{"id":263188,"date":"2026-09-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/three-things-to-watch-as-the-wnba-regular-season-winds-down-the-gist\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T00:00:00","slug":"three-things-to-watch-as-the-wnba-regular-season-winds-down-the-gist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/17\/three-things-to-watch-as-the-wnba-regular-season-winds-down-the-gist\/","title":{"rendered":"Three things to watch as the WNBA regular-season winds down | The GIST"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>The GIST: <\/strong>The WNBA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DdZDGUhk5lJ\/?img_index=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">most-viewed season<\/a> returned to the hardwood with last night\u2019s five-game slate. The on-court action is thrilling as ever, but scoreboard watching is what\u2019s en vogue as the postseason looms. Let\u2019s discuss.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\ud83d\udccb Playoff teams vie for postseason positioning:<\/strong> Only 25 total regular-season games remain before the playoffs tip off on September 27th \u2014 and seeding is clear as mud. The league-best Minnesota Lynx are just two games ahead of the No. 2 Golden State Valkyries, while a mere two-and-a-half games separate seeds four through eight.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Only six of those 25 remaining games feature playoff teams battling each other, so everyone will be watching <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wnba.com\/schedule?season=2026&amp;month=all\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the league-wide scoreboard<\/a> to keep tabs on the competition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\ud83d\udc40 Here are a few storylines we\u2019ll be following:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\ud83c\udfe0 Which team will earn coveted homecourt advantage, <em>especially<\/em> since the first round is still (sadly) a three-game series. The Lynx, Valkyries, Las Vegas Aces, and Atlanta Dream would host if the regular season ended today.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\ud83e\udebd How the Dallas Wings respond to their mounting injuries. The Wings were without Alanna Smith in last night\u2019s 97\u201377 win over the LA Sparks, while Paige Bueckers dropped 19 points despite nursing some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/womens-fastbreak\/news\/paige-bueckers-makes-difficult-admission-about-chronic-knee-pain-01jz65q2d4jw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pesky patellar tendonitis<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>\ud83c\udf0e The impact of the three-week international break. Every playoff team sent at least two players to the FIBA World Cup and the NY Liberty sent eight. As for those who didn\u2019t go \u2014 like Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu and Lynx maestro Olivia Miles \u2014 will they be rusty? TBD.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\n  n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\n  document,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n  fbq('init', '1716705275141133'); \/\/ Insert your pixel ID here.\n  fbq('track', 'PageView');\n      <\/script><script async defer src=\"https:\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegistsports.com\/article\/three-things-to-watch-wnba\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The GIST: The WNBA\u2019s most-viewed season returned to the hardwood with last night\u2019s five-game slate. The on-court action is thrilling as ever, but scoreboard watching is what\u2019s en vogue as the postseason looms. Let\u2019s discuss. \ud83d\udccb Playoff teams vie for postseason positioning: Only 25 total regular-season games remain before the playoffs tip off on September [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":263189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6805],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-263188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-womens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}