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Chelsea Gray and Olivia Miles. | NBAE via Getty Images
The 2026 edition of the WNBA’s Rivals Week officially begins on Saturday.
Now in its second season, the guidelines that govern the league’s designation of “rivals” remains a bit unclear, with a combination of geographic proximity between teams, teams with historic or still-developing track records of intense clashes and players perceived as possessing somewhat contentious, competitive on-court relationships determining which matchups will be featured during Rivals Week.
The league itself continues to promote the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky as rivals (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC), even if the perceived rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese that motivated the league to profit from this matchup (and perpetuate the toxicity that surrounded it) no longer exists due to Reese’s departure to the Atlanta Dream. Their shared Midwest geography now serves as the supposed rivalrous linkage between the two teams.
Geography also underlies the revival of the Pacific Northwest rivalry between the Seattle Storm and Portland Fire (8:30 p.m. ET, NBATV).
Despite standing as two of the best teams in the league over the past two seasons, with their superstars emerging as the top two contestants for MVP honors in 2024 and 2025, the Las Vegas Aces and Minnesota Lynx, apparently, do not qualify as league-approved rivals. One could argue that, if not for their record 53-point home loss to the Lynx, the Aces might not have won the 2025 WNBA title, a connection that would seem to make these team sensible rivals.
Nonetheless, Aces-Lynx is the most interesting of Saturday’s three matchups (1 p.m. ET, CBS).
The Aces are coming off their most uplifting win of the season, while the Lynx just experienced one of their more disappointing performances.
Vegas survived a roller coaster in Indianapolis on Thursday, falling down by 20 points to the Fever before coming back to claim the lead only to appear to let the game slip away in a tightly-contested close to regulation. But thanks to some Caitlin Clark miscues and classic Chelsea Gray heroics, the Aces exited Indy with an improbable win. The Point Gawd first sent the game into overtime after Clark failed to secure the win at the free throw line, draining a buzzer-beating 3-pointer. In OT, she swished the game-winning triple as the buzzer sounded.
Riding a 10-game winning streak driven by what had been an electric offense, Minnesota’s scoring evaporated over the final minutes in their eventual fall-from-ahead loss to the Los Angeles Sparks. The Lynx went nearly the final five minutes without a field goal, nor a free throw, with that scoreless stretch, combined with some crucial scores by the Sparks, denying Minnesota an 11th-straight win in particularly painful fashion.
So, an elated Aces squad arrives in Minneapolis against an irritated Lynx team. And irritated might underestimate the current temperament of Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve.
At first glance, it was Minnesota’s offense that failed them on Thursday. Including their almost five-minute scoreless stretch to close the game, the Lynx shot 42 percent from the field and 31 percent from 3, marks well below their season averages.
However, it was the other side of the ball, which had been showing signs of slippage despite the winning streak, that left Reeve unamused, as she declared after the game, saying, “Every player, at every position, was terrible,” when asked about her team’s defensive performance.
Even when the Lynx defense was up to Reeve’s standards, ranking at the top of the WNBA through the first two months of the season, the Aces put up the second-most efficient offensive performance on the Lynx this season, registering an offensive rating of 128.2 in their 100-97 win on June 13 in Vegas.
Thus, in circumstance that might seem a bit odd for a team that’s been situated in first place for the entire season and just had a 10-game winning streak—the longest streak in the WNBA this season—snapped, Saturday afternoon is setting up to be a statement game for the Lynx.
As Eric Nemchock just highlighted, there are still a lot of more confidence-boosting, rather than concerning, developments that have been happening in Minnesota. Nevertheless, Reeve’s dismay demands that Minnesota make the adjustments necessary to maintain their dominance. They must demonstrate a level effort, execution and attention to detail—on both sides of the ball—requisite of a title contender. Additionally, for all their excellence, the Aces loom; a loss to Vegas would trim Minnesota’s standings advantage to just 1.5 games, while also securing the Aces the season series with two banked wins.
For much of Thursday night, it appeared this matchup would carry the opposite stakes, with the Aces, coming off yet another regular season loss to the Fever, in need of a prove-it performance against a Lynx team that was coasting on an 11-game winning streak.
Then, the organic drama of basketball, with no contrived rivalries required, intervened, with the Aces authoring an epic overtime escape in Indy and the Lynx fumbling away what should have been a comfortable win.
Who needs Rivals Week? Just give us some real hoops, and I expect the Aces and Lynx to deliver on that front.
In the comments, give us your predictions for the Vegas-Minnesota showdown.
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