WNBA power rankings: Liberty’s Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones aren’t at peaks, yet still dominating

The WNBA entered its chaos era this week with seven games decided in overtime or by one possession. Whether that was a consequence of Commissioner’s Cup play increasing the day-to-day level of competitiveness or teams simply settling in after one month of games, the regular season product has rarely been more appealing.

The belle of the ball was Minnesota visiting Las Vegas, as the Aces took the No. 1 spot in the WNBA standings, the Western Conference Commissioner’s Cup standings and these power rankings by making just enough plays in crunch time against the Minnesota Lynx.

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They did so despite rookie Olivia Miles’ best efforts to take the game into her own hands, attacking reigning MVP and best player alive A’ja Wilson to great effect in the fourth quarter. But Wilson won the game at the free-throw line, going right through the Minnesota frontcourt of Nia Coffey and Liatu King.

Las Vegas’ veteran experience was obvious on that play, as the Aces took a reset timeout and immediately knew how to space to get Wilson barreling toward the basket with the paint open.

The Aces are now in the driver’s seat to advance to the Commissioner’s Cup final for the third time in five years if they win one of their next two games against Dallas and Phoenix. If they lose both, the Lynx would have the best chance of replacing them, though a more complicated tiebreaker could be in place.

What isn’t complicated is the East bracket, where the New York Liberty have cleared out the field, clinching their bid with one game to go. As someone who picked an Aces-Liberty WNBA Finals, I see this Cup preview as a good sign that things are headed in the right direction for those two.

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The teams below New York in the East standings have been bringing the drama. The Toronto Tempo, Connecticut Sun, Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever were all involved in overtime games. The Mystics had two games decided in the final seconds, losing one on a Caitlin Clark 3-pointer and rebounding later in the week with Sonia Citron’s buzzer-beater. And the Atlanta Dream — with newly acquired superstar Angel Reese — inspired “sell the team” chants in Chicago.

But let’s get back to the Liberty, owners of the league’s longest current winning streak.

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New York Liberty

There are so many reasons to be bullish on the New York Liberty: their depth, homecourt advantage, offensive firepower, length and on and on. My favorite reason is the presence of two MVPs, Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones. The pair may not be at its peak, but Stewart and Jones still compose the best frontcourt in the WNBA, and on most days it’s not particularly close.

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Because of them, the Liberty have hit their defensive stride early. Stewart can guard basically any position, and the future Hall of Famer made history again on Sunday with a career-high seven blocks. She’s the 16th player in WNBA history to do that in one game. But she’s ill-suited against back-to-the-basket fives, and that’s where Jones’ strength and skill come into play — unlike many rim-protecting centers, Jones doesn’t give anything back on offense.

Over the last five games, New York has the best defensive rating in the WNBA despite starting a rookie and Marine Johannès in the backcourt. Leonie Fiebich has been fantastic defensively, as have Rebekah Gardner and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton off the bench, but their aggression on the perimeter is enabled by the anchors behind them.

Los Angeles Sparks

Yes, Los Angeles still boasts the WNBA’s worst defense, though no longer the worst in league history. But it’s hard to be as concerned with that side of the ball when the Sparks can put together such special offensive stretches, led by Kelsey Plum’s singularly superlative season.

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Her efficiency has been out of this world in her ninth season, as she’s making 66 percent of her 2-pointers and 41.4 percent of her 3s. Every defensive game plan begins with the premise of limiting Plum, and opponents can sell out on her, given the relative lack of individual shot creation elsewhere on L.A.’s roster — but it doesn’t matter. She figures everything out and makes plays for herself and others, leading the league in scoring (26.6 points per game) and ranking third in assists (6.9).

It’s debatable whether Plum’s latest outing against Phoenix — when she tied the Sparks’ franchise scoring record with 43 points — topped her 38-point, eight-assist effort in an earlier win at Las Vegas. The fact that she has enough of those types of performances this season is the point.

She’s knifing her way through defenses, throwing off defenders with her decelerations in the paint. Los Angeles coach Lynne Roberts called her the best one-on-one player in the league before the matchup against the Mercury, and she proved those words prescient, albeit against a perimeter group that hasn’t exactly dazzled defensively.

Plum has been devastating in isolation all season, averaging 1.317 points per possession, per Synergy. She was dancing with the Phoenix defenders down the stretch as the only source of offense while the Sparks let a nine-point fourth-quarter lead evaporate. Although she was getting good looks one-on-one, L.A. found even more advantages leveraging her off the ball, whether that was a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer or Plum setting a screen at the top of the key and rolling to the hoop for the game-tying layup with 1.6 seconds to play. As a result, the Sparks are now above .500 in June for the first time since 2023.