SEATTLE — It took until the final buzzer of their last regular-season game, but the Seattle Storm clinched the eighth and final WNBA playoff spot Tuesday night with Erica Wheeler’s go-ahead jumper with 19.2 seconds left in a 64-63 win over the Golden State Valkyries.

“Think about when you’re a kid and you’re in the driveway, count down five, four, three … and you hit the shot. I just did it live,” said Wheeler, who pulled up in an isolation against Valkyries defensive stopper Veronica Burton.

“Those are the moments you live for and in front of this crowd. This crowd is amazing. For me, I feel good. I’m still shaking. My dad keeps hugging me non-stop. I just feel amazing. I’m happy we’re in the postseason.”

The Storm had multiple opportunities to solidify a playoff spot before Tuesday. A win Sept. 1 over the Los Angeles Sparks would have all but clinched for Seattle, while beating the New York Liberty last Friday could have made it official. The Storm lost both games as part of a late-season home swoon that had seen the team go 1-7 at Climate Pledge Arena since the start of August entering Tuesday night.

With a magic number of one, Seattle didn’t need to beat the Valkyries and could have clinched if the Sparks had lost at Phoenix on Tuesday (they won 88-83) or in Thursday’s season finale against the Las Vegas Aces. But nobody with the Storm was interested in that scenario.

“You don’t ever want to rely on other people to win or lose,” Seattle coach Noelle Quinn said. “That’s not a good feeling. To be able to seize the moment, take care of business on home court against a team who is trending very positively shows a lot of resiliency but also we can breathe a little bit.”

“Quite frankly, that’s not how you want to enter playoffs anyway,” Storm All-Star Nneka Ogwumike said. “It’s the reality of it. It happens at times, but that’s not really how you want to go into a season where it’s win or go home, so I’m glad that we were able to earn that.”

Playing a close game was fitting for Seattle, which set a league record with 29 games in the extended 44-game schedule that qualified as “clutch” by the WNBA Advanced Stats definition — within five points in the final five minutes of regulation. Golden State’s 24 such games tied the Washington Mystics for second.

Since the start of August, the Storm had gone 3-8 in those games. Ogwumike is optimistic that experience will set the team up for success in the postseason.

“We’ve been able to train that muscle, you know, to be able to do it in what ultimately was a playoff environment,” she said. “I think a lot of the games we played in August felt like playoff environments. I can’t help but believe that it will prepare us for what we’re going to be able to experience in the postseason. Step in the right direction. Being able to come out on top, that’s really what we wanted.”

That required Wheeler, who scored a team-high 17 points off the bench, to take and make the most important shot of Seattle’s season.

“What happened tonight, that’s greatness,” Ogwumike said. “You’ve got to want to be in those moments. You’ve got to want to. People watch it on TV and they see it, and they like, ‘Oh yeah, I can do that.’ … That’s why not everybody can do it. I truly believe that we have a gang of people on our team that could be in those moments and I think E did an amazing job of taking the opportunity to capitalize on being ready.”

To make it hold up, the Storm needed a final defensive stop. After a timeout to advance the ball, Golden State’s Janelle Salaun had two opportunities to take the lead. Salaun, who scored a game-high 22 points, missed a shot at the rim and a 3-pointer and Wheeler secured the ball to run out the clock.

“How we ended the game, that defensive possession, just fighting to get the ball,” Quinn said. “It’s just kind of the epitome of us this year, just fighting and fighting, sometimes coming up short and things not going our way. The exhale. Also for them, they’ve worked so hard, they’re so connected and they want it so bad.

“To be able to say that we’re in — and we talked about this earlier, we win, we’re in. To say we did it, a lot of gratitude and a lot of pride in that. Just super happy for the group.”

Although Seattle was the last team to clinch a playoff spot, the Storm could still end up the No. 7 seed depending on the results of the Valkyries’ season finale Thursday against the Minnesota Lynx. A win would give Golden State the sixth seed, with the Indiana Fever seventh and Seattle eighth. But a Minnesota win would result in Indiana finishing sixth, the Storm seventh by virtue of the tiebreaker and drop the Valkyries to eighth and a first-round matchup against the Lynx.

Seattle making the playoffs also has important implications for next year’s WNBA draft. The Storm holds Los Angeles’ 2026 first-round pick, now to be determined by the draft lottery. Meanwhile, Seattle’s own pick will go to the Washington Mystics to complete the team’s midseason trade for Brittney Sykes.