SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Valkyries forward Kayla Thornton knows every basket in the WNBA Finals will be tough to come by, given how much her team and the opposing Atlanta Dream take pride in making stops.
The league’s two best defensive teams are about to square off for a championship in a best-of-seven series that could be full of low-scoring games. The Valkyries host the series opener Saturday afternoon at the Chase Center, with their raucous “Ballhalla” home crowd set to back them on the biggest stage this second-year franchise has reached.
“We’re the top two in the league,” Thornton said, “so I think it comes down to just the details and who wants it more.”
Atlanta forward Angel Reese, the league’s defensive player of the year, loves to get involved in every play and wreak havoc, whether by forcing jump balls or making steals. The Dream have four of the top seven players in steals this postseason, led by Jordin Canada and Rhyne Howard at 2.2 per game. Golden State’s Gabby Williams has averaged 1.7 steals in the playoffs, while Reese has a 1.6 average.
“They like to get in the passing lanes,” Williams said. “It’s maybe going to be a game where good offense leads to good defense.”
The Valkyries beat the Dream in all three of their regular-season meetings, winning 77-66 on June 24 and 78-75 two days later in a pair of games in San Francisco, then 88-83 on July 4 as the visiting team. That was part of a five-game losing streak for the Dream, who haven’t lost back-to-back contests at any other point this year.
Atlanta is chasing the first championship in franchise history after losing in the title round three times in four years from 2010-13, getting swept in a trio of best-of-five series. Atlanta lost in the first round the past three seasons but enters this series on a 10-game winning streak dating to the final game before the break for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup last month during the regular season.
The fourth-seeded Dream swept the fifth-seeded Washington Mystics in two games in the first round and the eighth-seeded New York Liberty in three games in the semifinals.
“Nobody thought that we would make it to the finals and we’re doing that, we’re achieving that,” said Howard, a former Chattanooga-area prep standout at Bradley Central before following up an All-America career at Kentucky by becoming the No. 1 pick of the 2022 draft, that season’s rookie of the year and a WNBA All-Star for the fourth time this season.
“We set out goals long before this year,” Howard added, “and it’s finally coming into fruition.”
Dream forward Allisha Gray took part in a light practice Friday and will be a game-time decision for the opener after missing the team’s past two games with an injured left ring finger.
“We’re just waiting to see how my finger reacts to just the pace and intensity of the practice, and then we’ll know,” Gray said.
Atlanta second-year head coach Karl Smesko said he’s hopeful Gray will be able to play at some point in the series. Gray led the team in scoring in the regular season at 19 points per game and is the best outside shooter for Atlanta with her average of 3.1 3-pointers per game.
“It’s definitely hard because you want to be out there and compete with your teammates,” she said. “But I’ll say it just gave me time to rest my body and get healthy.”
The second-seeded Valkyries are the fastest expansion team to reach the WNBA Finals by getting there in year two — one year faster than Atlanta did in 2010. They did it with a semifinal sweep of the third-seeded Las Vegas Aces, who were seeking a second straight WNBA title and fourth in five years, after getting past the seventh-seeded Dallas Wings in a first-round series that went all three games.
Expansion teams in other major professional sports leagues have had quick success similar to Golden State. The NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights reached the 2018 Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season, and the Chicago Fire won the 1998 Major League Soccer championship in their first season.
The Valkyries, though, have a chance to set a record. The fastest expansion champion in the modern era for the WNBA, NBA, NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball was the Milwaukee Bucks, who won the 1971 NBA Finals in their third season.
Nakase believed Golden State’s title run could happen
The magnitude of the moment doesn’t seem to faze Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase, who was on Becky Hammon’s Las Vegas staff when the Aces won back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023. Nakase served as an assistant for the U.S. women’s basketball team last month in Berlin as the Americans won the FIBA World Cup.
“It’s not just me, I don’t feel alone in this at all,” she said. “I feel like this is going to be a collective effort about us putting all of our high IQs together.”
The Valkyries have plenty of championship-tested players who can offer some insight. Thornton won it all with the Liberty in 2024. Kiah Stokes earned rings with the Aces in 2022, ’23 and ’25. Cecilia Zandalasini won a title with the Minnesota Lynx in 2017.
Stokes has averaged 9.5 rebounds this postseason, which ranked third in these playoffs and best among players in the title series. Reese is next among players from these teams at 8.4 rebounds.
The Dream have three players who have won WNBA titles with DeWanna Bonner doing it in 2009 and ’14 with the Phoenix Mercury, Canada in 2018 and ’20 with the Seattle Storm, and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough in 2019 with the Mystics.
Many of Golden State’s stars, including Williams, were cast off by other teams, giving them more reason to want to show what they can do.
“A lot of people on our team have just felt undervalued or unappreciated, or if you’re not the main star on your team, you kind of get overlooked,” Stokes said. “A lot of players have that mindset, so coming to a team where it’s kind of like a clean slate, Natalie, she’s not going to (lie to) you — if you don’t do your job, you’re not going to play.”