SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Valkyries just keep finding ways to win. Doesn’t matter if they’re up by 10 or down by five. If they’re shooting 40 percent or 25. At home or on the road. That nine-game winning streak is the longest in the WNBA this season, and it says something about who this team actually is.
After a 74-69 grind-it-out win over the Washington Mystics on Tuesday, All-Star forward Gabby Williams was blunt about what the Valkyries are not.
“We’re not a team that is playing well when everything’s easy,” Williams said. “We’re winning when it’s easy, we’re winning when it’s hard. When we’re on the road, when we’re home, we’re just always finding a way. And I just love that about us.”
How they turned it around against Washington
The Mystics had Golden State on its heels for three quarters. Sonia Citron was heating up from deep, Shakira Austin was muscling her way to buckets inside, and the Valkyries trailed 57-52 heading into the fourth. It wasn’t pretty.
But Golden State adjusted. The frontline of Kiah Stokes and Kayla Thornton started stringing together stops without fouling, then hit back-to-back triples to flip the lead. Cecilia Zandalasini came up with a steal and got the offense moving. And once the defense locked in, Williams and Veronica Burton took over down the stretch.
Burton drilled a 28-foot dagger with 1:23 left to push the lead to six. Then Williams splashed a catch-and-shoot triple to make it 74-67, effectively ending the game. That last bucket gave Burton her 11th assist of the night.
“We made a lot of winning plays and a lot of different people stepped up,” Burton said. “That’s something that we’re going to continue to hang our hats on, and it was a really good gutsy win.”
Where the Valkyries sit at the halfway point
The win pushed Golden State to 19-7, giving them sole possession of the second-best record in the league. That’s a surprise to just about everyone outside the Valkyries locker room. They’ve done it with the WNBA’s stingiest defense, currently holding a defensive rating of 100.4.
Coach Natalie Nakase still sees room to grow, even on that end of the floor.
“We have to get better defensively with starting out with the details of our game plan,” Nakase said. “It’s kind of just been going up and down, so just making sure we’re paying attention. I think we sometimes walk into it defensively, where I want to make sure we punch first.”
Golden State holds tiebreakers over New York, Atlanta, and Indiana. They’re a game ahead of Las Vegas and a game behind Minnesota. Plenty of time to chase a top-two seed, but the team isn’t looking that far ahead.
“Just continuing to build that trust,” Nakase said when asked about her biggest takeaway from the first half. “We have players who have really big hearts. That’s only going to continue to grow. And grow in the trust and the love and care.”
Next up is another matchup with Washington. One game at a time.
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