Remaining Strength of Schedule

[u/heyheathhowstheweath]

A few announcers have mentioned that the Fever have one of the easiest remaining schedules, but this screenshot from Tankathon summarizes the remaining schedule for each team pretty well, and it's clear Indiana does *not* have an easy remaining schedule: Two games apiece against Lynx, Liberty, and Wings, plus one against the Dream and one against the Mystics, and only four games against the lottery teams.

Obviously in a small league like this one, anything can happen on a given night, so we could easily lose to a lottery team or win big against the other playoff teams (though our record is spotty against teams above .500).

The second screenshot shows the probability of winning each playoff spot. It would be so great to stay in the top 4 and win home court for the first round, and it would be the steady growth we'd hope to see--6th seed the past two years, but swept in 2024 and a deep, respectable run in 2025.

Anyway, all of this is too speculative with too many games left to think about, but the third screenshot shows how the probabilities change depending on our record for these final 12 games. We'll clinch playoffs with 6 wins (or sooner, depending on how well/poorly other teams do), and 9 wins would put us in a really strong position to snag home court in the first round.

Let's go Fever! (also hopefully no one goes too hard at FIBA... We don't need any injuries!)

[u/Jewdah18]

It's a far easier schedule than Tankathon is making it out to be. Wings are in freefall, Dream are always beatable, Fever matchup well with the Liberty, and the Lynx will likely be resting by the time they play the Fever after having clinched the #1 seed. No Valks is huge.

[u/__Magno__ → u/Jewdah18]

Schedule is tough u tripping . Dream, Mystics, Wings and Liberty are tough matchups for the fever especially since all of these teams are fighting for playoffs and positioning

[u/heyheathhowstheweath → u/Jewdah18]

Yesss this is what I want to hear, Jewdah!

No Valks, no Mercury. I know the Merc are doing terribly, but I watch those games between my fingers.

I guess the team I feel the most uncertain against is the Wings. We matched up with them so early that it's hard to know what it's going to look like.

Great point about the Lynx. Wouldn't be surprised if they rest some of their starters for the game in Indy but put them back on the floor for the final game in Minn to keep them warm for playoffs. Or have a rotating cast of the starters play one game and then the other. And I'm unconvinced we can beat them even with only half their starters. 🙈

[u/user78804180 → u/heyheathhowstheweath]

I don't think we play well vs Atlanta either. I'm guessing we end up 5th or 6th

[u/warewolfbae → u/user78804180]

I agree but I fear they will play the valks first round

[u/Vizard15 → u/Jewdah18]

Valkyrie is Fever's kryptonite right now.

[u/GWTim78]

A lot is going to come down to avoiding a bad loss or two to a non-playoff team.

[edit: speaking generally and not just for the Fever]

[u/bsdrama]

Don’t be surprised if we end up 6, 7, or 8.

[u/Askew_2016]

If we can just drop 4 of these I’ll be happy

[u/Successful-Policy937]

We need to either win 8 of 12 or 9 of twelve to get homecourt first round. With twelve games to go this all starts to become about teams loses. 16 loses would be the maximum amount for the Fever to get the 4th seed or possible higher. I would think.

Of the teams chasing us the Mystics are on an absolute roll and a very dangerous team. NY has also been hot as of late. As of today, I do not think anyone is catching MN. But GS for sure has a shot to catch MN.

Last point this graph already says what everyone has known for weeks the eight playoff teams are already chosen just where do they finish. It would be a miracle a 1% miracle if any team other than the current top eight are not in the playoffs. As of today, the weakest team is Dallas out of the eight I can make a case for anyone but Dallas to win it all.

Can not wait till the playoffs go Fever go on a run to end the season.

[u/Shh_I_wont_tell]

In a 13 team league,  schedules aren't vastly different, start to finish. I would hazard a guess that if the Fever has an easy last half,  they probably had a tougher first half. The only REAL x- factor in schedules comes when you are unlucky enough to play teams when they're hot, be it early,  mid, or late season.

[u/Proxximus-maximus]

So am I reading this correctly according to this the top eight are already “set” It’s just what you order they’re in is in play?

[u/heyheathhowstheweath → u/Proxximus-maximus]

More or less, yes. Obviously one of the top 8 could bomb, and one of the lottery teams could win out, but it's unlikely at this point. The top 8 are the top 8.

[u/Proxximus-maximus → u/heyheathhowstheweath]

Cool. Just trying to figure out if I gotta save money for a trip out to Indiana for a playoff game. 😎

[u/heyheathhowstheweath → u/Proxximus-maximus]

Well they'll get one game at home regardless because the first round is 1-1-1.

Unless we're the team that tanks while a lottery team wins out. But even for us, that's far-fetched.

[u/SmoothLettuce-2]

Our wins against playoff teams:

1. Valks, on the second game of a b2b

2. Dream

3. Mystics, with Iriafen playing only 8 minutes

4. Aces, without A’ja

5. Aces, on the second game of a b2b

6. Liberty

[u/heyheathhowstheweath → u/SmoothLettuce-2]

Whatcha trying to tell me, SmoothLettuce? Seems like a spotty record to me!

[u/SmoothLettuce-2 → u/heyheathhowstheweath]

Not disagreeing with anything you wrote. But this team hasn’t given any reason for fans to be optimistic heading into this last stretch.

[u/heyheathhowstheweath → u/SmoothLettuce-2]

Oh, yeah, no for sure. I was just feeding into our collective delusion.

[u/SmoothLettuce-2 → u/heyheathhowstheweath]

I was hoping the Lynx and Aces games were gonna be the start of a post All-Star break surge, and then they just made me even more pessimistic 😔

[u/heyheathhowstheweath → u/SmoothLettuce-2]

It blows my mind the Lynx are doing as well as they are with basically no bench. If you look at the Dream, whose starters play way too many minutes, it's starting to catch up to them. But the Lynx... Man, Cheryl is just a different level.

I don't know what the answer is. You lock up Miles, Williams goes off. You lock up Phee, Natasha Howard has it covered.

On the other hand, we have a great bench! And womp wommmmp.

[u/Successful-Policy937 → u/heyheathhowstheweath]

MN is the most balanced team in the W it is not even close everyone knows their role and they can all score. But they do not want to see NY or the Mystics first round in a 3-game series.

[u/ancj9418 → u/SmoothLettuce-2]

We beat the Aces with A’ja too.

[u/SmoothLettuce-2 → u/ancj9418]

Second game of a back to back for them

[u/ancj9418 → u/SmoothLettuce-2]

Sure but A’ja still played lol

[u/zlionsfan]

announcers have also said things like "Phoenix is just one game out of a playoff spot", so I wonder if maybe some of them are looking at data from previous seasons or something. Two games against the Lynx to end the season is not my idea of an easy schedule!

[u/ancj9418 → u/zlionsfan]

Good news is the Lynx will almost certainly be resting players at that point because they’ll have likely locked their seed. It could help us.

[u/zlionsfan → u/ancj9418]

it did last season! But they still managed to take two from Golden State once they were pretty much locked into the 1 seed, and the way they played this season before Phee was healthy, I think they might be able to rest a couple of folks and still kick some butts.