The Guru’s WNBA Report: Golden State Rallies to Down Dallas and Hosts Las Vegas While Atlanta Hosts New York in Semifinals Play Sunday

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsgurux

Near the middle of last month, the WNBA Golden State Valkyries’ Gabby Williams was seen the poster woman of displeasure after her French team had just lost to the United States in the FIBA World Cup gold medal game two years after likewise happened by just a point in the Olympic gold medal championship at the Paris Games.

In the latter she was just inside the 3-point mark scoring the last basket of the game that otherwise would have forced overtime.

That was then, this is now, as in Friday night when the former UConn star led a double comeback, and first series win 77-73 for the second year and second-seeded Valkyries over the seven-seed Dallas Wings and 2025 rookie of the year Paige Bueckers, last season’s number one overall pick out of UConn, the game played before the continuing perfect sellout crowd of 18,040, including Star Wars producer George Lucas, at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

There hasn’t been an empty home game seat since Golden State first took the floor last season in becoming the first expansion team to win the most games and also the first to qualify for the playoffs.

The rocking atmosphere has led to the ambience in the shared home with the NBA Warriors referred to as Ballhala.

On Sunday, Golden State will host defending champion Las Vegas, which would have had home-court advantage in the best-of-five series had Dallas prevailed. Tip-off is 4 p.m. on NBC after eight-seed New York and four-seed Atlanta open their series at 2 p.m. on ABC at the larger State Farm Arena, the home of the NBA Hawks instead of the smaller arena in the Atlanta suburbs where the Dream play most of their games.

The Aces continued defense of their championship Wednesday by winning 94-83 the decisive Game 3 at home Wednesday, eliminating Indiana and third-year pro Caitlin Clark as A’ja Wilson scored 36 points with 10 rebounds.

Wilson is expected to win her fifth MVP award from the WNBA nationwide media panel after already claiming a third-straight MVP from The Associated Press panel.

Atlanta completed a 2-0 sweep of fifth-seed Washington 93-75 in the nation’s capital on Wednesday a day after New York became the first eight seed to knock out the No. 1 when the Liberty claimed a 2-0 sweep of Minnesota with an 87-71 victory over the Lynx before a selllout crowd of 17,000+ at home in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Williams, who had been benched earlier in the game by coach Natalie Nakase and having scored just two points in the first half, finished with 19 points and put Golden State in front to stay with 1:17 left in Game 3 regulation.

The Wings had evened the series Wednesday night 108-100 in overtime in Texas as Notre Dame grad Arike Ogunbowale extended the game with a game-tying three-pointer at the end of regulation and finished with a WNBA playoff record 45 points.

Dallas rode that momentum Friday into the third quarter building a 16-point lead before Golden State launched its first comeback to go ahead in the fourth before the Wings grabbed the advantage back and went up by seven points.

After regaining the lead, moments later with 13.1 left in regulation Williams grabbed her own missed shot jumping back inbounds on a play originally ruled for Dallas, but Nakase won a challenge just after falling to her knees and helped back up.

The first Asian American in the WNBA and former Las Vegas assistant who played at UCLA left the court after the win during the team’s celebration holding her face and escorted by a staff member, but the team later said she was ok, though assistant coach Kasib Powell handled the Valkyries’ Golden State postgame press conference normally led by Nakase.

“Natalie’s fine, obviously it’s a quick turnaround, we play again on Sunday. She wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Powell said, adding she was laughing back in the locker room.

Veronica Burton added 16 points with 10 boards and six assists, the former Northwestern star getting the team’s first playoff double double. Reserve Tiffany Hayes, yet another UConn alum, scored 18 points while ex-Huskie Kiah Stokes grabbed 13 rebounds. Kaliah Charles, a Maryland grad, scored 10 points.

“Big shot Gabby,” Hayes said of her sister alum and Golden State teammate. “She’s our dog, she’s out leader and she’s the one we go to, and she showed you exactly why. We’ll do it again and again, and over and over … That’s Gabby f—ing Williams.”

Williams had a career-high 36 points in the loss to Dallas. She came to the Valkyries in the offseason from Seattle, saying after Friday’s game, “I wanted someone to believe in me in the league. I never quite got that belief in the W from a staff or teammates … the fact they trust me to have the ball in my hands, it’s not even about making the right shot, just making the right decisions. I’m able to do that because we have four people that can go off on the floor.”

Bueckers for Dallas had 17 points with six assists, being perfect at the line with 10 makes but a mediocre 3-14 from the field.

The Wings had used a 9-0 run to reach the 16-point advantage and overall 20-0 burst that begun in the second quarter. Ogunbowale was 11-for-21 with 30 points, while Jessica Shepard, voted the most improved player by the WNBA panel, scored 12.

Villanova alum Maddy Siegrist, who started, was scoreless with six boards in 10 minutes. The overall third choice in 2023 by Dallas becomes a restricted free agent in the offseason, a period that may see more movement than the end of last winter when teams had a few weeks to get ready after the lengthy CBA negotiations concluded.

If the Wings lost, Siegrist was going to try to make Sunday night’s Hoop Mania at the Finneran Pavilion on the Main Line for the men’s and women’s teams highlighted by an appearance by the ‘Nova Knicks trio of the NBA champions who are in town for Monday night’s preseason game in South Philadelphia when Lebron James makes his 76ers playing debut.

The long Golden State drought during the Wings surge ended when Burton hit a 26-foot-high arcing 3-pointer over Bueckers.

“Once we all saw that go in, we all said, `OK, we saw one go in and now it’s our time to get going,” Williams said. “It was all about getting stops from there.”

The Valkyries cut the deficit to five at the end of the third off a responding 14-4 run and outscored the Wings 23-14 in the final period.

Bueckers, who spurred Dallas from a 10-win in her rookie season in 2025 to 27 this summer, was emotional in the postgame press conference after going scoreless the final period.

Dallas had to finish the regular season from late August without overall No. 1 pick Azzi Fudd, another former UConn star, who got injured.

“Paige is taking this hard. We only get to this point because of Paige,” said first-year Dallas coach Jose Fernandez, who left a long, successful run coaching South Florida. “She’s a first team All-WNBA player. She takes ownership in carrying the load. The great ones do.

“This series shouldn’t have any inkling on the kind of season she had for us.”

Ogunbowale also complimented her teammate, saying, “She willed us throughout the whole season. Should be first team.”

Clark Reflects

“I’m proud of this group,” Caitlin Clark said in Las Vegas after the Aces eliminated the Fever for the second straight season after Clark had missed most of the action due to injuries in 2025. “We weathered a lot. There’s always much outside noise, a microscope on how we perform every single day.

“A lot of really good moments. A lot of tough moments, too, where we felt we probably gave a lot of opportunities away. It’s what hurts a little bit. We could’ve put ourselves in a better spot going into the postseason.”

Indiana, in contention for home-court advantage in the postseason opening round, slumped to 4-4 down the stretch.

In Game 3 she got a bloody mouth after a shot to her face, but no foul was assessed after she pleaded her case to the officials.

“Your guess would be as good as mine,” she said in the postgame press conference as to why no foul was called on the play.

She had 11 points in the opening period but was 2-for-11 the rest of the way and scoreless on six attempts from deep after going 3-for-6 to start the game.

“They made it difficult, but we’ve made a lot of those shots througout the year, too,” she said. “At the same time, we were right there despite some poor shooting.

“We’ve got to give credit to the Aces. I thought they played well. I thought they were ready to go. That’s what championship teams do.”

It was all business for Wilson Thursday in the win after not handed a suspension for an altercation with a fan in Tuesday’s loss in Indianapolis, the league saying she did not leave the court and go up in the stands.

“I have my moments because I’m human,” she said. “But after a while, I understood I didn’t want that to be a distraction to myself and my team, and I knew what we had to do coming into tonight. So, I put it behind me. I prayed a lot. I cried a lot.”

Chelsea Gray added 23 points to the Aces attack and Jackie Young had 18 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.

Having Hurdled New York Once, Atlanta Needs to Do It Again

The Dream helped their cause down the stretch of the regular season in sweeping the Liberty the last two games in Brooklyn, gaining the fourth seed and home court advantage, though it was not needed, playing Washington, while New York might have been the one team in the bottom five that was going to be the toughest matchup for Minnesota, which has now fallen short three straight seasons after being second seed in 2024 and first in 2025 and this summer.

“Maybe it’s we overachieve in the regular season and don’t have the makeup for the playoffs,” mused Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, a native of South Jersey who starred at La Salle.

New York appeared to be in the best shape of its roller coaster season when playing Minnesota and it will be quite the series starting Sunday.

In Atlanta’s win over Washington Wednesday, the host Mystics made a late run in the third quarter 14-2 to move within three points 65-62, having self destructed in the first half with 11 turnovers.

But the Dream responded with a 13-0 outburst ending Washington’s first postseason appearance since winning its lone title in 2019.

Allisha Gray had 22 points for the visitors at CareFirst Arena, the Mystics unable to move downtown to the NBA sister home due to a concert. Jordin Canada had 13 of her 19 points in the final period in leading the Dream to their first playoff series win since 2018.

“I thought we were good enough to win last season,” said second-year coach Karl Smesko, who previously guided a perennial NCAA tournament entry in Florida Gulf Coast.

Canada also had 11 assists and seven boards while Rhyne Howard finished with 15 points. Angel Reese, traded in her third season from Chicago to Atlanta, had 15 points and Naz Hillmon added 10.

The Dream near the end of the season added DeWanna Bonner, the Phoenix Mercury letting her go in what may be a final effort to be on a WNBA champion.

Smesko said even if Bonner may be off statistically from day one without knowing Atlanta sets and plays, there were many things she would point out at practice for the team to improve itself.

Washington’s Sonia Citron scored 25 points and Kki Iriafen had 15 points and 16 boards, the Mystics’ first player to have a first-half double-double in the playoffs.