The No. 8 Liberty draw top-seeded Minnesota. Their season series tells a closer story.

The New York Liberty finished the regular season as the WNBA's eighth seed and will face No. 1 Minnesota in the opening round. The league's official bracket lists the best-of-three series beginning Sunday, September 27. That seeding makes New York the underdog, but the teams' three meetings this year resist a simple mismatch story.

New York won two of those games. It beat Minnesota 99-86 at home on July 3 and 93-81 on the road September 18. The Lynx won the middle meeting 90-85 on July 11. Those are regular-season results, not playoff wins, but they offer a concrete reason to look beyond the eight-place gap on the bracket.

The September game is the freshest comparison. Breanna Stewart scored 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, Jonquel Jones added 18 and 10, and New York outscored Minnesota 28-19 in the fourth quarter. The Liberty were down 69-67 with just over eight minutes remaining before taking control, according to the WNBA game record.

Three games, two New York wins

That result does not erase how New York arrived at the eighth seed. The Liberty closed at 26-18 and lost their final regular-season game 83-65 to Atlanta. Minnesota earned the top line over a full season. The recent win establishes that New York can beat this opponent, not that it will repeat the result when the series begins.

The July games show the same tension. Stewart scored 36 in the 99-86 victory. Eight days later, Minnesota won by five despite a Liberty comeback from a 15-point road deficit. Each team has produced an answer to the other, and none of those answers lasts automatically into a new game.

The first round uses a 1-1-1 home format, with the higher seed hosting Games 1 and 3 if a third game is needed. A poor opening night can leave a team one loss from elimination. New York's two regular-season wins make this a compelling series; the short format gives those wins no head start.

Why the format sharpens the matchup

The WNBA bracket confirms the pairing and September 27 start, but the game-specific tip time and broadcast assignment should be checked on the league's schedule before fans make plans. The first question on court is whether New York can reproduce the scoring balance that worked in Minneapolis, rather than asking Stewart to carry every possession.