ATLANTA — As he has all postseason, as soon as the final buzzer sounded and he went over to shake the hands of the Golden State coaching staff, Atlanta head coach Karl Smesko immediately made a beeline toward a roped off area on the floor of State Farm Arena.
Fans were shouting his name, giving him congrats. But for him, he had one thing on his mind: I want to find my wife.
Smesko makes it a point to find his wife after each game, after he and his team leave it on the floor for 40 minutes.
This one felt a little bit different, as the WNBA Finals approaches a Game 7 for the first time in league history, as the on-court series has been similar to a chess match between the two teams.
You feel out your opponent, see what they are doing and plan your counter move.
After Game 3, it was Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase that made the first big counter, by switching up the starting lineup to bring Tiffany Hayes and Kaila Charles for Cecilia Zandalasini and Kayla Thornton.
“Whenever I get on the floor, I want to make an impact any way I can,” Charles told The IX Sports before Game 6. “So the only difference is I’m just starting that way. But anytime I come on, I want to bring energy, effort and intensity.”
The counter worked, as Golden State regained control of the series, defeating the Dream in Atlanta in Game 4 and in Golden State in Game 5.
In Game 6, with a win-or-go-home situation on the line, Smesko pulled out his biggest counters of the series yet, and they paid immediate dividends with the Dream forcing a Game 7 by defeating the Valkyries, 80-69.
What, exactly, were the changes that Smesko made? Well, they were two-fold, and they resulted from a team meeting.
“We understand the last couple of games we weren’t playing like ourselves, and we had a team meeting and we said, ‘How can we get back to us?’” Jordin Canada told The IX Sports after Game 6. “And so we watched film, we saw where we needed to get better, and we executed it into practice. Today, we put it into play.”
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Let’s first focus on the offense. After watching the film back from Game 4, a change was needed to stop the Dream’s stagnant possessions.
“We’ve gotten in trouble, had our turnovers when we start to stand around and stare at the ball and watch one person go in isolation,” Smesko said after Game 6. “So I think that’s when you’re playing into Golden State’s strength. Our activity level, our cutting, our screens — that’s when we’re at our best.”
To get to that level, though, it required more than just telling the players what needed to be done. It involved working on the spacing and what’s known as flattening the space on the court.
“I’m glad that you saw that. We had talked about it as a team,” Rhyne Howard told The IX Sports after Game 6 with a smile. “In the past couple of games, we were a little bit on top of each other, and we weren’t getting as good of shots as we did tonight.”
After the Game 5 loss in Golden State, the Dream coaching staff identified the issue and pulled up key pieces of film for the team to watch so that they could visualize what the staff was saying.
“We’ve seen it on film. It was good to see. It was good to have that example and realize exactly what he’s saying to us in those huddles,” Howard told The IX Sports. “You get a visual of it and go out and perform like we did today, we’re gonna have to do it again.”
And you can bet that Nakase will have an adjustment up her sleeve, too. The defense in Game 5 at home was suffocating the Dream players, and what they displayed in Game 6 was a shell of the defensive identity that the Valkyries have played with all season.
Not only will Nakase have to find ways defensively to adjust, but she’ll have to do that offensively, too, to counter the other adjustment that Smesko made.
While Howard has been the primary defender on Gabby Williams for 90 percent of the possessions in this series, he switched it up for Game 6, splitting duties between Canada and Allisha Gray on Williams, while having Howard guard Tiffany Hayes.
“We just wanted to get some different looks,” Canada told The IX Sports after the game. “Rhyne has been one of our best defensive players on our team, and Tip [Hayes] has gotten going in this series. We just wanted to see an adjustment period, and I thought that she did an excellent job on Tip today of making it tough for her to score. That’s just who Rhy is. She makes things difficult.”
Howard has four inches on Hayes, but the question is whether or not she was the one who asked for the matchup. Throughout the season, Smesko would turn to Howard during and before games about defensive assignments, trusting his star two-way player to lockdown the opposition’s top scorer even when she was in foul trouble.
In this case, though, the call came from above.
“Coach did it, and I welcomed it with open arms,” Howard told The IX Sports. “You know, if that’s what it takes for us to get a win like we did today, then I’ll do it again. It’s good to throw something else at somebody when they get comfortable. Tip’s been feeling comfortable. She’s been getting off some good shots, and I think you put a little more length on her, you make her take a couple of more difficult shots, and you don’t have that same energy that you’re getting from her.”
Energy is a good word to use for Hayes’ performance not just in the series, but specifically in Game 6.
Hayes, at times, seemed like she was the only Valkyries player who was energized and locked in for a potentially championship-clinching game in Atlanta — a game that started at 12:30 p.m. local time and 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
“I’m sorry this is like the third time we’ve answered this question. They played at the same time as us,” Williams said in the postgame interview.
They did, sure, but it also played into the Dream’s hands since it was in front of their home fans and their internal clocks — albeit scrambled from the constant coast-to-coast travel — aren’t programmed at 9:30 a.m.
“We didn’t have everybody come out at 12:30 for no reason,” Reese said about the extra incentive for the Dream to play at the top of their game in Game 6.
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The Dream know what they are up against heading to Golden State for Game 7. The season will end no matter what for both teams, with only one remaining the champion.
About 13 months ago, Canada entered a press conference after the Dream’s first-round exit to the Indiana Fever and said, “What’s delayed is not denied. The Dream will be back. I guarantee that.”
And they are back. But what will it take for it not to be denied again?
“You know it’s going to be a lot of energy at Ballhalla, but we are all we need and all we got is in that locker room right now,” Canada told The IX Sports. “We’re telling each other that we’re keeping the confidence that we have from today going into Game 7, but we are extremely proud of our team for the fight. We know this is a win-or-go-home situation, so we’re very happy with our play. But we just have to make sure we do that in Game 7.”
Energy.
There’s that word again.
It’s what the Dream couldn’t match in Game 4, and it’s what the Valkyries — and the fans — had in abundance in Game 5 at the Chase Center.
“If we’re able to come with energy, play hard, play for each other, and play together, we can get this series win,” Charles told The IX Sports.
The Dream know what they want to bring into Game 7 — “our shot selection” — and what they want to leave behind — “our missed box outs” — per Howard, but they know the key is keeping that energy at bay.
“We don’t need to let them get the crowd going,” Howard told The IX Sports. “Obviously, they’re going to cheer regardless of what’s happening. It’s been that way every time that we’ve been there. But I think if we continue to come out like we did tonight, and keep that momentum for four quarters, it’ll be good in our favor.”
The Dream took Game 2 on the road in this series, but after being held to 55 points in Game 5 — a season low and tied for the lowest total in any game coached by Smesko for the Dream during his tenure — they can leave nothing on the table.
“It’s going to take a championship effort,” Canada said. “We have to empty the clip because you know it’s the last game of the season, so you know we got to give it our all.”
