussion, but Sabally has only played 218 minutes this season.
The Dream are 1.5-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook (-125 Moneyline), with the total set at 177.5 points. New York is +105 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down this potential playoff preview and offer a prediction.
Dream at Liberty Best Bet
Atlanta Dream -4.5 Alternate Spread (-125): Atlanta has a plus-18.9 net rating in its last 10 games, and it hasn’t been much worse on the road than at home. The Dream basically only lose when they allow a barrage of threes, going 22-5 when opponents shoot less than 40% from deep, and the Liberty have only hit the two-fifths mark in 10 of their 42 games.
Dream at Liberty prediction, pick
Both of these teams have been pretty untouchable in their first two games since the break, as Atlanta won its first two games by 69 points and the Liberty by 49, and New York had a much tougher schedule. Overall, the Dream should be more well-rested, since the Liberty had seven representatives at the World Cup (including Breanna Stewart, Pauline Astier, Marine Johannès, Leonie Fiebich, and Raquel Carreras, all of whom advanced to either the final or the bronze final), while Atlanta only had four (two in the final or bronze final). The Dream have been slightly better on both sides of the ball for the season as a whole, as they rank fourth in both offensive and defensive rating while New York ranks fifth on offense and seventh on defense. However, both teams are hot overall, with a double-digit positive net rating over their last 10 games.
Atlanta’s Plan A is to get to the rim; this season, the Dream have attempted 32.0 shots per game within five feet, 2.6 more than any other squad, and Angel Reese is the only player in the WNBA to attempt more than 10 shots per game in that zone. That might be an issue against the Liberty, who have allowed the sixth-fewest close shots per game and held opponents to the fifth-lowest percentage. Similarly, although New York has been one of the best finishing teams in the league, with Stewart, Jonquel Jones, and Sabrina Ionescu all making more than three-fifths of their shots within six feet this season, only the Dallas Wings have held opponents to a lower percentage in the last 10 games than the Dream’s 56.8%. Atlanta should have the slight overall edge because the Liberty haven’t been as aggressive getting downhill, but both of these teams are good enough that neither should dominate inside.
The key for New York will be to keep the Dream off the offensive glass, as while Atlanta ranks first in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage (thanks mostly to Reese, the best pound-for-pound rebounder in WNBA history), its margin relative to the Liberty is larger on offense. Atlanta has larger advantages elsewhere; it is much better at forcing turnovers and running in transition than New York, and it has drawn more fouls. Both of those could be problematic for the Liberty, since they’ve recorded the fifth-most turnovers this season and Jones, their defensive anchor, has had some foul issues.
New York will need to make its threes count. This season, the Liberty have attempted the third-most threes in basketball, converting at the fourth-highest rate, and the Dream have been both less prolific and less efficient from deep despite Rhyne Howard’s efficiency jumping from 32.2% in 2025 to 36.3% so far this season. Opponents haven’t tested Atlanta much from beyond the arc, as they’ve attempted the fewest threes per game, but when they have, they’ve converted those shots at the second-highest rate. New York has ranked near the league average defensively by both accuracy and volume, although it has managed to hold its opponents to eight-for-44 (18.2%) from deep across its two post-World Cup games.
It’s possible that the Liberty could unleash an aerial barrage on the Dream, but Atlanta’s three-point defense has improved to league-average over the last 10 games, and in that span, it has a hard-to-ignore plus-18.9 net rating. The Dream have a slight edge in every other aspect of the game, and their net rating is only 0.5 points per 100 possessions worse on the road than at home, one of the smallest discrepancies in the league. Seven of Atlanta’s last eight games have ended in wins by at least five points, and Howard and Allisha Gray shot anomalously poorly inside the arc in the exception. The Dream have only lost five times this season when opponents have shot worse than 40% from deep, and for as many talented shooters as New York has, that simply can’t be the expectation.
