Women's National Basketball Association in the context of "2010 WNBA season"

A basketball is a spherical ball used in basketball games. Basketballs usually range in size from very small promotional items that are only a few inches (some centimeters) in diameter to extra large balls nearly 2 feet (60 cm) in diameter used in training exercises. For example, a youth basketball could be 27 inches (69 cm) in circumference, while a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's ball would be a maximum of 30 inches (76 cm) and an NCAA women's ball would be a maximum of 29 inches (74 cm). The standard for a basketball in the National Basketball Association (NBA) is 29.5 inches (75 cm) in circumference and for the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), a maximum circumference of 28.5 inches (72 cm). High school and junior leagues normally use NCAA, NBA or WNBA sized balls.

Aside from the court and the baskets, the basketball is the only piece of equipment necessary to play the game of basketball. During the game, the ball must be bounced continuously (dribbling), thrown through the air to other players (passing) or thrown towards the basket (shooting). Therefore, the ball must be very durable and easy to hold on to. The ball is also used to perform tricks (sometimes called freestyling), the most common of which are spinning the ball on the tip of one's index finger, dribbling in complex patterns, rolling the ball over one's shoulder, or performing aerobatic maneuvers with the ball while executing a slam dunk, most notably in the context of a slam dunk contest.

In basketball, a technical foul (colloquially known as a "T" or a "tech") is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a non-player. The most common technical foul is for unsportsmanlike conduct. Technical fouls can be assessed against players, bench personnel, the entire team (often called a bench technical), or even the crowd. These fouls, and their penalties, are more serious than a personal foul, but not necessarily as serious as a flagrant foul (an ejectable offense in leagues below the National Basketball Association (NBA), and potentially so in the NBA).

Technical fouls are handled slightly differently under international rules than under the rules used by the various competitions in the United States. First, illegal contact between players on the court is always a personal foul under international rules, whereas in the United States, such contact is, with some exceptions, a technical foul when the game clock is not running or when the ball is dead. Second, in FIBA play (except for the half-court 3x3 variant, in which individual personal foul counts are not kept), players foul out after five total fouls, technical and personal combined (since 2014, one technical can be included towards the total; committing another risks immediate ejection). The latter rule is similar to that in college, high school, and middle school basketball in the United States. However, in leagues that play 48-minute games such as the NBA, and in some leagues such as the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), players are allowed six personal fouls before being disqualified, and technical fouls assessed against them do not count toward this total. However, unsportsmanlike technicals in the (W)NBA carry a fine, its severity depending on the number of technicals the player has already obtained, and players are suspended for varying amounts of time after accumulating sixteen technicals in the regular season or seven in the playoffs.

The New York metropolitan area is one of only two in the United States with more than one team in each of the "Big Four" major professional sports leagues, along with two in Major League Soccer. New York metropolitan area sports teams have been crowned champions of their respective leagues on 69 occasions. American football, baseball and basketball are the city's most-followed sports.

New York City is the headquarters of Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, the National Hockey League, the National Women's Soccer League, and the Women's National Basketball Association.It hosts the US Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, and the New York City Marathon, the world's largest. The Millrose Games is an annual track and field meet whose featured event is the Wanamaker Mile. Boxing is also prominent, with events like the Amateur Boxing Golden Gloves being held at Madison Square Garden each year.

The Dallas Wings are an American professional basketball team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Wings compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference. The team is owned by a group led by chairman Bill Cameron. Greg Bibb is president and CEO. Brad Hilsabeck joined the Dallas Wings ownership group in March 2019 with the acquisition of Mark Yancey's interest in the Wings.

The team was founded in Auburn Hills, Michigan, as the Detroit Shock before the 1998 WNBA season began. It then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, before the 2010 season and became the Tulsa Shock. On July 20, 2015, Cameron announced that the franchise would move to Arlington for the 2016 WNBA season.

The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The Lakers play their home games at Crypto.com Arena, an arena they share with the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Lakers are one of the most successful teams in the history of the NBA with 17 championships, the second most in the league behind the Boston Celtics.

The franchise began in 1946 as the Detroit Gems of the National Basketball League (NBL). After one season, a new ownership relocated the team to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and renamed the team as the Minneapolis Lakers. The Lakers won the 1948 NBL championship before joining the rival Basketball Association of America, where they won the 1949 BAA championship. Following the merger of the NBL and the BAA into the NBA in 1949, the Lakers won four of the next five NBA championships. After struggling financially in the late 1950s, they relocated to Los Angeles before the 1960–61 season.

Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd streets above Pennsylvania Station. It is the fourth venue to bear the name “Madison Square Garden”; the first two, opened in 1879 and 1890, were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden (1925) farther uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street.

The Garden hosts professional ice hockey, professional basketball, boxing, mixed martial arts, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling and other forms of sports and entertainment. It is close to other midtown Manhattan landmarks, including the Empire State Building, Koreatown and Macy's at Herald Square. It is home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and was home to the New York Liberty of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 1997 to 2017.

Chase Center is an indoor arena in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States.

It is the home of the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), Golden State Valkyries of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), and occasionally for the University of San Francisco men's and women's basketball teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA G League play one home game per season at Chase Center. Chase Center opened on September 6, 2019, and seats 18,064 for basketball games.

A three-point field goal (also 3-pointer, three, or triple) is a field goal in a basketball game made from beyond the three-point line, a designated arc surrounding the basket. A successful basket is worth three points, in contrast to the two points awarded for field goals made within the three-point line and the one point for each made free throw.

The distance from the basket to the three-point line varies by competition level: in the National Basketball Association (NBA) the arc is 23 feet 9 inches (7.24 m) from the center of the basket; in the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) (all divisions), and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the arc is 6.75 m (22 ft 1.75 in) from the center of the basket; and in the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) the arc is 19 ft 9 in (6.02 m) from the center of the basket. Every three-point line becomes parallel to each sideline at the points where each arc is a specified distance from the sideline. In both the NBA and WNBA, this distance is 3 feet (0.91 m) from the sideline; as a result, the distance from the center of the basket gradually decreases to a minimum of 22 feet (6.7 m). FIBA specifies the arc's minimum distance from the sideline as 0.9 meters (2 ft 11 in), resulting in a minimum distance from the center of the basket of 6.6 meters (21 ft 8 in). The NCAA and NAIA arc is the same distance from the center of the basket as the FIBA arc, but is 3 feet 4 inches (1.02 m) from each sideline because the North American court is slightly wider than the FIBA court. In 3x3, a FIBA-sanctioned variant of the half-court 3-on-3 game, the same line exists, but shots from behind it are only worth 2 points with all other shots worth 1 point.

The Western Conference is one of two conferences that make up the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), the other being the Eastern Conference. The Western Conferent consists of 7 teams and the Eastern Conference consists of 6 teams.

From the league's second season in 1998 through 2015, the WNBA operated separate playoff brackets for its Eastern and Western Conferences. Each conference's playoff was divided into two playoff rounds, the Conference Semi-Finals and the Conference Finals, with the Conference Finals winners receiving Conference Championships and advancing to the WNBA Finals to determine the WNBA champion. In the final years of this playoff scheme, all in-conference playoff series were best-of-three.