Your guide to Sunday's first-round WNBA playoff games: Matchups, storylines, more

The WNBA playoffs are finally here. The best-of-three first round opens Sunday with four games.

The top four seeds have home-court advantage, but the road teams are looking to steal a Game 1 win. The Golden State Valkyries made history as the first expansion team to reach the playoffs in its inaugural season. The Indiana Fever, who haven't had Caitlin Clark on the court since July 15, have overcome five season-ending injuries. The defending champion New York Liberty were also hit hard by injuries. And the Seattle Storm reached the postseason despite a second-half slump.

How will it all play out? What first-round games are we most looking forward to, which players might step up, and which matchups will have the most impact? ESPN breaks down what to expect -- and will be providing postgame analysis right here throughout Sunday.

MORE: Playoff predictions | Strengths, flaws for every team | Top 25 players | Schedule

Sunday schedule

1 p.m. ET (ABC): No. 8 seed Golden State Valkyries at No. 1 seed Minnesota Lynx

3 p.m. ET (ESPN): No. 6 seed Indiana Fever at No. 3 seed Atlanta Dream

5 p.m. ET (ESPN): No. 5 seed New York Liberty at No. 4 seed Phoenix Mercury

10 p.m. ET (ESPN): No. 7 seed Seattle Storm at No. 2 seed Las Vegas Aces

What individual matchup are you most looking forward to seeing Sunday?

Kevin Pelton: New York's Breanna Stewart vs. Phoenix's Alyssa Thomas. This matchup itself is nothing new -- Stewart's Liberty beat Thomas' Connecticut Sun in the 2023 semifinals -- but the Mercury's spacing presents a different challenge for New York in slowing down Thomas.

Kendra Andrews: I'm looking at the same game as Pelton, but a different matchup: Thomas vs. New York's Jonquel Jones. Both have size, but one plays with a bit more finesse and the other with a lot of power and force down low. I think how New York coach Sandy Brondello and Phoenix's Nate Tibbetts deploy these players -- and how they perform -- will dictate the games.

Alexa Philippou: There are a few big ones in Dream-Fever. In the battle of the backcourt, Kelsey Mitchell having a historic season for Indiana, while Atlanta's Allisha Gray has had an All-WNBA first-team caliber season -- and former No. 1 pick Rhyne Howard completes the Dream's one-two guard punch. Brionna Jones (and Brittney Griner) vs. Aliyah Boston is also a fun battle down low. It's a rematch from last year's first round (when Jones still played for the Sun), when Boston had the upper hand.

Elsewhere, the frontcourt talent in Storm-Aces will be appointment viewing, with A'ja Wilson playing at an otherworldly level and Seattle stacked with the likes of Nneka Ogwumike, Ezi Magbegor and the up-and-coming Dominique Malonga. Will the Storm be able to slow Wilson down?

What game are you most excited to see Sunday?

Pelton: New York vs. Phoenix. Both of these teams were expecting a deep playoff run all season, but one will be facing an elimination Game 2. Neither wants to be in that situation, especially with difficult travel between each game in this series.

Andrews: The star power in Phoenix-New York alone makes it must-watch basketball. The defending champion's roster features Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Jones, Emma Meesseman and Natasha Cloud (to name a few). The Mercury have Thomas, Satou Sabally, Kahleah Copper and DeWanna Bonner. The fact there's so much at stake makes the series even more intriguing.

Philippou: There's a lot of familiarity between Las Vegas and Seattle, which also faced off in the 2020, 2022 and 2024 playoffs. And that was before Jewell Loyd was traded from the Storm to the Aces this past offseason when her tenure in the Emerald City didn't end on the best of terms. Las Vegas has been red-hot in August and September, while Seattle has been remarkably inconsistent. Can the Storm, desperate for their first postseason win since Sue Bird retired, make things interesting in Vegas and this series as a whole?

What storyline are you most excited to watch play out this postseason?

Michael Voepel: The Dream likely feel overlooked among the playoff teams, but they shouldn't be. They are a far better team offensively than last season, when they averaged a league-low 77.0 PPG, especially from behind the arc. So it will be interesting to see how well the Dream play in the postseason when their offense could carry them further than they've been since 2018. Their series with Indiana is intriguing as the teams split their four regular-season games.

Philippou: I'm fascinated to see what the Liberty look like in the playoffs. Their repeat bid has gone awry, in large part due to injuries, but it's fair to say they have underachieved this season.

Now their road to a Finals return is incredibly difficult and it won't come with home-court advantage all postseason. With their big three healthy, and Meesseman in the mix, will the Liberty look like the dominant team we saw at the beginning of the season -- or will they shockingly flame out early? And what would an early exit mean heading into 2026 and beyond?

Pelton: I'm fascinated by the Aces. They don't make any sense. Acknowledging the regular season is now 44 games, other teams that put together long winning streaks had single-digit losses rather than starting the streak at .500 like Las Vegas. (The 2014 WNBA champion Phoenix Mercury, for example, won 16 consecutive games in the regular season, where they were 29-5.) And in part because of their 53-point loss to the Lynx, the Aces still had only the WNBA's fifth-best point differential, behind the Fever. I believe Las Vegas has improved into a championship contender, but we won't really know until the playoffs.

First-round playoff predictions

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Who should win WNBA MVP this season?

Monica McNutt explains why this season's WNBA MVP race is so close between A'ja Wilson and Napheesa Collier.

The top 25 players in the WNBA playoffs and a red-hot MVP race

Earlier this week, ESPN ranked the best players in the postseason. Then the top two players on the list -- MVP front-runners Napheesa Collier and A'ja Wilson -- went out and closed the regular season on even more jaw-dropping high notes as they made their final cases for MVP.

On Thursday in the final game before the playoffs, Wilson had 23 points and 19 rebounds to lead the Aces to their 16th consecutive victory, which clinched the No. 2 seed for Las Vegas. The three-time MVP finished the regular season averaging a WNBA-best 23.4 points per game.

Earlier in the night, Collier hit 3 of 4 3-pointers to raise her shooting percentage from behind the arc just enough to become the second player in WNBA history to register a 50/40/90 season -- hitting 53.1% of her shots from the floor, 40.3% from 3-point range and 90.6% from the free throw line. Collier, who has yet to win her first MVP award, joined Elena Delle Donne (2019) in the record books but is the first player to accomplish the feat while averaging over 20 points. (She averaged 22.9 points.)