LAS VEGAS – The Golden State Valkyries had a few minutes to process what was happening. In a back-and-forth foul battle late in the game against defending champion Las Vegas, the result was already decided; the second-year franchise was going to the WNBA Finals.
It didn’t make any sense.
On the outside, that was true, at least. Gabby Williams was quick to mention in the postgame news conference after the series-clinching victory in Game 3 on Friday night that no one believed in this rag tag group of misfits and castoffs. Now, they were about to be the best story in professional sports.
How in the world did that happen?
“To be here in this moment, we’re making history and it’s like so unimaginable, but for us it’s so realistic,” said Veronica Burton. “It’s what we expected, it’s what we worked toward, it’s what we believed in the entire year. Even in the beginning when we were losing some games. When we were 0-3 against the Aces. We had the ultimate confidence coming in here.”
Expansion teams are supposed to be bad, for at least a few seasons. They sure aren’t supposed to fast forward beyond heartbreak right into the championship series. In the NHL, the Vegas Golden Knights broke that rule in 2017 by going to the Stanley Cup Finals in their first season.
In the WNBA, though, this is unchartered territory, as everything has been for the Valkyries. Most of their championship-bound roster didn’t choose the Valkyries, but the new franchise chose them.
“We’re special,” Kayla Thornton said ahead of Game 3. “We play for each other. And yeah, everybody thinks we’re the underdogs. But we kind of don’t think about the outside, just what we can control inside. And I think that’s what has carried us.”
A couple of players, though, did pick the Valkyries. In the last offseason, Kiah Stokes and Williams chose to sign with Golden State. Before the first season, Tiffany Hayes was their first free agent signing.
All three were vital in Game 3.
Williams scored eight points in overtime after scoring eight in regulation. Stokes tallied 11 points – with 10 rebounds – after not scoring at all in the first two games of the series and still being deemed the MVP by head coach Natalie Nakase. And Hayes might have been the most important at all.
In 22 minutes in Game 3, she scored 11 points with six rebounds.
“It’s a great tandem, her and I have with each other,” Williams said of Hayes. “Just taking turns getting off of it, especially when things are a bit stickier, which they will be. It’s such a relief to have a teammate like that. You know, this is Tiffany Hayes coming off of the bench. Like, are you kidding me? Like, this is such an advantage.”
But most of the Valkyries players ended up members of the roster because general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and Nakase saw something other teams didn’t. Burton, cut by Dallas then left unprotected by Connecticut, has been Golden State’s emotional leader. Thornton led the Valkyries with 18 points on Friday and had been deemed expendable by New York after winning a title there.
“That is a team, and I think they really play great team ball, you know?” Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon said. “On any given night, any of them can have 15, 20 on you because they share the ball, and … it seems like nobody cares who gets the credit. And that’s a really special thing to have on a team, and I think Golden State has that.”
The Valkyries got to the Finals by being entirely themselves; a team that thrives on defense and depth. On Friday, the Aces scored just 26 points in the second half and just six of those came in overtime.
After a Game 2 loss to Dallas in the first round when they could have closed out the first series without facing elimination, the Valkyries learned something, Burton said; they knew they had to dictate the pace of the game their way.
“Vegas can make shots with a hand in their face at any time,” Stokes said. “So I do think toward the end of the game, they missed some open shots because maybe they could have been tired. That’s definitely one of our advantages — we’re just going to continue to roll with our bench.”
After the Game 2 loss, Williams scoffed at the idea that scoring 100 points was somehow a positive. It wasn’t who the Valkyries were. They had a clear identity, and they knew that long before anyone else took it seriously.
“All we need is each other,” Williams said. “We just need to believe in each other. We just need to believe in each other, we know we weren’t a team that was talked about, but just the culture and going to work every day, we felt that we had something worth fighting for.”
The Valkyries have already made history numerous times. Going to the WNBA Finals is the pinnacle of that so far, but it’s hardly surprising to them. Before the game on Friday, players were asked numerous times when they realized this was a team that could get this far.
They all said Day 1 without hesitation, because that’s how long they knew exactly what kind of team they were going to be.
“It feels incredible,” Burton said. “This is a dream come true. But we’re not done yet.”