The Dallas Wings defeated the Portland Fire on the Wings’ home court at College Park Center in Arlington, clinching a WNBA playoff berth with the 96-78 victory and a top eight finish in the 2026 WNBA standings.
This will be Dallas’ first trip to the playoffs since 2023 and their sixth postseason appearance since 2016 when the team relocated to North Texas. With five regular season games left, the Wings can, mathematically speaking, finish the season sitting anywhere between second place and eighth place.
The first round of the playoffs is a best-of-three series (1–1–1 format) where the higher seed hosts the first and, if necessary, third games.
With the win over Portland, the Wings improve to 23-16 on the year, marking a team record for wins in a season. It also puts the team on the cusp of securing its highest winning percentage in team history, needing just two more regular-season victories to accomplish the feat.
Dallas plays the Connecticut Sun at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30, in College Park Center; the Los Angeles Sparks at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17 in College Park Center; the Phoenix Mercury at noon Saturday, Sept. 19, in College Park Center and Monday, Sept. 21, at 9 p.m. in Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix; and the Seattle Storm on Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 9 p.m. in Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.
Dallas Wings Head Coach Jose Fernandez, who was hired in October 2025, becomes the 38th first-year WNBA head coach in league history to secure a playoff bid and third in the last two seasons, with Atlanta’s Karl Smesko and Golden State’s Natalie Nakase also achieving the accomplishment in 2025.
Dallas becomes the third team since 2016 to have the worst record in the league in one year then qualify for the postseason the following year (Phoenix in 2022-2023 and New York in 2020-2021).
Since 1997, 11 teams, including the Wings, have qualified for the postseason a year after finishing with the WNBA’s worst record. The WNBA record for biggest single-season turnaround is +16 wins, with Dallas currently at +13 with five games remaining in regular season, and all of those remaining games are against teams who have been eliminated from playoff contention.
Fernandez also has the opportunity to pass Smesko for top win differential for a first-year head coach, with Smesko the leader at +15 wins from 2024 to 2025. Dallas went 10-34 in 2025.
Tickets for the 2026 WNBA Playoffs are not yet available, but fans can register now to be notified when Wings postseason tickets go on sale.
— Tammye Nash