Episode 39 - The Lynx's Playoff Wake-Up Call, PWHL's First All-Star Game, NWSL Tiebreak Chaos

Cold Open: Olivia Miles Led the Best Team in the League in Scoring

Caitlin: She’s also the second rookie ever, NBA, ABA or WNBA, to lead their team in scoring as a rookie.

Alex: Not only their team, but the best team.

Caitlin: The best team. Best team in the league.

Alex: Nice, yeah, good call.

Caitlin: Hi, I’m Caitlin.

Alex: Hi, I’m Alex.

Caitlin: And this is Raising the Game, a women’s sports podcast covering prime time performers, the business behind the athletes and the leagues, and what the growth of women’s sports means for the next generation of women athletes.

Alex: Episode 39. I got that right this episode.

Caitlin: Yes.

Alex: Good job. Yeah, we’re fully into playoffs.

Caitlin: We have the first slate of games passed. I have lots to say about lots of things.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Really exciting. Although I do have to say I was a little sad today, because normally during the regular season, every night you turn on a basketball game.

Alex: Every night.

Caitlin: Gotta wait till tomorrow night. We also have NWSL, obviously. We’ve come back with some information about the playoffs. We’ve been talking about them ad nauseam, but I want to fill our listeners in a little bit on the structure, tiebreak scenarios, things that we’re going to be watching out for as we really get down to the wire here.

Alex: And we’re going to talk about PWHL. Hockey is coming back, y’all.

Caitlin: Yeah. There was some great NCAA hockey over the weekend.

Alex: Groundbreaking news, like we talked about last week.

Caitlin: And groundbreaking news in the PWHL that we have to share. There honestly were quite a few headlines.

Alex: Were all of them groundbreaking?

Caitlin: Yeah, I think they all kind of were. So we’re excited about that. We actually peeled out an entire segment around all the news for PWHL, because the season starts soon.

Alex: Yeah, we have new teams. Two months. A lot of things happening.

Caitlin: It’s gonna be a lot.

Alex: Before we move on, just make sure to click all of the follow, subscribe, like, hearts, every button that you can find on whatever platform you listen on. Just really appreciate it. It helps us find more people like you.

Caitlin: We do. Favorite thing.

Alex: Most favorite, not great thing was the game yesterday. We both got to go, we have our playoff tickets, so we got to go to the Lynx game. And it was, I mean, we’re going to talk about it, but it was not the outcome that we wanted.

Caitlin: No, there were some fun moments, good energy, lots of people there, and it just is, like you said, not the outcome we wanted, but very fun. We were both excited to go. I think one of my favorite things, in addition to that, is just the ongoing momentum around the W. There’s just continual reporting coming out about viewership and attendance, like we talked about this last week, right? And I think you’re gonna see attendance records for playoffs and viewership for playoff games smash. Their engagement in this league has never been higher. And there’s some exceptional basketball being played. We’re gonna highlight a few of those performances from the first slate of playoff games. But it just makes me happy.

Alex: Yeah, that’s great.

Caitlin: So, excited for the playoffs.

Alex: Let’s do it. Do we do headlines?

Caitlin: Let’s do it.

Headlines: LA Queens Win the First WPBL Championship

Alex: LA Queens win the first ever WPBL Championship, beating the San Francisco Firebells 2 to 0 in game five.

Caitlin: Yeah, 2 to 0 was not a score line I was expecting.

Alex: After we had like 15 to 11, some really high scoring games.

Caitlin: But the championship MVP was pitcher Ayami Sato. She’s Japanese, international. She pitched 11 innings, I think, through the championship series. Remember that their games are seven innings, not nine, like in MLB. She had four earned runs, six strikeouts, and she pitched the first ever complete game in WPBL playoff history. So defense was the name of the game in that championship game. But remember that the Queens had gone up 2 to 0 in the series, the Firebells came back to get it level, and then ultimately the LA Queens prevailed.

Alex: Everyone probably bought those tickets thinking they were gonna see just a slugfest.

Caitlin: I know, just homer after homer. And then it was just a defensive battle.

Atlanta City FC, Unrivaled’s Seventh Tour Stop and a New Adidas Deal

Alex: Atlanta City FC unveiled as the name of the expansion club set to join the league in 2028.

Caitlin: In the NWSL, yes. Fans are not particularly excited about the team name. There’s lots of memes going around. I have to say, I think the crest is really cool. They brought in the bird motif, which is very common for pro teams in Atlanta, and so I think that’s cool. But I do think folks are a little underwhelmed by the team name. And like you said, we already have Angel City FC, which is ACFC when it’s abbreviated. I’ve noticed they’ve been referring to it more as LA.

Alex: Yeah, but LAFC is the MLS team in LA.

Caitlin: So they can’t. I don’t know. It’s a little goofy. I don’t know what they’re thinking there. But exciting to add another team to the crew.

Alex: I also feel like the NWSL go to Angel City and be like, you need to call yourselves LAFC because we have this new ACFC, and they’re like, no, we’re here first. In Unrivaled news, San Francisco has been named as the seventh tour stop location.

Caitlin: We did not know this when I first was pulling the outline together, and I was like, I predict it’s going to be the Bay Area. And now we have one more to be announced.

Alex: I think you even said that last week.

Caitlin: Yes. Oh, maybe I did. So not surprising, right? It’s one of the hottest spots for women’s sports right now. You’ve got the Valkyries doing their thing. Of course they’re going to bring Unrivaled to Ballhalla. The league also announced some clarification around this tour, which is how many games do I get to watch? And it’s the same as last year’s and the same as any night of Unrivaled. There are two matchups, four clubs are playing, right? So that clarification came out, along with the 2027 season actually going to start in these tour stop locations. So that first weekend, the Friday slate of games, Unrivaled plays Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. If you play Friday, then you play Sunday again. If you play Saturday, you play Monday, right? So the Friday slate of games is going to be played in Boston and wherever this TBD location is. My prediction is Vegas, based on the geography. And then Monday afterwards will be four other clubs playing in Detroit and San Francisco. So they’re kind of teeing up this tour, having that be this big kickoff. Presumably the Friday teams will play in these cities and then go to Miami for their Sunday, and vice versa for the other group. You want to talk about their new partnership?

Alex: Yeah, they announced a new official partnership with Adidas Basketball after partnering with Under Armour for its first two seasons.

Caitlin: Yeah, this is, I think, a pretty big deal. There’s a little, like, what happened? Why did Under Armour not pursue again, or was Unrivaled seeking a little bit more, which is very, very likely. Nowhere to go but up, I should say.

A Vancouver Ownership Group Is Planning a WNBA Expansion Bid

Alex: All right, a Vancouver ownership group is planning a bid for a WNBA team.

Caitlin: Yeah, this is cool. This actually was reported two weeks ago now, not just last week. And I had seen it and I was kind of like, what is that? Is it actually? And then it kind of got traction this week. So this group is headed by a former business executive, Bill Back. I did not look up where he was a leader. Deloitte managing partner Jodie Evans is also part of this group. They are targeting a 2031 franchise. But to be clear, the WNBA has not indicated in any way, shape or form that they are interested in more expansion teams at this time. I do think the idea of adding another team in Canada is really interesting. Canada is, I think, another burgeoning women’s sports market. We’ll talk about hockey here in a second. We’ll see what happens there. I’m sure if they can bring enough coin together, I don’t know if the WNBA is going to say no to it.

Alex: I’ll sweeten it here a little bit. Ex basketball Olympian led business group is where Bill Back comes from.

Caitlin: Okay.

Alex: Don’t know what that means.

Caitlin: No idea. All right. Somebody tell us.

Kori Cheverie Named Team Canada Head Coach

Alex: Kori Cheverie named Team Canada’s head coach.

Caitlin: Snaps for Kori.

Alex: Snaps.

Caitlin: That is awesome. So she’s taking over from Troy Ryan. We’ve known for a while that he had stepped back from that role for Team Canada’s women’s hockey team. And she is retaining an assistant coach who had been on the staff. Kori was previously an assistant coach as well. Caroline Ouellette, probably butchering that. And then she’s adding Kris Sparre, who last season was the head coach for the Boston Fleet. He moved to Hamilton to be closer to where he was born, so that’s going to be a good add, and the partnership with the PWHL is very timely. So the IIHF World Championship is coming up here, starting in November in Denmark. And there’s two tune up friendlies right at the end of October before that tournament between Team USA and Team Canada. One’s being played in Ontario and one is being played in Plymouth, Michigan. So they definitely needed a coach named. There were some other executive and leadership positions around Team Canada named and refreshed with the change. So I’ll be curious to see how that goes.

Alex: Yeah, we’ll see how it goes.

PWHL Opening Weekend Schedule

Alex: All right. Speaking of hockey, let’s talk about the PWHL.

Caitlin: We’re getting there.

Alex: We’re getting there. We’re only two months away from opening day.

Caitlin: I actually meant to look up exactly how many days, have that ready.

Alex: Get a countdown going.

Caitlin: Get a countdown. Yep.

Alex: All right. Did you want me to?

Caitlin: Why don’t you take us through the schedule here and then we’ll talk about the big announcement.

Alex: Yeah, so we’ve got opening weekend. We have Saturday, December 5th and Sunday, December 6th. Saturday, December 5th, we’ve got Seattle at Vancouver, Minnesota at San Jose, and Hamilton at Montreal. And then on Sunday, we’ve got Toronto and Ottawa, Boston at New York, and Detroit at Las Vegas.

Caitlin: I love that. Two expansion teams playing one another right off the bat. I feel like these are good, kind of fun matchups. Seattle and Vancouver, like last year’s or two years ago now expansion teams. Boston and New York has its own kind of rivalry. Toronto and Ottawa.

Alex: I really hope that they’re going to be playing these during the day and not at night, because that means we’re looking at a 9 p.m. Minnesota game.

Caitlin: I know. Yeah, and Minnesota going out to San Jose for that first game there. It’s exciting to get this back up and running. I’m curious, we’ve talked about this a few times, but when are we gonna get these new team names?

Alex: Oh yeah.

Caitlin: Like we still don’t have them. It’s still PWHL Detroit, right? PWHL Las Vegas. So I want to know how they’re gonna work that into the hype machine as we lead into the season.

Alex: We had the colors already, so it’s like, they got it figured out.

Caitlin: There’s a whole marketing play here to happen.

The First Ever PWHL All-Star Game

Caitlin: Okay, so big groundbreaking, earth shattering, monumental announcement. I think it was the All-Star Game. So we have officially confirmed, after it got leaked by Scripps Sports president Brian Lawlor, that there will be a PWHL All-Star Game in the 2026-27 season. This will occur on March 7th at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, which is awesome. I love this format. I think this is really fun. So instead of playing a full on hockey game, maybe with slight variations, but usually it’s like you’re playing your normal game, they are going to play a 3 on 3 tournament and they’re creating four separate teams. So you are going to have the Team USA PWHL All-Stars. You’re going to have Team Canada PWHL All-Stars. You’re going to have Team Rookie.

Alex: Yeah, which, cool thing is, it’s any rookie, anyone who’s first year no matter how old they are. If you’re joining the PWHL at 28, you can still be a rookie.

Caitlin: That’s right, counts. And then PWHL International, kind of giving some of those international players an opportunity. Each team will have six forwards, three defenders, one goaltender. I was like, damn, only four goaltenders get picked to do this. And you have to fit one of those categories, so you better be good. And then selection will be a combo, just like most all-star games are, of fan, media, and player voting. We don’t know yet exactly what the splits will be for that, but that’s gonna be something. We’ll definitely be talking about how you can get engaged as a fan to vote for those all-stars. And then, like I said, a 3 on 3 format, and the way that it will work is the teams get seeded. Did you say it’s seeded?

Alex: I think it’s either seeded, or I don’t know if they’re going to do a coin flip on this, but it’s a round robin to start.

Caitlin: Okay. So they play a little round robin.

Alex: They’ll each play each other, presumably.

Caitlin: And then coming out of that you’re gonna get some sort of seeding.

Alex: For second and third.

Caitlin: Yep, and then second and third play each other.

Alex: To figure out who plays the number one seed. One gets a little rest while these two.

Caitlin: And the fourth team gets eliminated, right? And so it’s kind of a little bit of group play into a mini tournament.

Alex: Right. And are they playing it all in one day? I did not look that up.

Caitlin: It is all in one day. So there’s got to be pretty short games.

Alex: I mean, it’s 3 on 3.

Caitlin: My thought is it’s probably five minute periods, right? So that’s 15 minutes of gameplay. You give two or three minutes, maybe even five minutes in between to do different things with fans. There’s like a full day. You’re having fun. Maybe, I don’t know, a lot more free. You’re not taking as many hits. I feel like that could be how. So as we hear more, we will definitely talk about this. Now, the reason this is monumental, we’re kind of joking a little bit about it, but this is the first ever women’s professional hockey all-star game event of any kind. There were women at the NHL skills competition in 2024, when Kendall Coyne Schofield famously won the speed test, because she is that girl. And so it is a big deal. It sort of is, we’ve talked about before, kind of a legitimizing vehicle for a league like the PWHL. And it kind of makes me wonder, does the NWSL need to play in this lane a little bit? Like, do we need an all-star game?

Alex: Soccer feels like a weird sport to play an all-star game in. They have like a challenge cup.

Caitlin: Well, yeah, but that’s teams. That’s not like, put all the best players on the field and see what happens. I guess that’s international play. But they have that in hockey too. Anyways, I think that is a really fun format. I love the opportunity to represent your country, different countries, and rookies, giving them an opportunity. Presumably, some of the top talent in the PWHL are consistently going to be a little bit more seasoned. Team Canada, Team USA folks. So they found a way to peel out and recognize their rookies and recognize the international players who are really starting to be a big part of contributing to the league.

Alex: Yeah, for sure.

Hockey Night in Canada Adds a Weekly PWHL Game

Caitlin: I think that’s great. The other big piece of news, more for a Canadian audience, is that Hockey Night in Canada, which is apparently a big deal up there, Canadian broadcasting, the CBC, they have for decades put on a Saturday night game broadcast of an NHL game. And it turns out that the company who owns that branding ended their relationship with CBC. I don’t know why. But what it would have meant is that that whole brand went away. And what they decided to do instead was like, let’s shift it over here and we’re gonna continue to use that brand on a product that we feel is going to carry it forward in the right way. So we couldn’t find the details of why that relationship changed. Who knows? It could just be completely benign. It could be nefarious. We don’t really know. But it’s a big deal for especially those Canadian teams, I think. But hockey in general, right? Especially Canada, a country that’s hockey mad.

Alex: Yeah, that’s their thing.

Caitlin: So, great to see that, to get a quality brand and platform. And that will have one PWHL game featured per week as part of Hockey Night in Canada. All right. That’s our hockey news for right now. We are excited to continue to talk about it.

Alex: Yeah, start talking about it again.

Caitlin: Hopefully, I would imagine at this point they’re gonna continue to have some more stuff come out.

Alex: Did we get preseason?

Caitlin: Yeah, there’s preseason stuff out there. We could share that next week.

Alex: It’s not that long.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think each team plays like two preseason matchups. And they’re open to the public, but they’re not broadcast. So there’s these tune ups. I think it is important to remember that it’s a really condensed timeframe from when these players get back from Denmark and when the season starts. I think that tournament is set to wrap up on the 16th of November. I think preseason games are being played like the 28th of November. So you have like 12 days, including travel, or it’s probably more like a week, right? Opening your season a week later. So it’s going to be here before we know it.

Alex: It will be.

WNBA Final Regular Season Seedings

Alex: All right. Let’s move on to WNBA. We’ve got our end of regular season and the start of playoffs. Should we just do a quick rundown on the final seedings that we had here?

Caitlin: Yeah. And we can even comment on how that all kind of shook out last week, right? Because it was a little bit of a wild ride there for a minute.

Alex: We’ve got Minnesota at one, Golden State at two, Las Vegas at three, Atlanta at four, Washington at five, Indiana at six, Dallas at seven, and New York at eight.

Caitlin: Yeah. So as we kind of anticipated, movement at the bottom there. The top four remained the same, but there was even some drama amongst those four. Indiana had been at five, they dropped to six. Washington jumped up to five. You had the Liberty fall all the way to eighth from sixth. And then Dallas was going to linger in that space depending on what other teams did, because they didn’t have any way to impact that outside of, obviously, if they lost some of those gimme games at the end. I will say for Dallas, though, incredible turnaround for them for their season, and kudos to that team for really gritting that out. We’ve talked about their injury bug, kind of plagued by that over the course of the season. But they set a league record for biggest turnaround. They had 17 more wins this season than they did all of last season. And so, cheers to them. In the face of, frankly, still a lot of adversity down there. I still am not quite convinced that Jose Fernandez is the right coach for them. And I’m also not super convinced that they have quite the right pieces.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: But they also need to be healthy.

Alex: I was thinking about that. We were watching the game last night and I was like, this is the guy we were talking about at the beginning of the season, who was basically talking smack.

Caitlin: Called his players out.

Alex: Yeah, in a press conference. So we’ll see where they go.

Benched Starters, Tanking Accusations and the Race to the Bottom Four

Caitlin: Exactly. And then I do just want to comment on the drama that unfolded between the teams that had to play each other that were qualified for the playoffs. You had the Liberty taking on the Dream. The Dream ended up beating the Liberty twice. There was a whole back and forth between comments, not directly to each other, but through the media, between Leonie Fiebich and Angel Reese. And that was interesting. I think you also saw teams strategically sit people, things like that. So it’s maybe not the truest outcome at this point. And then Minnesota continued to, they played like garbage, absolute garbage, against Indiana in the first game and then just wiped the floor with them in the second game. Stephanie White essentially conceded that game really early, which, again, playoffs are coming, you know where you’re going to sit, whatever. It’s just really interesting, those dynamics. Everybody was saying Cheryl was throwing the first game so she could get the two seed to play the Dallas Wings, and then the Golden State Valkyries turned around and lost to the Portland Fire because Bridget Carleton is a Lynx at heart and she knew what to do.

Alex: She wanted to help us out. Didn’t help us out though.

Caitlin: But this is the thing, guys, I’m sorry, but no one’s throwing games. There’s too many things that hinge on other stuff. That makes no sense in that context, when you doing that doesn’t ensure the outcome you want. It makes no sense. I think the Lynx honestly were just playing really bad. And so she benched the starters.

Alex: Might as well see what your bench players can get.

Caitlin: Well, what did I say to you? I was like, there’s four reasons Cheryl would do this, right? One, your starters are playing like garbage. Get them off the floor. More coaches, in my opinion, should do that. Why are you letting them play? Okay, two, you are headed into the playoffs.

Alex: Rest the legs.

Caitlin: You don’t think you’re gonna win the game, rest the legs, right? Three, you are concerned about your players getting hurt because they’re gonna overextend, who knows what’s going on.

Alex: You’re gonna try and catch up.

Caitlin: Exactly, the officiating, all the things that can go into that. Not worth it at this point. And then four, to your point, let your bench play. They’re probably not going to play very much in the playoffs, but they have to stay ready. Put them in a game situation. The Lynx bench actually was quite impressive against the Fever.

Alex: And we were down 30 and they brought it within seven.

Caitlin: Against the Fever starters, mind you. Right. It wasn’t like they were playing the Fever bench. So anyways. I’m going on a little soliloquy there about that one.

Olivia Miles Wins Rookie of the Year

Caitlin: But I think we landed where we did and we’re going to get into these matchups. But before we do, we have had a few regular season awards announced.

Alex: If you’re not a Lynx fan, you’re not going to like any of this.

Caitlin: It does seem that the Lynx did theirs, and so they were able to post them. That’s kind of what I think is happening here. And I think over the course of this week, we’ll get the remainder.

Alex: All right, Rookie of the Year. I think we’ve said this since the end of month one. I don’t think anybody was surprised by this. Olivia Miles, the unanimous Rookie of the Year. What do we got here? She’s the sixth Lynx rookie to win, joining the likes of Phee, Seimone, and Maya, and this is the most of any franchise.

Caitlin: Yep, really impressive. There were like so many little factoids coming at me today, but she’s also the second rookie ever, NBA, ABA or WNBA, to lead their team in scoring as a rookie.

Alex: Not only their team, but the best team.

Caitlin: The best team. Good call. And the only other person who’s done that is Larry Bird. That’s pretty elite company. So a couple of her accolades. First of all, she averaged 19.8 points per game on 49.2 percent from the floor, 38.8 percent from three, six assists per game, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.3 steals. What this put her at from a stack rank perspective in the league and then amongst rookies: she led all rookies in total points scored, points per game, field goals made, defensive rebounds, total assists, assists per game, and efficiency, which was at 21.4, which is very high efficiency for those of you who maybe don’t know that statistic as much. She was top 10 in the league, so all players in the league, in total points, points per game, and assists per game. Rookie of the Month all four months. And she set the WNBA rookie record for total points. 22 games with 20 plus points, which is a record. Three games with 30 plus points. Eight three point field goals made in a single game, which are all rookie records. So hats off to Liv.

Alex: I don’t think there’s any question.

Caitlin: No question whatsoever. I think it was probably locked up months ago, honestly. I do think that she is feeling the pressure. And actually knowing that she probably got this news over the weekend at some point, it starts to illuminate some of the tightness and hesitancy we saw in the game yesterday. So we love you Liv, we hope that you just play free.

Alex: Yeah, loosen it up.

Caitlin: Play free, play the way that you did for like 90 percent of the season, right? And do you, girl, you are amazing. Well deserved, kudos to you for a fantastic rookie season.

Cheryl Reeve Wins a Record Fifth Coach of the Year

Alex: All right, Coach of the Year, big Cheryl Reeve. This is her fifth award, a record. She got one in 2011, 2016, 2020, 2024, and now 2026.

Caitlin: She’s kind of on a pattern.

Alex: This is a quick turnaround. Her pattern is usually five or six years. She’s compressing the pattern.

Caitlin: I know, uh-oh.

Alex: So she’s gonna get it next year.

Caitlin: Yeah, maybe. So the team finished first in the regular season with a 33 and 11 record. It was Cheryl, Natalie Nakase, and Sydney Johnson of the Washington Mystics who were all the top nominees, all very deserving for different reasons. Cheryl was the best coach of the best team in the regular season, and she did it with a team that honestly very, very few, even us.

Alex: Nope, no, no. I said this team was a sleeper.

Caitlin: Okay, well, we’ll concede that to Alex. I think we can probably find tape where there were some doubts that were expressed amongst us and amongst the media. The Lynx were projected to finish maybe at best fifth, so outside of your top tier teams, and at worst eighth or ninth. So right on the cusp of a playoff berth. For them to hold steady at one the entire season is really, really impressive. She had to rebuild a roster, really put a lot of marbles into the Olivia Miles bucket, and that worked out phenomenally.

Alex: I think looking at Natalie Nakase and Sydney Johnson, the best coach of the best team is, if they had gotten either of their teams to number one or even for half the season, the last half of the season, I think they would probably be naming one of them Coach of the Year for sure, right? Like I think you really have to look at, they were very deserving, but they weren’t the best team. And if they would have gotten there, they would have been Coach of the Year.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think too, Natalie, she’s the one for me where I could make the strongest case that she should have gotten it, because I said this in last week’s episode, I do think that the Golden State Valkyries are the best team. They play the best team basketball. I think we’re gonna see that kind of play itself out here in playoffs. This is a regular season award, right?

Alex: Yeah, that’s the other thing.

Caitlin: And I do kind of wonder, Natalie won it last year, really impressive inaugural season for that club. How much of it too is like, we just don’t do repeats.

Alex: With the coach thing, we don’t necessarily do them in a row.

Caitlin: I do think they should do MVP the same as last year, for the record. She kind of took a hodgepodge of young players and got them to buy in, come together, and they’re playing really great ball. And they finished by far way higher than I think anybody thought they were going to. But at the same time, you could actually find tape on me saying I think this team is a sleeper team. But I think at the same time, it’s the consistency piece to me valued in that assessment. I do have a funny sidebar here, which was that on Threads somebody said, so we all agree that Stewie got robbed of Coach of the Year. And I think that’s really funny, because there’s kind of a narrative out there that the only reason that the Liberty are winning games is because of Stewie.

Alex: Yeah.

Caitlin: Not Chris DeMarco. So I thought that made me laugh.

Our Picks for MVP, Defensive Player, Most Improved and Sixth Player

Caitlin: We have yet to hear who will be named MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, and Sixth Player of the Year. I think Alex and I both are pretty unanimous in our picks.

Alex: Probably pretty aligned too with what AP came out with for their awards.

Caitlin: Yeah, so we anticipate A’ja. We believe A’ja should get MVP again. Defensive Player of the Year.

Alex: I could see a co-award.

Caitlin: I could see a co-award between Gabby Williams and Angel Reese. I think you have to look at, those two teams are the best defensive teams in the league. They bring very different skill sets to that. Now, I would also say the argument would be Rhyne Howard, her steals. She set a record for steals in a season. But anyways. And then Most Improved, I think we talked about Jess Shepard, who did not show up well last night for the Wings, but definitely over the course of the regular season, impressive. And then Sixth Player of the Year, I think we both think Janelle Salaun of the Golden State Valkyries. We shall see.

Game One: Lynx Fall to the Liberty 91 to 75

Caitlin: Let’s talk about these playoff matchups.

Alex: Yeah. Lynx, Liberty. You ready for this? Lynx lose 91 to 75. They go up one. The hard part about this is you guys are going to know before this comes out whether they continue on to game three or not.

Caitlin: Yeah. That’s what I don’t love about this. I have a lot to say. This kind of looked a little bit to me like almost the exact same script as the game we went to a couple weeks ago against the Liberty, where it was like they were hitting all of their shots, we were missing. Now, granted, ours were falling in the first half this time, which was different than last time. We generated a lot of turnovers, weren’t able to translate those into points. They were hitting a lot of threes, and we were not, outside of Nia Brody in the first half again. So player of the game, I think arguably, inarguably, whatever the word is, there is Stewart. She had 34 points. She had 12 rebounds, six assists. She was like unconscious from everywhere. I do think that Stewie has a little bit of a special whistle. There were calls where it seemed like if you kind of breathed on her wrong, they were calling a foul.

Alex: I mean, there’s even one where Stewie’s laying on the ground laughing.

Caitlin: Yeah, I can’t stand one of the officials that we had. I won’t go down that road.

Alex: We don’t want to get fined.

Caitlin: I’ll pay the fine. I don’t care. But it’s just unfortunate when it’s inconsistent enough and the inconsistencies lead to momentum shifts. Now, obviously that can go the other way. I know it’s part of the game.

Alex: I mean, there were even some for us that they called that probably shouldn’t have been called. And it’s just like, we just want you to call it consistently. Consistent every time.

Caitlin: Yeah. And I think that was Cheryl. I swear to God, I thought Cheryl was going to get kicked out of the game. I think she was upset about that too, on some moving screen things and stuff like that. Like you got to call it both ways the same. So a couple of things I pulled out just thinking about the game and then looking at the stats to support it. Like I said, our first half was actually pretty good. We shot 48.6 percent from the floor, ours being the Lynx, because obviously. 42.9 percent from three, we had 15 rebounds, 12 assists, five turnovers. Pretty solid line. This was comparable to what the Liberty did, with the exception of the Liberty had more turnovers. They had nine in the first half and they shot worse. So we were winning the half. We went on this nice little run at the end.

Alex: 44 to 40 at the end or something like that.

Caitlin: We were all hyped in the building. We hit like a step back three. It was beautiful. The Lynx now shoot 34.4 percent. Did you hear the first number? 48.6. We went down by 14 percent shooting. 25 percent from three, almost 20 percentage points less, right? Eight rebounds in the second half. Eight rebounds, eight assists, and eight turnovers. Compare that to the Liberty who shot, this is insane, you guys, 63 percent from the floor, 67 percent from three. They had 20 rebounds in the second half, 13 assists, but then they had 10 turnovers. So despite New York having more turnovers, the Lynx were not able to convert. They got beat on the glass, right? Which, you can’t do that. We talked about how the Lynx in general actually got decent shots, but it was always one and done. And they were quick possessions. We were shooting a little bit too early in the shot clock.

Alex: You like wanna work the clock down. Yeah, early on they were saying that they just weren’t working their sets at all.

Caitlin: Yeah. And so it shows up here. But I was shocked by the Liberty shooting percentage in the second half and the rebound disparity. It’s pretty significant. So going forward, right? We have this big game tomorrow, which will be yesterday for you when you listen. I think you have to figure out how to shut down Stewie. You said this during the game. I was like, you have to figure out how to get her in foul trouble early so that she has to come off the court, right?

Alex: She played 37 minutes that game.

Caitlin: And then can she continue to do that, right? And then I think for us, they’re shooting like insane percentages from three. That just doesn’t last.

Alex: No, it doesn’t.

Caitlin: They’re not going to shoot 63 percent from the floor and 67 percent from three again. You just won’t see it. And then I mentioned this when we talked about the Rookie of the Year award, but Liv looks hesitant. She looks like somebody who’s been told, hey, you got to limit your turnovers, it’s your job to lead this team. Like all those things she is. So you forget she is like 24 years old, right? And she’s now in the playoffs. She’s got this award. She’s feeling a bunch of pressure. She just has got to relax.

Alex: Yeah. I’m thinking of one three pointer down on our side of the floor. She stepped up and you could see her be like.

Caitlin: Yeah, you saw her go. Oh, should I?

Alex: Yeah. And it was wide open.

Caitlin: Yeah. And I think it was actually on that same play. She got the ball. Normally, KMAC was wide open in the corner, wide open. Normally she sees that and it’s a quick whip over to KMAC, because she knows KMAC’s a better three point shooter than me, especially if I can hit her in rhythm, right? But she hesitated on the pass, the cover went to KMAC. Then she was wide open because the woman covering her moved, and then she was like, oh, should I shoot? And then she shot and she missed, right? Basketball is very much a rhythm game, right? And she just seems to have that half second of delay, which throws off your entire rhythm.

Alex: And it felt like the only thing she was feeling not hesitant or confident about was her free throws, which like you should be, because of their free throws. But everything else just felt off.

Caitlin: Yeah, agree. And then I think the Lynx tend to go as Liv goes for sure. If you look at the splits on their wins versus their losses, she needs to be locked in. But they also go as KMAC goes. Courtney, honestly, Phee, Tasha, they’re all pretty consistent. They’re a little worse in losses, but they’re relatively consistent. KMAC in wins shoots almost 48 percent from the floor. In losses, she shoots 40 percent. But the bigger one for me is she shoots 44 percent from three in wins, 33 percent from three in losses. So if we can make sure she gets herself going, I feel like that’s a turnaround.

Game One: Valkyries Beat the Wings 104 to 80 With a Record Four Turnovers

Alex: All right. We better move on, because otherwise we’ll talk about this for another hour.

Caitlin: I think we could.

Alex: We could break it down for a long time.

Caitlin: I know. I got more games to break down. All right. We are going to move to, we’re kind of going by seed here, not by order of the games that they were played. So the Valkyries played the Wings, the two seed versus the seven. We watched the first half.

Alex: Yeah, the first half.

Caitlin: And then we went to bed because, my God, it was a long day. Well, and the Valkyries were, I’m so sorry, Dallas, but they just whooped you. But let’s talk about how they whipped them. So Valkyries won 104 to 80, Valks lead that series one to nothing. They’ll head to Dallas for game two, which I believe will be played on Wednesday for this series. Player of the game, Tiffany Hayes. 14 year vet in the league. 21 points, four assists, three three pointers made. She just brings energy every time. And also, I want to call out, this is 21 points off the bench.

Alex: Yeah, she does not start for them.

Caitlin: Wild. Okay, how did the Valkyries do it? I was surprised when I went in and I looked, and honestly shooting percentages, rebounds, all relatively even. If you look at actual efficiency in those percentages, the biggest difference was from the three point line, right? Overall field goal percentage was relatively the same, but from the three point line, Dallas shot 20, made six. Golden State shot 36 three pointers and made 18, which is 50 percent for those who can do quick math in their head. We talked about this. Golden State lives and dies offensively by the three. Last night the three was falling.

Alex: It was on.

Caitlin: The other thing that they did incredibly well was take care of the basketball. So they set a record for the lowest number of turnovers by any team ever in a playoff game with four. They had zero turnovers in the first half.

Alex: Geez.

Caitlin: That is, I also said something about Dallas’s defense. Just saying. And the biggest swing when I look at the breakdown, those turnovers, we want to convert those into points.

Alex: Yeah. We just talked about how the Lynx couldn’t convert all the Liberty turnovers into points for them.

Caitlin: So Golden State scored 15 points off of turnovers, Dallas five. They also had 10 second chance points, so this is like you miss a shot, you get it right back, to Dallas’s three. So now we’re at a 17 point difference right there between those two things. The Wings even only had 10 turnovers, which is pretty good.

Alex: Yeah, that’s not bad.

Caitlin: And so it wasn’t even like they were, but then the three pointer is where it really separated. The Valkyries scored 54 points, so over half of their points, from three. And if those are going in, it seems stupid to say, but if the other team is making three pointers and you’re making two pointers, you will lose.

Alex: You’ll lose.

Caitlin: So it’ll be interesting to see when they go back to Dallas. I think we saw as well an over reliance on Paige to generate something. They really needed Jess Shepard to do more.

Alex: She also had kind of a weird knee tweak. I didn’t see the second half, so I don’t know.

Caitlin: She was not looking 100 percent in the first half.

Alex: Hopefully that’s nothing too serious. So yeah, if they lose her.

Caitlin: They will be fighting for their playoff lives come Wednesday.

Game One: Aces Beat the Fever 102 to 85 as A’ja Wilson Goes for 38

Caitlin: All right, next up, Aces versus Fever. This is the three versus the six. The Aces won 102 to 85. If you are keeping track of these scores, you are realizing none of these games were that close. Aces lead the series 1 to 0. Player of the game, the MVP.

Alex: Yeah, it was Wilson.

Caitlin: 38 points, topping Stewie’s 34. The old vets are like, we’re going to do this. 16 rebounds and four blocked shots. That’s a lot of blocks.

Alex: Yeah, it is.

Caitlin: So I was looking at this one. We talked last week about, you said you had the Fever for like good and bad, right? It was like they have a great trifecta of scoring offensively there. They score the most points of any team. They like to play with a high level of pace, things like that. Their kryptonite?

Alex: Defense.

Caitlin: Defense. They gave up 102 points. So that came to fruition. The Aces shot 59.4 percent from the floor. That’s very high for a whole game. And 47.4 percent from three. Now they didn’t take a ton of three pointers, to be clear. That’s just not part of their rhythm. When you have A’ja Wilson, you don’t need that to be part of your rhythm. But they shot them very efficiently, right? The Fever shot 44.8 percent from the floor and 38.7 percent from three. They shot 31 three pointers. So think about that. They shot 31, they made 12.

Alex: 11 or 12, yeah, whatever it was.

Caitlin: That’s 31 possessions. Take away the 12. What is that, 19, where you’re potentially not getting any points because you’re jacking up a three and you’re not on, right? Clark did have a double double. She had 15 points, 10 assists. Kelsey Mitchell, somebody check on her, because she has hit a little bit of a wall these last two games. She’s been held to 25 percent shooting and has been held under her standard 20 plus points per game. She’s had 10 and 12, respectively, in her last two games. Now, the game against Minnesota she didn’t play a lot, probably, in that second half. But 12 points in this game, something’s off.

Alex: I think the big thing to point out here too is that we talked about their offensive prowess versus how bad they are at defense. Generally when the other team scores 102, they’re scoring 104. And so as soon as that shooting percentage starts to go down, you’re not making your shots, your top three players aren’t putting up the points that they need to put up, it just all falls apart.

Caitlin: Yeah, and I think that when their top three aren’t scoring, they don’t really have another player who can come in and carry that load. Also, going off of that, on some of the disparity: turnovers were even at 16 apiece for both teams, but Las Vegas took way more advantage of that. They scored 28 points off of turnovers, whereas the Fever only scored 18. So that’s a 10 point spread right there just on that. To me, though, honestly, I watched a few clips of the game at various points, and Indiana’s rotations on defense are horrible. They leave assignments a lot, which then either leaves players open to score, but it also puts you in a really bad position to rebound, right? And so being able to hold a team to one and done, or getting your opportunity at a second chance point, is difficult. I do think lack of size for Indiana is also a problem. Outside of Aliyah Boston, they don’t really have a body for A’ja Wilson.

Alex: They lost on the boards, they had no blocks.

Caitlin: I just don’t know that this is a recipe for success. Now they head to Gainbridge, which they tend to play better there. But I think they have to do better defensively. And I don’t know if it’s an effort thing or if it’s literally just a coaching thing. I don’t know what it is. And they need Kelsey Mitchell to wake back up, right?

Game One: Dream Beat the Mystics 92 to 77 on 22 Washington Turnovers

Caitlin: Okay, final game of our review, the four versus the five, the Atlanta Dream versus the Washington Mystics. The Dream won 92 to 77, Dream lead one to zero. This game was actually closer, I think, than the final score shows. Player of the game, Rhyne Howard, 26 points, five steals. I have another what in the world moment when I was looking at this box score. Like I said, the Mystics played actually really, really well. They were winning at half, they were close in the third quarter, and then there were some momentum change moments, I think, towards the end of the third quarter that they couldn’t recover from. In fact, the Mystics actually outshot and outrebounded the Dream. The Mystics had 50 rebounds and 15 offensive rebounds, because you’ve got those powerhouses of Shakira Austin, Kiki Iriafen, and then you put Lauren Betts in there. These are strong bodies that could get to a basketball. Angel Reese did have a double double with rebounds and points, just in case anybody’s keeping track of that. But free throws were part of the story of the game. Not in a discrepancy sense necessarily, but Atlanta was 25 of 26 from the charity stripe, Washington 15 of 22. That’s seven points that you left on the table.

Alex: Free points.

Caitlin: Free points, right? And then you go look at turnovers. Washington had 22 turnovers to Atlanta’s seven, which is exceptional.

Alex: That’s very good.

Caitlin: And Atlanta scored 27 points off of turnovers to Washington’s four. That’s the game.

Alex: I was gonna say that’s the game right there.

Caitlin: Atlanta, of those 22 turnovers, 16 of those 22 turnovers were steals by the Atlanta defense.

Alex: That’s insane.

Caitlin: Washington had two steals. So Sydney Johnson is probably telling his team, you need to take care of the basketball better.

Alex: Do you think he’s making them walk around with the ball?

Caitlin: Yeah, I hope so. And you got to know that playing against Atlanta, they’ve led the league in steals. You’ve got Jordin Canada and Rhyne Howard, who through most of the regular season were like one and two in steals basically all year. You’ve got Angel Reese, who we’ve talked about a number of times in recent weeks as having some of the most active hands.

Alex: Yeah, I’ve ever seen. She just throws her hands out there and the ball ends up on the floor.

Caitlin: And that’s part of their ethos, part of their DNA. So unless the Mystics can take better care of the ball when they go back to DC for game two, I don’t know. I think we saw too the youth. We’ve been talking about how they’ve got the big energy and they can kind of get, but can they sustain that when it matters? So we shall see.

Why the Three Game First Round Should Be Five

Caitlin: As you can tell, very exciting, very fun. It’s fun to break these down. It’s fun to get into like, okay, now what do we tweak? What do we need to be thinking about differently for that next game? I’ll finish this by saying I am not a fan of the three game series in the first round, and not just because my team lost game one, because whoever’s listening will be like, well, if you won game one, maybe you wouldn’t like it. I don’t like it because I think it’s no advantage to the high seed, right? Because if you win game one, then you gotta go on the road and try to win. If you lose game one, you gotta go on the road and try to win, right? The travel requirement to do that that fast is just, to me, that screams player safety problem. And so I think it would be better suited for a two, two, one.

Alex: Yeah, 100 percent.

Caitlin: Five game series. I also think that the WNBA is leaving money on the table by not having that be a five game series. So it would not surprise me if this got changed.

Alex: You brought up a good point about, is that a CBA negotiation thing?

Caitlin: I just don’t like it.

Alex: But there might also be relief valves in the CBA to vote on it and say we’re increasing this, whatever.

Caitlin: Yeah. Also for the record, Becky Hammon agrees with me.

Alex: Oh, done deal then.

Caitlin: Obviously. All right, so hopefully we still.

Alex: Hopefully we’re happy on release day.

Caitlin: Hopefully we’re happy on release day. We hope we’re still talking about the Lynx playing basketball come next episode. I’ll get into it in momentum and setbacks.

NWSL Standings, Eliminations and Weekend Results

Alex: All right, NWSL, we’ve got.

Caitlin: Run us down.

Alex: Yeah, well, we got a weekend of games and then we’re going into an international break, so.

Caitlin: True, true, true.

Alex: Again, we’ve got Gotham at number one, they’ve clinched. San Diego at two. I probably should be saying points too, but San Diego has 48 points, Washington at three with 46, Utah at four with 45, Portland at five with 43, LA at six with 42, Kansas City at seven with 41, and Seattle at eight with 40. Then we’ve got North Carolina right behind them with 39, Denver at 35, and Orlando at 33.

Caitlin: Just for the record, Gotham, as Alex said, is the only team that has clinched. Four teams have now officially been eliminated. So Chicago, we knew about, but over the weekend, Bay FC, Boston Legacy, and Racing Louisville were all eliminated. They all lost the games that they played, which meant they now are mathematically eliminated, which, no surprise to anybody here. We’ll run through a couple of results here, just some noteworthy things. So you’ll notice San Diego jumped Washington in the standings. Washington actually had an opportunity to clinch a playoff spot this weekend, but it required them winning and then some other things falling in their favor. So now they actually can’t clinch until after this international break. Got to take advantage of your opportunities. Gotham beat Chicago three to one. Jaedyn Shaw had a brace in this game, braces two goals. And she became the youngest player to get to 25 career regular season goals in NWSL history, which is pretty impressive. If you think about Trinity Rodman came into the league pretty young, right? Things like that. So great to see. I feel like Shaw has been a real bright spot, both for Gotham, but also when she’s played for the national team. I do expect her to be included in that roster, which I do think will be announced this week.

Alex: We’ll be hearing that soon.

Caitlin: Seattle beat Boston, which eliminated Boston from playoff contention, and our dear Jess Fishlock scores a brace and breaks the Seattle Reign all time regular season scoring record, previously held by Megan Rapinoe. Do you guys remember a few months ago we had talked about how Jess Fishlock went down with a nasty ankle injury? This is her last season. We were like, I don’t know if we’ll see her again. And then she came back and she scored a goal in the first game back. And now she’s the all time leading scorer. And now honestly, I think I’m rooting for Seattle to make the playoffs, just to extend this magical final swan song for Jess Fishlock. She is a true champion. I love watching her play. Denver did not take care of business, and now they really are putting some pressure on themselves to stay in the playoff hunt. They lost to Kansas City over the weekend, four to one. Haley Hopkins of the Current had a hattie, this is her second hat trick of her career, and I learned that Kansas City extends its home unbeaten streak to 30 games.

Alex: CPKC Stadium is a fortress. They play at home this weekend too.

Caitlin: All right. Another big game. This was Washington’s bungled opportunity to clinch. They lost one to zero to LA, as we’re going to refer to them. Brazilian Maiara Niehues, I think I’m saying that right, scored her ninth goal of the season, which sets a single season scoring record for LA. Portland tied Houston. I didn’t look into that, but I’m like, did Portland just throw this away? Were you up one to zero? Orlando beat Bay FC, we talked about Bay being eliminated, and then North Carolina lost to Utah, but Ashley inevitable Sanchez scored another goal.

Alex: One, yes.

Caitlin: 20th goal, ties the record.

Alex: I was gonna say, yeah, ties the record. The record. So that’s wild.

NWSL Playoff Structure and the Tiebreaker Order

Caitlin: All right. We’ll get to our 10 and 10 and golden boot, as Alex just alluded to, but I do wanna talk us through the playoff structure, tiebreaks, some clinching scenarios to watch out for. I hate saying that word.

Alex: Clenching? I was just going to say.

Caitlin: You have a couple of clinching scenarios today. It’s also you say clinch and elimination, and it’s just not right. All right. So the NWSL playoffs, they are single elimination, bracket style, right? So you have eight teams that will qualify. You’re going to play quarterfinals, semifinals, and then a final. First two rounds are always played at the high seed’s home field. And then the final is played at some neutral site, which may not be neutral depending on who wins, right? So this year that’s gonna be played at Audi Field in DC, which is great. I think that’s fantastic for the league. I think it’s fantastic for Washington if they can just clinch their spot. All right, here’s what was very interesting: tiebreakers in the NWSL. So usually you think, okay, it’s record first always, right? Or points in this case for soccer. And then it’s head to head, right? No.

Alex: Nope.

Caitlin: It is goal differential, which, you think about it, you said last week, LA has like a really high goal differential.

Alex: 16 right now, yeah.

Caitlin: Then you got Seattle that has like barely any goal differential.

Alex: They ain’t tie breaking nothing.

Caitlin: And so that becomes really important. And so I was thinking about, why would they do it this way? And I’m like, because they want teams to score goals.

Alex: Yes, they want offense.

Caitlin: The next thing it goes to is most total wins, so you’d look at your record, and this is where it’s like, okay, now winning games becomes more important than draws, right? Then it goes to most goals scored, so not just your differential but actually total number of goals scored. And then it goes to head to head results.

Alex: Interesting.

Caitlin: So they really prioritize offense, like you just said, and then they prioritize winning, right? Which I think actually makes for really exciting soccer. Because what would happen is, if they only looked at head to head record, you’d have a lot more ties, I think, right? And so this sort of forces teams to say, and also you don’t care as much about how I do against this one specific team. I can rack up these points or these advantages every game.

Clinching Scenarios Before the International Break

Caitlin: All right. Clinching scenarios this weekend. San Diego could clinch a playoff spot with a win, and they need North Carolina to draw or lose. Washington cannot clinch, but a win plus a North Carolina or a Seattle loss puts them almost surely in clinch position after the international break.

Alex: I think I know the little hitch here.

Caitlin: Guess who North Carolina and Seattle play?

Alex: Each other.

Caitlin: So it’s very likely that San Diego potentially is clinching, right?

Alex: If North Carolina loses, okay, yeah. Washington can’t quite clinch.

Caitlin: They can’t quite clinch, but they’re one game away from it, basically, on the other side of the international break. But San Diego absolutely can with a win, and they play Orlando, which we could argue Orlando is going to be battling to stay in the mix. Other key matchups, like we said, I’m going to be sad for Seattle, North Carolina. We got to find a way for me to be able to sit down and watch that. Houston plays Washington. So you think about Washington to get a win, Houston is kind of on the outside looking back in. And then to me, Denver plays Chicago, which normally you have to win.

Alex: You have to beat them.

Caitlin: They have to win that game. They cannot, Chicago can feel triumphant if they draw Denver, and really triumphant if they beat Denver. But if Denver loses, I fear that they lose their opportunity to make the playoffs. And it’s a game you should win.

Alex: Yeah. The hard part too is that with North Carolina and Seattle both at 26 points, if either of them wins, I guess Denver’s at 26 as well. No, that’s wins, that’s games played. You’re looking at games played. Oh, okay, I got the wrong points here. But yeah, if Seattle or North Carolina wins, they basically go even further up on Denver, so even with a win from Denver they’re still just as far behind.

Caitlin: So Denver’s actually rooting for a Seattle, North Carolina draw.

Alex: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Caitlin: Because that would be one point for each of them versus one of them getting three clear. And the North Carolina draw also, San Diego can clinch. So maybe that’s the scenario. And we all know that Seattle really likes close games.

Alex: Yeah, they do.

The 10 and 10 Watch and the Golden Boot Race

Caitlin: All right, you wanna give us an update? Honestly guys, the 10 and 10 watch hasn’t really changed. Cloe Lacasse added a goal over the weekend.

Alex: She is the closest. With eight goals and 10 assists.

Caitlin: Yes, but nothing else has moved.

Alex: Yeah, Trin still had 11 goals, seven assists, and Toriana still had seven goals and nine assists.

Caitlin: Yes, the golden boot race.

Alex: Ashley Sanchez, she’s got her 20th. We said that earlier.

Caitlin: And then Temwa added a goal over the weekend, so she’s now on 11. We have four players on 11 goals. Still just the two at 10, but now Jaedyn Shaw joins the nine goal bucket with Mina Tanaka and Kat Reid. So like we said, they like goals.

Alex: They like goals. It’s working out for them. The ones at 11 though really would have to do a lot of work in these last few games.

Caitlin: Oh, I don’t, they’re already at double digits. They’re in the club. We just want the nines to get up there. Yeah, because I want the most amount of people to have double digit goals of all time.

Alex: Yeah, that’s fun.

Caitlin: That’s fun.

Alex: All right. We have international break after this weekend. So a little bit of time off.

Caitlin: Yes. I think it’s like 12 or 14 days. Remember that Team USA is playing Spain in a couple of friendlies. It’s next week.

Alex: Next weekend? Yeah.

Caitlin: Okay. So we’ll talk about that next week’s episode. I’m assuming we’ll have a roster by then too, so we’ll be able to talk.

Alex: I’m gonna put it out on Monday, please.

Caitlin: No, we should get it this week, because they’ve got to travel after their games.

Alex: Everything drops on Tuesday, guys, and we’re editing on Tuesday. It’s really a bummer. It’s really sad.

What to Watch This Week

Alex: All right. Let’s do what to watch. Playoffs. This is kind of goofy because we’ve got two games on Tuesday, which we’ll have already played by the time you guys listen to this. So Wednesday we have Atlanta Dream at the Mystics, game two, six o’clock on ESPN, and then the Golden State Valkyries at Dallas Wings, game two, 8 p.m. on ESPN. Game threes that we know, if necessary, right now would be Thursday, the Lynx Liberty and the Aces Fever, and then Friday, Valkyries Wings, Dream Mystics, and those are all still TBD on timing and things like that. Semifinals will begin on Sunday, so that’s also very TBD at the moment.

Caitlin: Yep. Best of five series is what you move to for the semis. And then you know that the finals moves to a best of seven this year.

Alex: NWSL, like we said, we got the San Diego Wave at Orlando Pride on Friday, 7 p.m. on Prime.

Caitlin: Oh my gosh. That game is at nine.

Alex: Because they’re at Seattle. North Carolina at Seattle, 9 p.m. on Friday, NWSL+.

Caitlin: You need a Red Bull vodka or something to stay up for it.

Alex: Take a nap in the afternoon. Yeah, we’ll see. Saturday, Utah Royals at Racing Louisville, 3 p.m. And then Bay FC at Kansas City Current. See if they can keep the streak going. 5:30 p.m. on ION. Sunday, we got Angel City FC, LA, whatever you want to call them, versus Gotham, noon on ABC, and then Washington at Houston on Sunday at 6 p.m. on Roku channel, whatever that means.

Caitlin: If you find it, let us know.

Alex: LPGA, we’ve got the Lotte Championship, presented by, should I just try this one? Hoakalei, it must be in Hawaii. Thursday through Sunday on the Golf Channel.

Caitlin: Are your parents gonna go?

Alex: Oh yeah, they might be there. You’re telling them to go to an LPGA tournament? That’d be their favorite thing. All right, NCAA volleyball. I had to pick out the border battle this week. Number six Wisconsin versus number 20 Minnesota, Sunday at 5 p.m. Central here in town, Maturi Pavilion, Big Ten Network. Well, hopefully we’re at a basketball game. And then NCAA hockey, I tried to pull out the only ranked versus ranked. We have number 12 Clarkson versus number seven UConn, 5 p.m. on Friday and 2 p.m. on Saturday on ESPN+. There’s not a lot of highly ranked teams playing. And so I wanted to pull out the best I could.

Caitlin: It’s early in the season. We’ll get there.

Momentum and Setbacks

Caitlin: All right, momentum and setbacks. I mean, the setback is the same.

Alex: Yeah. I mean, the Lynx played bad. They need to play better. Where is hard hitting, sorry, hard hitting analysis. They played bad. They need to play better.

Caitlin: We are known for our really in-depth takes on social media, so. I agree. I think for me, it’s more of like, this team, and this actually is going to bleed into my momentum, this team seems a little off or lost. It’s not the team that we’ve watched for 40, probably 40 games, right? It’s those last kind of four or so.

Alex: It felt like they were having a lot of fun early on in the season. Even when they would have bad halves, they would kind of joke about Cheryl. Like, yeah, Cheryl’s going to chew us a new one and then we’re going to come out and do what we need to do.

Caitlin: Yeah, and they seem to have gotten a little bit tight. And you do wonder, how much did that FIBA break impact their momentum? To be fair, they were losing before that. So I don’t think that’s the only thing, but it may. You always talk about how you’re trying, as a coach or as a player, you’re trying to peak at the right time. And it’s kind of like, okay, can we get the wheels back on the bus? Because it feels a little uncertain. I would definitely love to be more like how I felt about them at the beginning of August. Be like, yeah, of course, we’re going to win the series. My momentum though is, I have loved the love that the Lynx get, that other teams get. We talk a lot about the negativity in the comments around the W and the fandom and things like that, but I want to just take a minute to shine a light on the people who I see on social media as being like, I never ever, ever in my life cared about sports and now I have made this team my entire personality because I love how the people show up. On Sunday they announced our starting lineup and I just was like, I love this team. Sports are so incredible in their ability to bring people together, to have that common cause and common purpose, and to impact you emotionally, right? And I love seeing this buy-in that women’s sports in particular brings to the table, to bring people into the fold who would not be there otherwise. There were a lot of folks posting today about the way that they shared some videos on how the Coach of the Year award was presented to Cheryl by her son, and then Olivia’s parents presented it to her, kind of surprised her at a team dinner. And the number of people being like, I’m sobbing into my computer because, and I don’t even know these people, but I feel like I do. And I just love that. And I know when the season is over I’m gonna miss that. Like I said, we complain a lot about this league, but it’s one of the most engaged fandoms and it’s really fun.

Alex: My thread speed is gonna be really weird when the season’s over.

Caitlin: I feel like people are still gonna be tripping on me.

Alex: Yeah, that’s probably true. My momentum is not that in depth or heartfelt or anything that good. I just wanted to go back to what you said earlier about the Dallas Wings. We kind of said after the draft, like they’re not a 10 and 34 team anymore. But it’s been fun to just watch them be better, honestly. And especially, I know there’s a special amount of support in all of our hearts in Minnesota for Paige, being able to see her get into the playoffs and just really excel. It’s been a lot of fun.

Caitlin: Yeah. She is like such a great leader. I think any interview you’ve seen this season, her teammates are talking about how she’s the one kind of keeping them together, keeping them light, right? Keeping them engaged. Who knows what’s been going on behind the scenes. Again, they’re just dealing with adversity from an injury perspective. Lot of scrutiny, right? Because of the social media, but then also the media media. And it’s good to see her have success at this level.

Alex: Yeah, I agree.

Caitlin: Along with that team.

Alex: All right, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, RTG underscore pod. Website, RTGpod.com, and raisingthegamepod at gmail.com. Like, subscribe, share, thumbs up everything.

Caitlin: We will be back next week.

Alex: We will.