Liberty clear East as Aces gamble late games

Liberty clear – The WNBA is in its most nerve-ready stretch, with seven of this week’s games decided in overtime or by one possession. The New York Liberty have cleared the East despite Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones not hitting their peak, while the Las Vegas Aces moved i

The WNBA’s “chaos era” didn’t arrive with a dramatic announcement. It showed up in the way games ended this week—seven of them decided in overtime or by one possession. Even for a league built on momentum swings, the regular season product suddenly felt sharper, more immediate. Commissioner’s Cup play may have lifted the day-to-day intensity, or teams may simply be settling into the long grind. Either way, it’s the kind of week where a single sequence can change a season’s feeling.

Minnesota found out how quickly that can happen when it visited Las Vegas. The Aces took the No. 1 spot in the WNBA standings, in the Western Conference Commissioner’s Cup standings, and in these power rankings by making just enough plays in crunch time against the Minnesota Lynx.

Olivia Miles, a rookie, attacked the moment like she wanted to own it. She tried to take the game into her hands in the fourth quarter. attacking reigning MVP and best player alive A’ja Wilson to great effect. But Wilson still found the win at the free-throw line—going right through the Minnesota frontcourt of Nia Coffey and Liatu King.

What followed looked like a veteran advantage, not luck. Las Vegas took a reset timeout and immediately knew how to space the floor to get Wilson barreling toward the basket with the paint open.

Now the Aces hold the clearest path. They’re in the driver’s seat to advance to the Commissioner’s Cup final for the third time in five years if they win one of their next two games against Dallas and Phoenix. If they lose both. the Lynx would have the best chance of replacing them. though a more complicated tiebreaker could be in place.

In the East, nothing is complicated at all. The New York Liberty have cleared out the field, clinching their bid with one game to go.

New York’s lead story is being built on the same foundation whether it’s peak form or not. Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones aren’t at their peaks, but the frontcourt still carries the team. Stewart and Jones compose the best frontcourt in the WNBA on most days. and when they’re on the floor. it’s rarely close.

Stewart’s defense has already come early in the season in a way that feels almost routine for her—but never ordinary. Over the last five games. New York has posted the best defensive rating in the WNBA despite starting a rookie and Marine Johannès in the backcourt. Leonie Fiebich has been fantastic defensively, and Rebekah Gardner and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton have provided energy off the bench. The perimeter aggression they bring is enabled by the anchors behind them.

On Sunday, Stewart made history again, finishing with a career-high seven blocks. She became the 16th player in WNBA history to record seven blocks in one game.

Her limits matter just as much as her strengths, though. Stewart is ill-suited against back-to-the-basket fives, which is exactly where Jones’ game plugs the gap. Unlike many rim-protecting centers, Jones doesn’t give anything back on offense.

The Liberty’s run has also come while other teams churn through their own survival tests. Toronto, Connecticut, Chicago and Indiana were all involved in overtime games. The Mystics had two games decided in the final seconds: one loss on a Caitlin Clark 3-pointer. then a rebound later in the week with Sonia Citron’s buzzer-beater.

Atlanta’s week arrived with extra noise too. With newly acquired superstar Angel Reese, the Dream inspired “sell the team” chants in Chicago.

Even with all that drama, the Liberty’s situation has stayed remarkably simple—defend, control, and keep moving. New York’s next question isn’t whether they can get through the East. It’s how close they can get to their peak before the Cup picture fully locks.

Elsewhere, the league’s sharpest contrasts didn’t disappear this week. Los Angeles remains hard to ignore even when it’s struggling defensively. The Sparks still have the WNBA’s worst defense—though not the worst in league history. Yet it’s difficult to panic about that side of the ball when they can produce offensive stretches that feel like runaway trains.

Kelsey Plum’s season has been the engine. In her ninth year, she’s making 66 percent of her 2-pointers and 41.4 percent of her 3s. Defensive game plans start with limiting Plum. but the roster around her doesn’t offer many reliable individual shot-creation options elsewhere on the team. so opponents can often sell out on her. It doesn’t matter. Plum figures it all out, then makes plays for herself and others.

She leads the league in scoring with 26.6 points per game and ranks third in assists with 6.9.

Her scoring bursts have become the Sparks’ signature. It’s debatable whether her latest outing against Phoenix—where she tied the Sparks’ franchise scoring record with 43 points—has topped her earlier performance at Las Vegas: 38 points with eight assists. Either way, the reason it’s a problem for opponents is that she has enough of those performances this season.

Against defenses, Plum is knifing into spaces with decelerations in the paint. Los Angeles coach Lynne Roberts called her the best one-on-one player in the league before the matchup against the Mercury. and she proved those words prescient. It was against a perimeter group that hasn’t exactly dazzled defensively.

Plum’s isolation production has been staggering too, averaging 1.317 points per possession. Down the stretch versus Phoenix, she was dancing with defenders while the Sparks let a nine-point fourth-quarter lead evaporate. Still, L.A. found even more advantages by leveraging her off the ball—whether it was a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer or Plum setting a screen at the top of the key and rolling to the hoop for the game-tying layup with 1.6 seconds to play.

After that game, the Sparks are now above .500 in June for the first time since 2023.

Down Toronto’s way, the problem looks more structural. The Tempo’s thin frontcourt rotation is a cause for concern that’s been made worse by availability. Nyara Sabally has missed four games, Isabelle Harrison has missed 10, and Temi Fagbenle has missed 11. Even when they have their bigs. the grouping—besides Sabally—has been too offense-heavy for a team that can generate so much scoring from its backcourt of Brittney Sykes and Marina Mabrey.

Toronto also gets out-rebounded. This past week, the Tempo lost the rebounding battle by 14 to Connecticut, by 18 to Washington, and by 20 to Atlanta. They make up for part of the possession gap by getting to the foul line so frequently. but it creates an enormous dent in the possession battle that Toronto struggles to overcome.

And the problem isn’t just getting boards—it’s how their bigs defend them. The frontcourt often stations on the perimeter and plays with finesse rather than muscle, making it easier to get outmuscled on the glass.

The Tempo are also the worst team in the WNBA at defending the paint. Lauren Betts—struggling with efficiency as a rookie—had a field day against the Tempo in the Mystics’ win. making 8 of 9 field-goal attempts. Toronto had no answers for putbacks, lobs over the top, or post-ups, even after double-teams came. Defending the paint is a team exercise. but the challenge starts with Harrison. Sabally and Fagbenle. and they haven’t been good enough so far.

The week also had a standout rookie story in Chicago: Sydney Taylor.

Coach Tyler Marsh and general manager Jeff Pagliocca prioritized keeping Taylor on the 2026 roster ahead of some of the team’s recent draftees, and her impact has shown up on both ends. On defense, she’s permanently in a stance with her hands up, tagging rollers and providing high activity.

Then there’s the offense. In Chicago’s overtime loss to Indiana, Taylor set a scoring record for undrafted rookies with 30 points. It was also the most points any rookie has scored in 2026. She’s got burst on straight-line drives and is the most efficient finisher at the rim in the Sky guard rotation. Even though her sidestep 3-point jumper hasn’t fully come around in 2026, she shoots it with confidence.

Her college and free-throw shooting numbers suggest Taylor can be at least an average long-range shooter. Chicago needed every one of the four triples she buried against the Fever. Between Myisha Hines-Allen’s strong start in Indiana. Emily Engstler’s breakthrough in Portland. and Taylor’s debut for the Sky. it’s been a good year for Louisville alums in the W.

If there’s a single game to circle next, it may be New York’s matchup with Los Angeles: the New York Liberty at the Los Angeles Sparks, set for 8 p.m. (ET) Sunday.

It carries history. It’s a rematch of the WNBA’s inaugural game on June 21, 1997, which Los Angeles won 67-57. The teams won’t play in the same building—the Sparks originally played in The Forum in Inglewood. Calif.—but the matchup will take place in the same city. The first player assigned to the Liberty in 1997, Rebecca Lobo, will be on the broadcast.

Both New York and Los Angeles are playing about as well as they have all season, and that makes it an ideal showcase for the league’s 30th season.

One week into the kind of WNBA rhythm that keeps everyone guessing, the same message keeps landing: the Liberty may have already cleared the East, and the Aces may be steering the Commissioner’s Cup race—but the league’s real power right now is in how quickly everything can turn.

WNBA power rankings New York Liberty Las Vegas Aces Breanna Stewart Jonquel Jones A’ja Wilson Olivia Miles Commissioner’s Cup Minnesota Lynx Kelsey Plum Sydney Taylor