Golden State 64, Atlanta 55. The Valkyries lead the WNBA Finals 3-2 and can win a championship Thursday in Atlanta, in the second season this franchise has existed.
Game 5 was ugly in a way that favored exactly one team. The 25-22 halftime score was the lowest combined first half in Finals history. The 119 combined points were the fifth-fewest in a Finals game. Golden State put up 64 and won by nine.
Kiah Stokes Decided It
Stokes scored 13, a season high, with eight rebounds and three blocks. Atlanta shot 9-of-48 on shots she contested and 0-of-8 from three against her. She has recorded three or more blocks in six straight games, tying Lisa Leslie’s 2003 mark for the longest such run in a single WNBA postseason.
Chase Center chanted her name. “Just to hear an arena full of 18,000 fans, it really makes me feel appreciated and loved,” she said. “It feels pretty special.” Then she said the part that matters: “As much as we love Ballhalla, we don’t want to come back here. So we need to go in with the mentality that we have to win. It’s do-or-die.”
Veronica Burton added 13 points, eight rebounds and four blocks, a postseason career high that ties Diana Taurasi’s 2009 mark for blocks by a guard in a Finals game. Burton on Stokes: “We’re not here without Kiah.”
Atlanta Shot 29.2 Percent
The Dream committed 17 turnovers that became 21 Golden State points and managed 18 points in the paint. They trailed by as many as 16 in the fourth quarter.
Angel Reese finished with 15 rebounds, five assists and seven points on 2-of-8 shooting, with three offensive fouls. She averaged 21.7 points on 56.4 percent through the first three games of this series, including a 30-point, 16-rebound Game 2 that made her the third player ever with 30 and 15 in a Finals game. Across Games 4 and 5 she has 15 points total on 4-of-20 with nine turnovers.
She is not backing off. “I still believe in our team, I still believe we can win this,” Reese said. “One game at a time. It’s not going to rain too much longer for us.”
Karl Smesko took the same line: “Nothing’s changed, we win two games we’re champions.” He is right about the arithmetic, and the arithmetic is roughly all he has.
Year Two
The Valkyries began play in 2025. They made the playoffs as an expansion team in their first season, which nobody had done before, and set the expansion win record with 23. This year they went 32-12, earned the second overall seed, and swept Las Vegas in the Western Conference final with the clincher in overtime. Natalie Nakase has them one win from a trophy.
Atlanta went 30-14 and finished first in the East, then swept New York in the conference final. Before this series the Dream had never won a single Finals game. Three previous trips in 2010, 2011 and 2013 all ended in sweeps, and Game 2 this month was the first Finals win in franchise history.
Neither team has a championship. One of them is about to get a first.
Game 6 Is at Lunchtime
Thursday, 12:30 p.m. ET at State Farm Arena on USA Network and Peacock. It was supposed to be an 8 p.m. game until the Hawks agreed to move their game against Cleveland into the night slot. Smesko was not thrilled about the hour: “I’d like to see it be a national holiday for all WNBA championship games so whatever somebody can do.”
Game 7, if Atlanta forces one, is Saturday at 8 p.m. ET back at Chase Center. The Valkyries would rather not find out what that feels like.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
.jpg){kind=link}