The WNBA entered September in playoff mode, and after three weeks of positional competition that lasted until the final hours, it’s time for the real postseason. Team history is on the line for the top favorites, and icons could be playing their final games of their careers.

All eight playoff teams begin best-of-three first-round games on Sunday.

Aces aim for triple victory as core four’s future uncertain

The reigning back-to-back champions Las Vegas Aces find themselves in a new position as they attempt to three-peat. The franchise that won both titles as the No. 1 overall seed finds itself outside the top three for the first time since 2019. The road to a championship is tougher in what could be the final year for the sensational core four.

Head coach Becky Hammon said she didn’t see an edge in her team from the start of training camp and has lacked it for much of the year. The Aces started 6-6 while three-time champion point guard Chelsea Gray has been rehabbing a leg injury and trying to find a new gear in recent weeks. A’ja Wilson, the presumptive MVP who broke the single-season scoring record, has taken her game to even more dominant levels but can’t win games on her own.

It could be the final run for the core four that carries the bulk of the Aces’ offense. Wilson (2018 No. 1 overall pick) signed a two-year contract extension in June 2023, while Gray (2021 free agency) and guard Jackie Young (2019 No. 1 pick) signed two-year contracts last spring. Kelsey Plum (2017 No. 1 overall pick) is an unrestricted free agent, according to Her Hoop Stats data. Reserves Tiffany Hayes, Alysha Clark and Sydney Colson are also UFAs, potentially opening up 40% of their salary cap space in what will be an active offseason.

The Aces have been less successful at home this year than they were last year, when they went 19-1. The Aces will host Seattle in the first two games of the first round. They could face New York in a Finals rematch in the semifinals that would begin with two games in Brooklyn.

The Houston Comets are the only team in WNBA history to win the first four championships three times in a row, when the playoffs consisted of two best-of-three rounds.

Liberty still without a chance for franchise’s first championship

The Liberty franchise knows how to reach a WNBA Finals. How to win one is another story. New York is the only original franchise without a championship despite five Finals appearances, including last year’s loss to the Aces. Could this finally be the year?

The Liberty have put themselves in a pristine spot with the No. 1 overall seed, an All-Star-laden starting five that have been together for two seasons and a deeper bench. While they’ve remained atop the standings for most of the season, their playoff path could prove problematic. New York could face Las Vegas in the semifinals and Minnesota in the finals. Both teams have given them trouble in the final weeks of the regular season.

The Liberty blew a 20-point lead against the Aces and had to fight to win, 75-71. It was reminiscent of the 2023 Finals and a reminder that Las Vegas will not go down quietly. A week later against Minnesota, the Liberty dug themselves into a 26-point hole — their biggest deficit of the season — and could not climb back in an 88-79 loss despite a monster 38-point, 18-rebound performance from defending MVP Breanna Stewart.

Sabrina Ionescu, an MVP candidate whose improved play has lifted New York, hasn’t shot the ball well since the All-Star/Olympic break. She’s connected on less than 30 percent of her shots six times, all but one of which has come after the break. She was 4 of 21 against Minnesota (2 of 12 from 3) and 6 of 21 against Las Vegas (1 of 9 from 3). That’s not enough from the star forward to beat the league’s best. The Liberty will also need to get Jonquel Jones in early and more often to win this series, should they blossom.

Lynx and Storm battle for competition history

A championship for Minnesota or Seattle would break the three-way tie with the defunct Houston Comets for most championships by a franchise in league history.

The Lynx have the best chance to become the first with five titles and could be considered the favorites for the postseason despite finishing second behind the Liberty. Minnesota came rushing into Brooklyn and dismantling the superteam with their “collective,” in Cheryl Reeve’s words, historic assist percentage, stellar defense and superior 3-point shooting.

Minnesota won its four championships in a seven-year span in the 2010s under Reeve. The franchise retired the last jersey — Maya Moore’s — from that legendary group this summer.

Seattle’s superteam enters with longer odds. The Storm have won their four titles in three different decades, the last of which came in 2020 with Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart and Jewell Loyd. Phoenix could match them all with a fourth franchise championship this season.

Diana Taurasi’s retirement in sight

Is this the last time we’ll see Diana Taurasi play in the WNBA? It’s a clever marketing tactic to sell regular-season home game tickets, but it’s also a fair question. The three-time WNBA champion and 2009 MVP is completing her 20th season and has long said she won’t be “going easy” in the game. It’s in character to go the route of Candace Parker, who made a no-holds-barred offseason decision, rather than Sue Bird, who went on a “retirement tour” in her final season.

Taurasi said this week that she doesn’t want to make any “emotional, rash decisions,” and while she knows “the end is near,” she doesn’t know exactly when that will be. Taurasi is an unrestricted free agent and has already said she won’t compete in the 2028 Olympics, an indication that the end of her career could be within the next four years.

The No. 2 Lynx host the No. 7 Mercury in the first round with the first two games in Minneapolis. Phoenix will need to steal one to set up the deciding Game 3 at home for the X-Factor faithful.

Taurasi, 42, won two Finals MVPs in a career spent entirely in Phoenix. Whether this offseason or another, she’ll retire with a plethora of records, including the most points in WNBA history by a considerable margin over Tina Charles. The 2019 logo update is said to be based on Taurasi and features her signature topknot.

What’s next for the Sun if it’s no longer a title?

The Sun are one of the most successful franchises of the past decade, but they’re not winning a championship. In that time, they’ve added flashy free-agent contracts, changed coaches and made a rare midseason trade. Is this finally their season, and if not, how will they get there?

The Sun are all-in to compete for the chip after bolstering their 3-point shooting and offensive spacing with Marina Mabrey, who joined them during the break after requesting a trade from Chicago. Defense remains the Sun’s calling card with a league-best 94.5 defensive rating and just-average offensive rating (their 102 offensive rating ranks seventh).

But Connecticut has won most of its games against the bottom of the league and has struggled otherwise. The Sun are 4-9 against the rest of the top five: Liberty (1-3), Lynx (2-1), Storm (1-2) and Aces (0-3). And two of those wins against Minnesota have come in the first half of the season. That should get fans thinking about the Sun in the later rounds, if the team can advance past the first round. Connecticut will face Indiana, one of the hottest teams since the Olympic break.

The Sun will have some big decisions to make this offseason, no matter what. Their core of Alyssa Thomas, DeWanna Bonner and Brionna Jones are unrestricted free agents, according to Her Hoop Stats. Bonner and Jones signed one-year deals last summer. Mabrey is one of three players signed through 2025. She and reserve forward Olivia Nelson-Ododa have guaranteed contracts, and Tyasha Harris is unprotected. The WNBA has not yet announced how the expansion draft will work for the Golden State Valkyries, so the status of certain players is still up in the air.

They also have a disadvantage when it comes to luring star free agents. They lack a team-specific training facility — the active arms race between elite franchises — and travel the most heavily as the league’s most domestic team.

Will Caitlin Clark and Fever spring a surprise?

The question that has been on everyone’s mind for weeks: how far can the Fever go?

For Indiana, it is a good chance to reach the semifinals, because it will play Connecticut in the first round, for the first time since the finals in 2015. Indiana is a very different team than the one that started the season with a big 21-point loss at Connecticut.

Caitlin Clark is playing more like a seasoned veteran as her rookie season winds down, and Kelsey Mitchell is healthy after limited playing time due to a preseason ankle injury. They’ve formed the league’s most dangerous backcourt, averaging 49.1 points since the All-Star/Olympic break, up from 35 points before that.

Aliyah Boston and NaLyssa Smith are more comfortable with Clark, and Lexie Hull’s perimeter shooting gives the team three dangerous threats. After three losses to the Sun in the first month of regular season, Indiana blew open the Sun’s league-best defense to win the fourth meeting last month, shooting 43% from 3.

It’s the third season the WNBA has used a best-of-three, first-round series, and the Sun went the full three games each of the last two years as the No. 3 seed. In 2022, they lost Game 2 and fell to Dallas. In 2023, the Sun lost Game 2 again and fell to Minnesota.

In 2024, they will be on edge again.