Currently the two best teams in the league, the Storm and the Aces split back-to-back games in Seattle in mid-May.
Seattle was still sorting through options to replace Natasha Howard at center, and Mercedes Russell wasn’t yet one of them — she was still quarantining after returning from her international play in Turkey.
The Storm are 5-1 in their last six games, holding opponents to an average of 73.0 PPG.
The Aces started the season strong on both offense and defense, and have even turned it up a notch.
In their nine games in June, they’ve allowed over 75 points just twice, including in Tuesday’s rather surprising 87-83 loss to Washington, which has been playing well despite its injuries.
For the Aces, point guard Chelsea Gray hit the ground running even back in May in her first season in Las Vegas.
Naturally, that’s not the first thing we think of with the Aces, but as long as they can make a few 3s they’re usually in good shape.
Sean Hurd: Going off what Kevin said, I think maybe it’s the play of Riquna Williams. If we’re talking about the Aces’ 3-point production, Williams is at the front of that conversation.
There’s also the fact that she didn’t get to play against the Storm in last year’s WNBA Finals due to injury, which might still be some extra motivation for her this season.
Because Plum was away from the team for the FIBA 3×3 Olympic Qualifying Tournament, her 32-point game against the Liberty makes up a heavy percentage of her season totals.
I don’t know if we can necessarily call this a surprise since Young showed what she can do on the floor late last season when she scored at least 17 points in five of the Aces’ final seven regular-season games.
Voepel: As important as Angel McCoughtry was to the Aces last year, I have been a little surprised that they haven’t seemed to miss her a great deal yet this season as she sits out with an ACL injury.
Thanks to Connecticut Sun star Jonquel Jones’ absence for EuroBasket, the Storm and Aces have the inside track on the top two seeds, allowing them to advance directly to the semifinals and host those best-of-five series.
In the league’s history, we’ve only seen a rematch of the previous year’s Finals twice — in 1999-2000, between the Comets and Liberty; and the Sparks-Lynx in 2016-17.
Hurd: I agree that Seattle and Las Vegas are the two best teams in the league and wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up getting a Finals rematch.
And if we want to take a look at Vegas, the Aces have dropped two straight to Connecticut.
As we’ve seen this season, injuries or players being away from the team due to FIBA play or COVID-19 protocols have caused a handful of teams to struggle.
Voepel: As Kevin said, the fact that these two seem headed again to the double-bye into the best-of-five semifinals means everything.
Voepel: It is difficult to pick the Aces to lose at home, but the Storm will be extra-motivated to not lose their second game in a row, and Las Vegas has another game before facing Seattle.
Speaking of that loss, Washington was able to win that game thanks to a monster night from Tina Charles.
Lee: Normally I’d agree with Kevin on home-court advantage, but the Storm have been freakishly good away from Everett — they’re 7-0 and the only team still undefeated on the road.