In the previous two seasons, the Seattle Storm reached the playoffs with sub-.500 records and their appearances were brief.
Seattle is going to the playoffs this year but has a good chance of entering the postseason with the WNBA's best record.
Seattle attempts to improve the league's top record Monday when it visits the New York Liberty at Madison Square Garden.
Seattle (21-7) clinched the 14th playoff berth in team history with Friday's 85-75 home win over the Minnesota Lynx. It is the third straight season the Storm are playoff bound, but in 2016 they were 16-18 and last season they finished 15-19.
Each time they lost a one-game play-in, falling to Atlanta in 2016 and Phoenix last season.
With six games left, the Storm own a sizable lead for the league's top spot. Seattle last held the league's best record in 2010 when it won 28 games and swept through the playoffs en route to the title.
"It's a stage that you want to get to," Seattle coach Dan Hughes said. "But you want to continue to get better. That's maybe the most important (thing) to me. We want to keep learning about our team. We want to learn about other teams. We want to learn in big games what does it take."
On Friday against the defending WNBA champion Lynx, it took a comeback by the Storm from a nine-point deficit and effective rebounding to go along with defense. Seattle held WNBA career rebound leader Rebekkah Brunson without a rebound and limited Minnesota leading scorer Maya Moore to seven points on 2-of-9 shooting.
"I think it was our defense," Seattle guard Sue Bird said. "We knew if we could get some stops and run, that was going to be extremely advantageous to us."
Bird finished with 14 points and 11 assists for her fifth double-double as she tied a season high in assists for the fifth time. Breanna Stewart scored six of her 20 points immediately after Seattle fell behind by nine in the second half and posted her 20th game with at least 20 points.
Stewart had 21 on 9-of-12 shooting in Seattle's 77-62 win over the Liberty on July 3 at the Westchester Civic Center in White Plains, N.Y.
Since the last meeting between the teams, Seattle is 8-2 and New York (7-20) is 2-8.
The Liberty are on a six-game losing streak since a 107-84 home win over the Chicago Sky on July 15 and five of those losses are by double digits.
On Saturday, the Liberty led by 15 points late in the first quarter but wound up with a 68-55 home loss to the Indiana Fever in a matchup of the league's two worst teams.
New York scored two points by hitting two free throws and went 0 of 15 in the fourth quarter. The Liberty also missed their final 16 shots.
"It's embarrassing," New York's Tina Charles said. "We're a professional team. We should be able to score more than two points."
Here's how embarrassing it was for the Liberty: The two points matched the second-lowest total in the fourth quarter in league history and it also was the eighth time a team failed to make a basket in a quarter.
New York's latest loss came without Epiphanny Prince (knee) and Shavonte Zellous (ankle), and the Liberty also lost Kia Vaughn to an ankle injury.