NEW YORK — It’s fitting that many of the opening round playoff series are going the distance after the balanced regular season the WNBA had.There will be three decisive Game 3s over the next two days. That’s the first time that’s happened since 2015. Last season all four opening round series were sweeps.“You look at the standings this year how close it was, usually in the past it was clear cut who the top three were,” Phoenix forward Alyssa Thomas said after the Mercury routed New York on Wednesday night. “This year there was so much movement and it came down to the wire who was going to be the eight in the playoffs. Credit to how the league is growing and how balanced teams are. It continues to get better.”The WNBA changed its playoff format this season giving each team at least one home game in the opening round which probably has helped. In the past few years, the better seeded team would have the first two games at home. Indiana and Seattle evened up their series on their home court Tuesday night and Golden State came within a basket of beating No. 1 seed Minnesota on Wednesday night to make it 4 for 4 on series going the distance. “I think it’s super intense. I think numbers don’t matter no more. Everyone’s 0-0,” Minnesota guard Courtney Williams said. “You can’t take no team lightly. You saw that tonight. These folks came …
