Gabby Williams, defense fuel Valkyries' Game 1 win over Dream
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Valkyries led for all of 100 seconds in the second half Saturday afternoon when the home team began one last rally with 2:15 remaining in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals.
Golden State forward Gabby Williams , however, had no doubt of the outcome despite points being hard to come by all day.
"Even though we were down with a few minutes left, I think we had the game right where we wanted it," Williams said, "because it just came down to getting stops. That's been our bread and butter all season. That's why we harp on it so much, because we've built great defensive habits for these moments."
The Valkyries pulled off a 68-64 victory over the Atlanta Dream with a 7-0 run to close the game, with Williams scoring six of those seven points. The two-time All-Star and three-time All-Defense selection was confident, in part, because of the way she had broken down the game in her mind. The league's No. 1 defensive team has the utmost confidence in its ability to get stops, and Williams knew exactly what it needed.
"One of our trainers, she was like, in the fourth quarter, you always do this thing," Williams said, "and I know you're going to start taking over. You look at the clock. And I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm counting.' I'm counting possessions. I'm counting points. OK, what do we need now? What's the most timely time to go? I think it's just like the best way to kind of take the pressure off things too is just to break them down possession by possession."
Kiah Stokes , who sat next to Williams during their postgame media session, glanced at her teammate and called her "nerd" as they both broke out in laughter.
The Dream went 0-for-7 in the final 2:53, with five of those attempts coming from beyond the arc. At the same time, Williams went 6-for-6 from the free throw line, icing the contest from the charity stripe with 4.1 seconds remaining.
Williams scored a game-high 26 points, as no other Valkyries player reached double figures. Stokes finished with nine points, seven rebounds and four blocks.
"We always knew we were going to find a way somehow," Williams said of Golden State, which led for just 6:04 of the contest.
Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase agreed.
"It kind of just fits into who we are," Nakase said. "That's been our identity. We rely on it. We know it's effort. We know it's the details.
"That's kind of been our, you know, our philosophy, especially down the stretch in close games. You could see that it's just kind of, 'Here we go again.' So, it's the same thing. There's a lot of familiarity and composure down the stretch."
Atlanta guard Allisha Gray , who played for the first time since injuring the ring finger on her left shooting hand in Game 1 of the semifinals, scored a team-high 19 points for the Dream. Angel Reese added 14 points and 12 rebounds, while Rhyne Howard finished with 12 points on 3-for-14 shooting.
For just the second time in a Finals game, both teams shot below 33.0% from the field.
Golden State scored 17 points off 12 Atlanta turnovers.
Dream coach Karl Smesko lamented that his club fell into too much one-on-one play in the second half and didn't get Reese enough touches.
"Well, some of them were good," Smesko said about the late-game shot attempts. "Some of them they had us well-defended when we were getting late on the clock. But we had a couple what I would call good looks just didn't go down for us. Naz [Hillmon ] had a good look at 3. [Howard] had a good look at 3. We knock down either of those, we're not talking about whatever mistakes we made.
"We were right there. Right there. That's why it hurts a little bit, but it also motivates us."