With playoff positions already determined, and some teams resting lightly injured starters, yesterday and today feel more like the preseason than like the end of the regular menu.

They're also days when it's harder than usual for some of us to follow hoops: the thing with the round ball and baskets is still a welcome distraction from this, but there are no distractions when you live in the path of a hurricane, and the advance of Ike quite rightly called off the Comets' home game.

Three games did happen last night, though, and here are results:

1. Seattle sat its entire starting lineup and beat the Dream at Key Arena anyway. Betty Lennox got hurt early, making her return to the town where she won a title even more emotional than it would have been anyway: "I don't think I'm ready to play," she said before the game. "I'm ready to come out and cry."

Storm fans are still worried about Swoopes' concussion. She may or may not travel to L.A. today.

2. Playoff-bound New York defeated lottery-bound Chicago: Q, who watched the game, says the Sky really ought to be good very soon.

Last night the Lib wouldn't let them. Shameka Christon had a terrific game; McCarville didn't show up. (Neither did the Sun-Times, which, depressingly, ran the AP story for a home game.) It looks like Janel will be ready to go for the playoffs, though she might not be 100%.

3. Lottery-bound Phoenix (2007 seems so far away) defeated the lottery-bound Lynx in Minnesota; neither Augustus nor Wiggins took the floor-- the former has a concussion, the latter a meniscus tear. Candice will likely have surgery this fall.

Said Lynx coach Z about their injuries: "Both Seimone and Candice would fight to play in our last two games if we were still in the hunt."

Said Minnesota fans, once again: wait till next year.