Current Format
Following the WNBA regular season, four teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs and are seeded one to four.
Regular season records determine the seedings of the teams in each conference. The team with the best record receives seed one, the team with the next best record receives seed two, and so on.
These seedings are used to create a bracket that determines the match-ups throughout the playoffs. The first round of the playoffs, or Conference Semi-Finals, consists of two match-ups in each conference based on the seedings (1-4 and 2-3). The two winners advance to the second round, or Conference Finals, with a match-up between the 1-4 and 2-3 winners. At the conclusion of the Conference Finals, the winners of these series advance to the WNBA Finals.
The Conference Semi-Finals and the Conference Finals are each best-of-three series. Series are played in a 1-1-1 format, meaning the team with home-court advantage (better record) hosts games 1 and 3, while their opponent hosts game 2. The WNBA Finals are a best-of-five series played in a 2-2-1 format, meaning the team with home-court advantage hosts games 1, 2, and 5 while their opponent hosts games 3 and 4.
Read more about this topic: WNBA Playoffs
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