September 24, 2024
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Almost elimination time in the WNBA playoffs
By The Next
Four teams are already facing elimination. What do they need to do to stay alive?
In the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, host Howard Megdal recaps the WNBA playoffs and identifies the teams that are already at risk of elimination. Those teams are Caitlin Clark‘s Indiana Fever, Tina Charles‘ Atlanta Dream, Diana Taurasi‘s Phoenix Mercury and Nneka Ogwumike‘s Seattle Storm. Megdal discusses what each of those teams need to do to stay alive.
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Megdal opens the show by discussing the absurdity of the best-of-three series. “This is crazy, and it needs to change,” Megdal expresses. He goes back in time and explains how the best-of-three is actually an upgrade from the elimination style the league used to execute; however, per Megdal, what the WNBA came up with is still not enough. “How do you get around the lower-seeded teams not getting a home game?” Megdal asks. “Best of five.”
Later on, Megdal explores what each losing team needs to do to stay alive. As far as the Indiana Fever, per Megdal, “there’s a lot of focus on the shooting.” Megdal acknowledges that the Fever are one of the best shooting teams in the league;, however, Megdal asserts that “Indiana’s defense has got to be better.” As far as Atlanta, Megdal is skeptical that the team can win unless all the players turn up the energy. “I think it can be really hard for Atlanta if they don’t turn up the energy the way Tina Charles did,” Megdal says.
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Megdal closes out the show by discussing what Seattle and Phoenix need to do to stay alive. “The Storm have to shoot better from the three,” Megdal says. “And essentially, what Phoenix needs to do is repeat what they did in game one. They threw some really interesting and different things at the Minnesota Lynx.”
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Here at The Next, in addition to the 24/7/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.
