AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All right. The WNBA playoffs tipped off on Sunday, and the league's top two teams cruised to victory, with more games on tap tonight and tomorrow. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan joins us now. Hey, Becky.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: All right, so what's your view of the postseason so far?
SULLIVAN: Well, I think - as you are alluding to, I think it's hard to have watched the game Sunday and not see this as a collision course between the top two seeds - that is the Minnesota Lynx and the Las Vegas Aces.
CHANG: Clearly.
SULLIVAN: The Lynx were last year's runners-up, you might remember, and then the Aces won two titles in a row before that. They - you know, Minnesota was really kind of looking all season long like the best team, like the top dog, and then the Aces came on very strong in the second half. At this stage, I think they're just the two best teams. There's still a lot of basketball left to play before they could meet, but if they do, it would be in the finals, and it would be, I think, a good one.
CHANG: OK, so tell us more about the Minnesota Lynx. Like, what's their path to success here?
SULLIVAN: Well, yeah. I mean - so yeah, so they've been at the top of the standings all season long. They have a great roster sort of top to bottom. And then their best player is star forward Napheesa Collier. She's been so good this year that even her - I was listening back through some press conferences, and her teammates were like, sometimes she even takes us by surprise.
CHANG: (Laughter).
SULLIVAN: So here's one of them, teammate Courtney Williams, talking to reporters just the other day.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
COURTNEY WILLIAMS: I mean, she a bona fide superstar. Well, I said all the time, like, that girl is just different. Like, even being a part of it and seeing the things that she do, like, we look up and we like, dang, this girl got 15 in the first quarter, right? So...
CHANG: Dang.
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
CHANG: I love that.
SULLIVAN: I know. And so to hear Collier herself talk, you know, she's got, like, a little bit of what you might call oldest daughter energy. She's a middle child, actually. But she talks about how she sets goals, works to achieve them. And the big goal this season was to hit this benchmark that they've been calling 50-40-90. So that means hit at least 50% of all of her field goals, 30% (ph) of her three-pointers and 90% of her free throws. That's a tremendous achievement. Only one player ever in the history of the WNBA had done that in one season. And in their last game of the regular season last week, Collier achieved that too - became just the second to do it and average more than 20 points per game, I should add. And so in doing so, obviously making a very strong case to be the most valuable player for the first time in her career.
CHANG: Dang is right. OK, what about the Las Vegas Aces? Like, what have they been like?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, I mean, they had a very choppy start to the season, and I would say the nadir was the 53-point loss to the Minnesota Lynx back in August, which players have since just outright called an embarrassment. But since then, it's only been up. They haven't lost a single game since then. That's 17 games and counting. And that's, I think, you know, due to their own most valuable player, A'ja Wilson. She's also a front-runner for that award. It would be the fourth time she'd won the award, which she'd be the first player in the WNBA to do that.
And like I said, both of these teams just looked unstoppable on Sunday night. Las Vegas plays again tonight. Minnesota plays tomorrow. And since these are just a best-of-three series, this first round could be over very quickly for both of these teams.
CHANG: But Becky, I'm thinking about last year and how that was kind of like a record year - right? - for the...
SULLIVAN: Definitely.
CHANG: ...WNBA. But this year, there have been some injuries that have hurt viewership. So what do you expect for this postseason?
SULLIVAN: Yeah. I mean, I think maybe you're alluding to Caitlin Clark, the star for the Indiana Fever. She was a huge reason for last year's record success, and this year she's missed more than 70% of the Fever's games. She played for the last time in July. There have been injuries to other big stars, including both of the two who I've mentioned just talking to you right now.
Last year, that growth that the league saw was especially explosive around Clark and the Fever, but other games did see boosts too, including in the postseason. That trend has continued into this season - ABC and CBS both reporting that it's the most-watched WNBA season on record for those networks. And it's a good path to next season, even though that bump was more modest, I think, than people maybe were hoping. There's going to be two expansion teams next season, one in Toronto, one in Portland. The emergence of even more stars, including Paige Bueckers in Dallas, who was just named Rookie of the Year. And then hopefully a more healthy league, I think, all around.
CHANG: That is NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thank you, Becky.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
