This is where it gets complicated for the Liberty. This is where it gets challenging, when the headache of possible postseason scenarios starts to fade after Wednesday night’s regular-season finale against the Dream and their playoff reality becomes even just a little bit clearer. 

If the Liberty orchestrate a run, if the nucleus that reached a WNBA Finals in 2023 and won it all the following year can make another push for a title, it’ll need to occur mostly on the road. It’ll need to happen as a lower seed. That was the latest layer they learned after a 95-84 loss to the Dream on Monday. 

The possibilities for the Liberty entering play Tuesday included a scenario where they could finish as high as No. 5, but that’s unlikely. The Fever needed to lose both of their remaining games against the Lynx. The Mystics needed to split their two remaining games against the Sun and the Sky. Seattle needed to beat the Wings. And, of course, the Liberty would need a win against a Dream group that overpowered them in the third quarter Monday. 

If the Fever split their games and those other outcomes all still happen, the Liberty would finish sixth and face either the Aces or the Dream. And in the event that the Liberty, Wings and Mystics all finish in a three-way tie, the Liberty would finish as the No. 6 seed based on tiebreakers, too. 

But, after all that, the likely reality is that the Liberty will be staring down a travel-heavy series against the Lynx, Valkyries or Aces. Those teams possess the No. 2, No. 7 and No. 3 offensive ratings, respectively, in the league this season. The Liberty went 5-5 against them — including a Commissioner’s Cup championship victory over Las Vegas — this season. 

They experienced the challenges of beginning the postseason as a lower seed last year, too. The Liberty opened on the road in Phoenix, stole Game 1 against the Mercury, dropped Game 2 at Barclays Center and then lost the winner-take-all matchup back on the road. Since this core was assembled, it marked only the second playoff series — with the 2023 Finals against the Aces the other one — where the Liberty were the lower seed, and they’ve yet to win a series as the lower seed. 

Wednesday will serve as one final chance for the Liberty to do what they can to stay away from the highest seeds for now to prevent their rough midseason stretch of eight losses in 10 games from prompting a seed that leads to an early exit.

But after trailing by three points at halftime Monday, the Liberty were outscored by eight in the third quarter, and Dream forward Angel Reese — whose matchup with Jonquel Jones became a defining part of Monday’s game as both scored 18 points — could sense fatigue and kept telling her teammates: “They’re tired as s–t. They’re tired as s–t. Keep wearing them down.” 

“I think they’re a really good team,” Jones said, “and we talked about just using this as a little mini-series for us before we go into the playoffs — and being able to bounce back, being able to learn from this loss tonight and coming out and being able to get the win the next time we play them.” 

The Liberty were on the second night of a back-to-back. They’d won 10 of their past 13 games prior to that loss, including impressive wins against the Lynx and Fever. But the sentiment of Reese’s quote was fitting, in a way. 

It won’t get any easier from here for the Liberty. Their playoff path — once they know their first matchup against a higher seed — will only reiterate that.