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Alison Garvin, left, of Oakland, looks at friend Mallory Haggart\u00a0of El Sobrante\u00a0as Haggart gives her best Janelle Sala\u00fcn impression during a timeout in Game 1 of the WNBA semifinals at Chase Center on Sunday.\u00a0\u201cBallhalla is a special thing. The spirit is fun at Ballhalla,\u201d Haggart said. \u201cIt\u2019s happy, joyous and zany. We make it on the Jumbotron a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Valkyries fans cheer in the fourth quarter during Game 1 of the\u00a0WNBA semifinals\u00a0against the Las Vegas Aces on Sunday at Chase Center.<\/p>\n
Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
There\u2019s been talk about crowd noise since the Golden State Warriors moved from Oracle Arena to Chase Center in 2019.<\/p>\n
Could the glitzy San Francisco waterfront arena mimic the deafening roars that defined the old Oakland arena, nicknamed Roaracle for its loud crowd? A Steph Curry flurry can certainly get any Warriors crowd to reach peak decibel levels, but it couldn\u2019t have gotten much louder than Ballhalla was on Wednesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The volume was high all night as the Valkyries<\/a> fended off the reigning WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces\u2019 comeback<\/a>. No moment was louder than when\u00a0Veronica Burton<\/a> hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 42 seconds left.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThese fans,\u201d Aces head coach Becky Hammon said before Game 2. \u201cThey are lit.\u201d<\/p>\n With the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx eliminated in Round 1, the No. 2 seed Valkyries have home-court advantage for as long as this run will take them. The crowd makes that advantage real.<\/p>\n The Valkyries feed off the violet-clad, flashy and raucous crowd, which sold out for a 49th straight game, dating back to last season\u00a0\u2014 every home game in the franchise\u2019s existence. They\u2019ve won every postseason game at Ballhalla so far (4-0) after going 17-5 at home in the regular season. Their lone playoff loss, an overtime thriller, happened on the road against the Dallas Wings.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, Ballhalla, we feel all the emotion they feel and we feed off of it,\u201d Burton said. \u201cWe\u2019re aware when they\u2019re on a run, but at the end of the day, how can we continue to get them involved and make small plays, big plays, it\u2019s being able to sustain the lead.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Chase Center crowd erupted in cheers as the\u00a0Valkyries defeated the Las Vegas Aces 83-81 in Game 2 of the WNBA semifinals Wednesday.<\/p>\n Joy Jihyun Jeong, S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n If the Valkyries win every home game, the title is theirs. And their home-court advantage is strong enough that it\u2019s increasingly hard to imagine them losing at Ballhalla. One win on the road this series against the star-studded Aces will be an important challenge, though.<\/p>\n Burton\u2019s role: Burton\u2019s game-clinching 3-pointer on Wednesday night was the first and last shot she made all night. And it took a little coaxing from Gabby Williams<\/a> to get her there; Williams passed it to her initially, and Burton passed it back. Two seconds later, Williams fed it to Burton with an open look at the rim\u00a0\u2014 and she nailed it.<\/p>\n Williams has been the emerging star and closer these playoffs, but the Valkyries don\u2019t advance out of the playoffs\u2019 first round without Burton\u2019s aggression. She kept them afloat in Game 3 against the Wings and sparked their comeback down 16 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In contrast against the Aces, Burton has been relatively quiet. She sat on the bench for a majority of the second half in Game 1 as\u00a0Kaitlyn Chen<\/a> took on point guard duties for the entire fourth quarter. Burton scored four points over 18 minutes and had a rare game with more turnovers (two) than assists (one). Before sitting for good, Burton had missed an open layup and ticked front iron on a 3-pointer. Chen had 11 points in 22 minutes, getting crafty at the rim as the Valkyries pulled away. Burton played a more normal 27 minutes in Game 2, but she was deferential as a scorer.<\/p>\n Head coach Natalie Nakase<\/a> said after Game 1 that Burton was \u201camazing\u201d and that Chen was just the \u201cfresh\u201d option. Perhaps we\u2019re seeing the long season catch up to players in spots. It certainly caught up to Nakase, who passed out from exhaustion on the sideline during Game 3 of Round 1.<\/p>\n \u201cThis season is six months,\u201d Nakase said. \u201cNo matter how you say it, whether we had a break or not, we\u2019re still a little bit exhausted, no matter how you look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n Nakase gave players two days off from full practice between Games 1 and 2, she said, and gave herself a full day off as well\u00a0\u2014 deferring to her assistant coaches for a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, look at me,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m a complete example of emptying the tank.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Where\u2019s Sala\u00fcn?\u00a0Janelle Sala\u00fcn<\/a> unanimously won the\u00a0Sixth Player of the Year Award on Sunday<\/a>. It was a no-brainer award as she set WNBA records for points and 3-pointers as a reserve, leading the league\u2019s best bench.\u00a0<\/p>\n Valkyries forward Gabby Williams (left) confers with forward Janelle Sala\u00fcn as they face the Las Vegas Aces in Game 2 of the WNBA semifinals Wednesday at Chase Center.<\/p>\n Yalonda M. James\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n The bench has been a clear advantage for Golden State in these playoffs, often providing the scoring and spark to overcome opponents and lead comebacks. Tiffany Hayes,\u00a0Chen and Kaila Charles have been the standouts on both ends.<\/p>\n But Sala\u00fcn hasn\u2019t been in the mix at all, both in the first and second rounds thus far. She played 21 minutes in their Game 1 rout of Dallas but went 1-for-6 from the field (1-for-4 from 3). She bounced back a bit in the overtime Game 2 loss, shooting 5-for-14, but didn\u2019t hit a 3-pointer in her 30 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n By the third game against Dallas, her role had shifted entirely. She played just eight minutes total and hit one 3-pointer. And against the Aces, she has played a collective 10 minutes and shot 1-for-5 over the first two games.<\/p>\n Her disappearing act hasn\u2019t been an issue because other bench players are stepping up. But it\u2019s a notable fall-off for the sixth player of the year, who has the shot creation potential to win games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alison Garvin, left, of Oakland, looks at friend Mallory Haggart\u00a0of El Sobrante\u00a0as Haggart gives her best Janelle Sala\u00fcn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,21264,6,66,8477,16733,255],"class_list":["post-854149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golden-state-warriors","tag-basketball","tag-golden-state","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-goldenstate","tag-goldenstatewarriors","tag-janelle-salaun","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-valkyries","tag-veronica-burton","tag-warriors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117407283312725813","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Valkyries](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791492859_530_rawImage.jpg\")
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