On September 29, 2026, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the New York Liberty defeated the Minnesota Lynx 87-71 and completed an upset the WNBA had never seen before. New York became the first No. 8 seed to eliminate a No. 1 seed from the playoffs.
The WNBA’s official recap describes it as the first 8-over-1 upset since the league adopted its current best-of-three opening round in 2022. NBC Sports went further, identifying New York as the first eighth seed to eliminate a top seed in WNBA playoff history.
Two games, two convincing wins
This was not a narrow upset built around one lucky finish. The Liberty won Game 1 in Minneapolis 91-75, then returned home and won Game 2 by the same 16-point margin. Across the two-game sweep, New York outscored the league’s best regular-season team by 32 points.
Breanna Stewart drove the opening victory with 34 points. The Liberty’s official Game 1 report noted that it was already the first playoff-game victory by a No. 8 seed against a No. 1. New York then converted that first into a full series upset two nights later.
Game 2 belonged to a more balanced trio. Jonquel Jones recorded 21 points and 13 rebounds, Stewart added 21 points, and Sabrina Ionescu scored 18. Those figures are confirmed in the independent EFE report published by AS, which also lists Minnesota’s 33-11 regular-season record and New York’s 26-18 mark.
Why the seed gap was deceptive
The standings made this look like a mismatch, but the roster did not. New York’s core included three established stars in Jones, Stewart and Ionescu, and the franchise had beaten Minnesota in the 2024 WNBA Finals. The eighth seed reflected a more difficult 2026 regular season, not an inexperienced playoff team.
Minnesota still entered the postseason with the best record in the league and home-court advantage. Under the format introduced in 2022, the higher seed hosts Game 1 before the series moves to the lower seed’s arena. New York therefore had to begin the upset on the road, which it did with a 16-point win.
The series also rewrote what an eighth seed had previously accomplished. According to New York’s Game 1 recap, that opening victory was only the third playoff-game win by a No. 8 seed in league history and the first since 2016. No eighth seed had advanced through an entire series.
That changed in Brooklyn. The Liberty did not merely survive the top seed; they beat Minnesota decisively twice, received major contributions from all three stars in the clincher and advanced without requiring a third game. In a playoff structure designed to reward the regular season’s best team, the lowest seed produced the cleanest kind of upset: a sweep.
Sources and further reading
- WNBA official Game 2 recap
- WNBA official Game 2 page
- New York Liberty official Game 1 report
- NBC Sports report on the historic upset
- EFE/AS report and player statistics
