With last night’s win over the Los Angeles Sparks, the Storm is on the verge of clinching a playoff spot. In fact, based on my research (not yet confirmed by any outside sources), that could happen before the Storm takes the court Tuesday in Los Angeles. A Storm win will secure a playoff spot, as will a Sparks loss. In addition, a San Antonio loss should also do the trick. First, take a look at the standings and I’ll explain why.

Team            W   L   GB   H/A
--------------------------------
Minnesota      23   6   -    3/2
Seattle        17  12  6.0   2/3
Phoenix        16  12  6.5   3/3
San Antonio    13  15  9.5   4/2
Los Angeles    12  17 11.0   4/1

Los Angeles hosts the Silver Stars on Sept. 6, so the Sparks winning out would mean at least one more loss for San Antonio. So if the Silver Stars lost before then, the worst-case scenario for the Storm would be a three-way tie at 17-17 with San Antonio and Los Angeles. As best I can tell, the Storm would win any such tie.

The Storm is also closing in on guaranteeing a top-three spot in the West, which would mean avoiding the Minnesota Lynx in the first round of the playoffs. Two wins, or a win and a San Antonio loss, would do the trick.

Let’s take a look at the latest results from 500 simulations of the remainder of the season:

Team            W      1     2     3     4   LOT
------------------------------------------------
Indiana       22.7   .91   .07   .01   .00   .00
Connecticut   20.8   .06   .76   .14   .04   .00
Atlanta       18.7   .02   .12   .43   .41   .01
New York      18.1   .00   .05   .41   .44   .10
Chicago       15.8   .00   .00   .02   .10   .89
Washington     6.1   .00   .00   .00   .00  1.00

Team            W      1     2     3     4   LOT
------------------------------------------------
Minnesota     26.7  1.00   .00   .00   .00   .00
Phoenix       20.1   .00   .46   .50   .04   .00
Seattle       19.8   .00   .54   .45   .01   .00
San Antonio   17.0   .00   .00   .05   .83   .12
Los Angeles   14.6   .00   .00   .00   .13   .87
Tulsa          3.7   .00   .00   .00   .00  1.00

While the West is beginning to take shape, Atlanta’s win over Indiana and Chicago holding off New York have combined to muddle the East picture. Suddenly, the Dream has an outside shot at home-court advantage in the first round and is the slight favorite to overtake the Liberty for third place. The Sky’s win kept alive Chicago’s flickering playoff hopes.

Out West, it looks likely that second place will come down to the Storm and the Mercury. Los Angeles still has some chance of coming back to surpass struggling San Antonio for the final spot.

Two other simulation notes: Minnesota now shows up with a 19 percent chance of winning out to match last year’s 28-6 finish by the Storm. Tulsa, meanwhile, is more likely than not to win another game and surpass the 3-27 1998 Washington Mystics for the worst record in league history. Given how well the Shock has played over the last nine games, I’d be a little surprised now if they didn’t win at least once more.

The opponents the Storm is most likely to face:

(2) vs. Phoenix (3): 50%
(3) at Phoenix (2): 45%
(2) vs. San Antonio (3): 4%
(4) at Minnesota (1): 1%

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2011 at 2:56 pm and is filed under playoff picture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.