ATLANTA – Natalie Nakase was aghast. It had been a while since she showed such frustration in a press conference, but the Golden State Valkyries’ 80-69 loss to the Atlanta Dream in Game 6 of the WNBA Finals was enough to break the mask.
Before Nakase spoke, forward Gabby Williams stated that the Valkyries lacked the ball pressure on defense they needed to surpass the Dream, who had scored 32 points in the first quarter alone. Why was that? Was it something Atlanta did specifically?
“No. We just didn’t do it,” Nakase said. “See how frustrating that is? It’s frustrating when we just didn’t do it.”
The Dream shot an astonishing 6-for-8 from 3-point range – a franchise record – in the opening quarter as Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard each had open looks almost uncontested. It was so unlike the hard-nosed Golden State defense that had gotten them all the way to the Finals against all odds.
Atlanta opened on a 19-5 run, and the game felt over early. The problem? Just as Nakase said, a frustrating lack of putting pressure on the ball handlers.
“Ball pressure, especially,” Williams said about what went wrong. “Also, you set the tone with the physicality when you punch first. When you are aggressive at the beginning, and you try to be later, that’s when fouls start getting called. That’s when you’re out of position.”
Before Thursday, the Dream had shot 24.8% on 3-pointers in the Finals. Some of that has been because Gray, who’d been shooting 28.1% in the series, has been playing with a banged-up left hand.
Her hand looked fine Thursday, though, when she went 5-for-7 from range. Howard, who struggled from the field earlier in the series, had her best offensive night with 21 points on 4-for-6 shooting from 3-point distance.
“Pick up ball pressure,” Nakase said as a key adjustment for defending Gray and Howard in Game 7. “Things that we can control, we controlled it in the second half. So just picking up the ball, pressuring them, getting them out of rhythm, things that we’ve been doing all series and moments. So I’ve just got to make sure, again, what — was my message foggy? If it was foggy, then I need to be very clear.”
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In the first half, driven by that 32-point first frame, the Dream shot 58.6% (17-for-29) from the field and 57.1% from 3-point range. The Valkyries won the last two quarters, but were already down by too much from being punched first for that to make a difference.
Nakase noted that forward Laeticia Amihere, who played 20 minutes for the first time since a September win against Seattle while many players were away from the World Cup, added an element of ball pressure that Golden State lacked early in the game.
“LA’s been itching, and she’s been so good in film sessions, just adding her two cents inside, and just she’s been super vocal,” Nakase said. “We definitely like her ability to pressure the ball in a different way.”
Do they have another adjustment in store for Game 7? The Valkyries are a team that plays at their best when they’re aggressive and create offense out of transition. They shot 31.4% from the field on Thursday, and they haven’t done much better in other games throughout the series.
The Dream have won each game in the series where they have scored 70 points or more. That might say more about the Valkyries’ inability to score consistently, but it also goes to show they can contain a game that is slower-paced and lower-scoring.
They might not be an efficient enough shooting team to come back in games like Thursday’s, but they can control how much pressure they put on the ball handlers. That seems to be where they will focus heading into the league’s first-ever Game 7.
“Just got to play better defense,” point guard Veronica Burton said. “Obviously they were hitting good shots and getting good looks. I think we were spread out a little bit.”
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