SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Valkyries have few advantages over the defending champion Las Vegas Aces. One, which was obvious in their Game 1 win on Sunday, is their bench depth. The other is their rebounding.
It wasn’t supposed to be that much of an advantage, though.
Even without NaLyssa Smith, the Aces have a size advantage on the Valkyries, led by 6-foot-4 star post A’ja Wilson.
Golden State is a far more aggressive team in the paint on both ends, though. Kiah Stokes picked up 14 rebounds on Sunday, her most since 2025, as a part of an effort where the Valkyries outrebounded the Aces 58-34 with 17 rebounds.
That gave the Valkyries an astounding 20 second-chance points; the Aces just had 2.
“All we talked about for the last 48 hours was rebounding and blocking them out, and we did not do it. Period,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. She also called her team’s performance “one of our more atrocious games of the season,” and said Las Vegas “played like ass.”
Gabby Williams, who led Golden State with 25 points, shouted out video coordinator Daisy Feder for the Valkyries’ approach on the boards.
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“Daisy was constantly telling me just crash, crash, crash,” said Williams
Williams leant an assist far earlier than the series start, it turns out.
One of the surprising depth picks in the paint was Aminate Gueye, who joined the Valkyries. Williams played with Gueye on the French national team that lost to USA in the Women’s World Cup, where she and her teammate Janelle Salaun saw firsthand what she can do. She wanted Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase, who was an assistant with USA, to give her a look when Nadia Fingall left for her international team commitments.
“She’s fearless,” Williams said. “Obviously, I’ve known her for a while now. And coach was asking me about her, and I was like, ‘Throw her in. That girl is ready.’ Gives Kiah a break, so then Kiah can come back in with fresh legs. But Ami, I mean, she just knows how to hoop. She’s physical. She works really, really hard, and that’s exactly what our identity is. So I think that’s why she fits in so well.”
Gueye gave the Valkyries more physicality on the inside than they usually have when Stokes isn’t on the floor. She turned a third-quarter possession into a three-point play, finished with 9 points on 4-for-5 shooting all in the paint and added two rebounds.
“She picks up our stuff really quickly,” Nakase said. “More importantly, her energy and her want-to factor is through the roof.”
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That gave time for Stokes to rest, and she was having the game of her life.
Stokes scored 0 points but every one of her 14 rebounds were huge in created possessions and ripping it away from the Aces. She also led the defensive effort on Wilson, who did score 24 points but was inefficient.
The former Aces center – who won three championships with them, one of which was with Nakase – was what Williams described as their “secret” to winning the series.
“MVP of the game tonight. Her disruption, her matching up with A’ja, it’s a really tough task,” Nakase said of Stokes. “She did an amazing job, just continue to keep her off rhythm as much as we can. … Kiah was vicious on the boards, her ability I thought today was emptying that tank. That’s the Kiah Stokes we know. For sure, she made the difference today.”
Not many people picked an 11-point Kaitlyn Chen game and Gueye’s presence and a big night from Stokes to be why the Valkyries are up in this series. It turns out, that might be a secret advantage after all.
