The WNBA playoff race is pure, unadulterated chaos

Four teams tied for two spots with two games to go. Sheesh.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques, Jean Metzinger, 1907

This is wild: in the race for the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds in the WNBA playoffs, there is now a 4-way tie with two games remaining.

These teams are now ALL 14-20: Minnesota Lynx, Atlanta Dream, New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury. The L.A. Sparks are a game back at 13-21 and miraculously still alive. Two of the teams will make the playoffs.

Full-on chaos here, folks.

Let’s assume all four teams at 14-20 end up 15-21, and the Sparks are out. Here’s my understanding of how the seeding works: you determine the No. 7 seed first, then reassess taking them out of the equation. The No. 7 seed would go to the team with the best head-to-head record against the teams tied.

Here are the four teams’ current record against each other (no Sparks in this scenario):

• Lynx: 8-2 (!)

• Dream: 4-4

• Liberty: 3-6

• Mercury: 3-7

The Lynx are in pretty strong position here, but of course that won’t help if they are behind in the standings on Monday morning. So they still need to win one or two games to get in to take advantage of their tiebreaker.

In this scenario, the Lynx get No. 7 by virtue of their tiebreaker, so we turn to the No. 8 seed. You pull Minnesota out of the equation. Here are the other three teams’ head-to-head records against each other.

• Dream: 3-2

• Mercury: 3-3

• Liberty: 2-3

Here’s a(nother) twist: there cannot be a three-way head-to-head tie here because Phoenix is done in this cabal — they will finish 3-3 vs. Atlanta and New York — while the Dream and Liberty play each other TWICE to finish the season. And then THAT means that in this scenario the Mercury have no shot at claiming No. 8 because if we have a four-way tie, that means Atlanta and New York split their games, which puts the Dream at 4-3 in this battle. In that scenario, Atlanta is in. Phoenix and New York miss the playoffs.

This is just looking at the four-way tie that exists right now. There are numerous other ways this can go. The Sparks could finish 2-0 to get back in the mix (they face the Sun and Wings). Either the Dream or Liberty could sweep their home-and-home to eliminate the other. Either the Mercury (Wings and Sky, both at home) or Lynx (vs. Storm, at Sun) OR BOTH could finish 2-0 or 0-2. Two games left and still more chaos lurks. What a time.