Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Detroit Loses in Minnesota, Dream Get Closer to Second Place



Detroit's 75-72 loss against the Lynx tonight moves Atlanta closer to a second place finish and a home advantage during the first round of the playoffs. Atlanta needs to root for the New York Liberty tomorrow night and hope that the Liberty beat Detroit at the Palace at Auburn Hills.

Why? If the Liberty win tomorrow night, then none of the teams behind Atlanta can finish with more than 17 wins. Atlanta already has 17 wins, and there are 34 total games in a WNBA season. This means that - given a Detroit loss - Atlanta could clinch second place with either a win on Friday in Atlanta or on Saturday in Washington. This means that in the Eastern Conference semifinals, Atlanta would play the first game on the road...but the next two in Atlanta.

Let's go! L...I...B...E....

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Pet,

I don't think that we have to hope for the Shock to lose again. If we win on Friday (or Saturday), we will have 18 wins. The very best Detroit can do is 18 wins, and the best anybody else can do is 17 wins.

That means at worst we will tie Detroit for 2nd, and we hold the tie breaker.

Basically...win and we clinch the 2nd seed (Unless I've miscalculated something).

pt said...

Very true. Although there is the chance that we could lose both of our remaining games (heaven forbid) and Detroit goes up to 18 wins by sweeping their two games, dooming us to third place or worse. I think that if Detroit loses but if there's a 17-win logjam at the end of the season...well, I don't have the brain power to figure that out as of this writing. :D

I think winning all of our games will solve many of our problems. :D

Unknown said...

All we have to do is one game. Lets not even consider the possibility of losing our last 2 games (Both of which clinch 2nd seed)to teams with losing records.

Anonymous said...

Yes if we win Friday night we clinch second seed for sure due to head to head with Detroit.

And little known fact...if the Sky lose tonight, the Dream clinch the playoffs! Sure we might be fourth seed, but due to various tiebreakers there is no way we miss the playoffs if the Sky lose tonight...go Fever!

afoundingfan said...

So, is it that if we are in 2nd place, we have home advantage in the first round (ie game two and poss game three) in ATL?

pt said...

Yup. Second place puts the Dream on the road for the first game, and then at home for the next two. I believe that those games would be played in Gwinnet Arena.