A one-point road loss does not erase a playoff berth. It can still rewrite the bracket.
The Wings dropped an 87-86 decision to the Phoenix Mercury on Monday night at Mortgage Matchup Center, ending a six-game winning streak that had carried them since mid-August. Kahleah Copper scored 16 of her 31 points in the fourth quarter and finished the night with a backdoor layup from Alyssa Thomas with 2.4 seconds left, the Associated Press game story reported. Paige Bueckers' 3-point try at the buzzer did not hit the rim.
Dallas is 26-17. Phoenix is 16-27. The standings argument that follows is what matters for the Metroplex club heading into its regular-season finale.
How the lead got away
The Wings led by as many as 14 and were still up 74-63 early in the fourth, per the AP recap carried by CBS Sports. Copper and Thomas dragged Phoenix back. Thomas finished with 15 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists for her fifth triple-double of the season. Dallas went 14 of 21 from the free-throw line; Phoenix was 26 of 30.
Bueckers scored 30 points with seven assists. Jessica Shepard had 17 points and 19 rebounds. Bueckers' night also pushed her to 853 points for the season, a franchise record the AP noted in the same recap. Those are the box numbers. The seeding numbers are the ones that moved.
Sporting News wrote that if the season ended Monday night, Dallas would sit as the No. 7 seed and open the playoffs in San Francisco against the Golden State Valkyries. The AP account still described the Wings as tied for sixth. The gap between those two framings is the overnight standings shuffle - New York lost earlier to Atlanta, and several clubs remain bunched between fifth and eighth - and it is worth reading both rather than flattening them into one line.
One game left, little room to climb
Wednesday's closer is at Seattle, tip listed for 10 p.m. ET on WNBA.com, the final regular-season game for both clubs. The Storm sit at the bottom of the league. A win alone does not guarantee sixth place.
Sporting News outlined the downside path: even with a win over Seattle, another Liberty win plus single wins from Washington and Indiana could still leave Dallas eighth. Sports Illustrated's overnight standings note made a parallel point from the other direction - Indiana can lock itself no worse than sixth with one win in its remaining Lynx games, which further squeezes Dallas' path upward.
The playoff berth itself has been secure for weeks. What Monday cost was leverage: a chance, after New York's loss, to press for a higher seed against a Mercury team already eliminated. Instead, the Wings spent the fourth quarter defending an 11-point cushion and left Arizona with a one-possession loss and a thinner set of scenarios.
Copper's finish and Thomas' triple-double will travel on highlight packages. For Dallas, the next relevant number is the seed attached to Wednesday's result - and whichever Western Conference opponent that seed points toward when the first round opens.
