Valkyries Beat Dream 68-63 in Game 7 to Win First WNBA Title in Second Season

The Golden State Valkyries won the WNBA championship Saturday night at Chase Center in San Francisco, beating the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history.

Gabby Williams scored 30 points and was named Finals MVP. Twenty-eight of those points came after halftime.

The title came in the franchise’s second season, in front of a sellout crowd of 18,064. Golden State is the fastest expansion franchise in league history to win a championship, according to the WNBA. The Valkyries reached the playoffs in their inaugural 2025 season.

Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase said owner Joe Lacob told whoever took the job that the team had to win a title within five years.

“I’m impatient,” Nakase said. “I’m impatient. But No. 1, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Joe. Joe interviewed me. He hired me. He believed in myself and he set the standard. Look, whoever takes this job has to win in five years, and so it’s like, yes, that’s going to happen but even faster. I’m impatient. I’m obsessive but it’s because he pushes me. He pushes me. He leads. He says, look, we’re going to take care of and we are going to get all the resources you want, and so that’s what I’m saying, is someone who invests in women’s sports, this is a result.”

“So it starts with Joe, his leadership, his care factor for us,” Nakase continued. “He shows up. Joe shows up for every playoff game. With that type of support, he shows up, that means everything to me. So I appreciate you, Joe.”

Neither team had won a title before Saturday. Atlanta was in the Finals for the fourth time and the first time since 2013, and its Game 2 win this month was the first Finals win in franchise history.

At halftime, Williams had 2 points on 1-of-4 shooting, and Golden State trailed 30-24.

“Nat told me to stay patient,” Williams said. “I trust her with my life. I stayed patient. I trusted her. She said, ‘Stay patient, stay patient. The game is going to open up for you.’ It did. It’s what we did all year, just trust each other.”

In the third quarter, she scored 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting, including 3-of-5 from 3-point range. After Cecilia Zandalasini’s jumper made it 37-32 with 5:09 left in the period, Williams scored Golden State’s last 13 points of the quarter. Her 11-foot turnaround with 1:05 left put the Valkyries ahead 45-44, their first lead since early in the second quarter.

Her 28 second-half points set a WNBA Finals record for points in a half.

Atlanta never led in the fourth quarter. The game was tied three times in the period, the last at 57 on Rhyne Howard’s driving layup with 2:41 left.

From a 53-53 tie with 5:14 remaining, Williams scored Golden State’s next 9 points. The biggest of them came on a 31-foot 3-pointer off a pass from Veronica Burton that made it 60-57 with 2:18 left. Williams went 6-of-6 from the free-throw line, all in the fourth quarter, and scored 13 points in the period.

Dream coach Karl Smesko said the plan was to keep Williams off the 3-point line and make her put the ball on the floor.

“We just didn’t guard her the way we wanted to guard her,” Smesko said. “We were trying to dictate which direction, and [we] weren’t going to -- we call it the danger zone -- [we weren’t] going to let her shoot anywhere near the three-point line and we were going to make her put it on the floor. We knew where our help was supposed to come. Just sometimes in the heat of the moment, you have breakdowns.”

“Unfortunately, today we had more miscommunications and kind of breakdowns, especially that second half, than what we’ve had all series,” Smesko added. “But we did know where the help was supposed to come, and we did know how we were supposed to guard Gabby. And give Gabby all the credit. If we break down and we don’t execute it at a high level, she made us pay, and she made us pay repeatedly, and just really got it going. I give her all the credit.”

She finished 10-of-23 from the field with 30 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 4 blocks. Williams was the runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year this season.

Before signing with Golden State ahead of this season, the 30-year-old played for Chicago and Seattle. Saturday’s title was her first in the WNBA. Playing for France, she lost to the United States by a point in the gold medal game at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and France lost to the U.S. again at the FIBA Women’s World Cup in September.

“I wouldn’t be here without the French national team,” Williams explained. “They have helped me grow up. It’s always been my dream to keep improving French basketball, young girls and boys. We’ve had great progression, being consistent with the Olympics and the World Cup. Just seeing what next steps we can take.”

Golden State scored the first 8 points as Atlanta missed its first 9 shots from the field, four of them blocked. Angel Reese ended the drought with a putback layup with 4:41 left in the first quarter. That started a run of five straight made shots for the Dream, and Howard’s turnaround with 2:15 left gave Atlanta an 11-10 lead.

Burton scored the Valkyries’ last 4 points of the quarter, and Golden State led 14-12 after one.

Atlanta outscored Golden State 18-10 in the second quarter. Jordin Canada had 11 points in the period and 13 in the first half on 5-of-10 shooting.

Smesko said several stretches, played a little better, would have changed the result.

“I think there were a lot of things,” Smesko explained. “Like the very beginning of the game, we just did not play with our pace for five minutes before we actually kind of moved the ball and got into what we wanted to get into. Five minutes, can’t get those five minutes back, and you’re down six, eight nothing, and we have to come back and we did. We started to play our basketball.”

“And then I thought when we came out in the third quarter, it was kind of the same thing, like no, we can’t go backwards now,” Smesko detailed. “We have to continue with our pace and getting the shots that we want. Obviously Gabby took it to another level and she was getting to her spots and she was getting downhill to her strong hand, things that we were pretty good most of the series about eliminating. But you look back at several stretches where if you had just played those stretches a little bit better, right now, the mood for our team would be a lot different.”

Allisha Gray hit a 3-pointer with 34.2 seconds left to cut the lead to 64-60, and her two free throws with 10.5 seconds left made it 66-63. Burton came up with a jump ball between Williams and Gray at 8.3 seconds.

Burton made two free throws with 5.1 seconds remaining after Naz Hillmon fouled her.

Burton, a 2022 Dallas Wings draft pick, finished with 10 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. Kiah Stokes had 8 points, 13 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

The championship is Stokes’ fourth, after three with the Las Vegas Aces.

“I would just tell my mini me, just embrace it,” Stokes said. “I took a leap leaving Vegas. So I took a chance. Obviously me and Natalie have history. I would have just told myself, trust your gut. Be where your feet are and lean into it.”

“I went to a team where I knew a few players but not that many,” Stokes continued. “The coaching staff, I know Gabby from college. It’s the perfect storm and it was something special and I would just tell myself, just trust your gut. You’ve got it. The sky is the limit and you can achieve anything.”

Tiffany Hayes scored 11 points and won her first WNBA title. Kaila Charles had 4 points and 7 rebounds.

Canada led Atlanta with 18 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 assists. Gray scored 16 points on 5-of-16 shooting. Reese had 8 points and 12 rebounds, and Howard scored 6 points on 3-of-14 shooting, going 0-of-7 from 3-point range.

The Dream shot 33.3% from the field and went 6-of-30 from 3-point range, on looks Canada considered good ones.

“I’m not sure whether it was the third, end of the third or somewhere in the fourth quarter, Gabby started getting -- got going from the three-point line,” Canada said. “I think she hit a couple of threes back to back. And I think that’s what got them going. I thought we were getting excellent looks. I wouldn’t say we were forcing a lot. We were doing what we did in Game 6. We were pushing the pace. We were getting open shots. We were executing our game plan.”

“I just think Gabby started to get going a little bit, and I think this made everybody on the Valkyries start to get their confidence and started making the hustle plays,” Canada added. “We were losing the 50/50 battles and not boxing out. I thought we were getting the looks that we should have been getting. We just didn’t knock it down. But I think that was the shift in the energy of Gabby getting going from the three-point line.”

Golden State went 15-of-16 from the free-throw line and blocked 8 shots.

Nakase moved Williams onto Hillmon for Game 7. Hillmon finished with 3 points on 1-of-5 shooting.

“I tell you, y’all think I know what I’m doing,” Nakase explained. “I switch things just to switch it up. You think there’s some science behind it, it really isn’t. It’s just literally just to mix it up.”

“I just also want to credit Atlanta Dream,” Nakase noted. “Karl Smesko, he’s a friend. When I met him, he gives really, really big hugs, and I think that says a lot about somebody when they give really, really big hugs, like he really cares and what I learned, knowing Karl in that short amount of time, he pours into his players. There’s a reason why Karl is here. There’s a reason why Atlanta Dream is here. I just wanted to make sure I say congratulations, like they were a hell of a team to battle against, okay.”

Golden State won Game 1 at Chase Center 68-64 on Oct. 17. Atlanta won 79-65 in Game 2 on Oct. 19, then won 97-71 in Game 3 on Oct. 21, the first of three Finals games at State Farm Arena.

The Valkyries won 67-62 in Game 4 on Oct. 24 and 64-55 in Game 5 at home on Oct. 26.

On Thursday, Atlanta forced Game 7 with an 80-69 win at State Farm Arena in a game that tipped off at 12:30 p.m. ET. Gray scored 23 points for the Dream, who led 32-15 after the first quarter. Nakase put the slow Game 6 start on herself afterward, and Burton said she expected a dogfight in Game 7.

The WNBA moved the Finals to a best-of-seven format in 2025, when Las Vegas swept. This year, Golden State eliminated the Aces with a three-game semifinal sweep, closing it out with an 87-77 overtime win in Las Vegas on Oct. 9. The Dream finished a sweep of New York the same night.

Golden State went 32-12 in the regular season and was the No. 2 seed. Atlanta went 30-14 for its second straight 30-win season under Smesko and was the No. 4 seed.