ARLINGTON - The Dallas Wings are done proving they belong in the WNBA playoffs. The argument now is where they tip off.
Paige Bueckers scored 26 points - 20 in the first half - and Arike Ogunbowale added 22 points and six assists as Dallas beat the Phoenix Mercury 87-82 on Saturday at College Park Center, the Associated Press reported. The win was the Wings' sixth in a row and moved them to 26-16, past New York and Washington for sixth place in the standings.
The same two clubs meet again Monday night in Phoenix at 10 p.m. ET, ESPN's preview listed, with Dallas then closing the regular season at Seattle on Sept. 23. The playoffs open Sept. 27. Seeding, not qualification, is left on the table.
Why sixth still moves
ESPN's final-week playoff primer, published before the World Cup break ended, listed Dallas among the eight clubs already locked into the postseason with a remaining range from as high as third to as low as eighth. The top four seeds host Game 1 and a potential Game 3 of the best-of-three first round.
That home-court edge is the prize still in play for a Wings group that missed the playoffs the previous two seasons.
ESPN Analytics at that earlier snapshot gave Dallas long odds at cracking the top four, and Washington held the season-series tiebreaker over the Wings while Dallas held it over New York. Saturday's result changed the immediate standings line even if the broader bracket math remains crowded.
New York and Washington are still in the same tier of the race; every remaining win for Dallas protects sixth and keeps pressure on the clubs above.
Awak Kuier scored 11 and Jessica Shepard added 10 points, six rebounds and five assists in Saturday's win, the AP noted. Bueckers reached 20 points for the 24th time this season, fourth-most in the league. Alyssa Thomas posted her 23rd career triple-double for Phoenix with 19 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, and Lexi Held scored 21.
