Expansion teams aren’t supposed to play like this, to win like this, to draw crowds like this, and to soar and roar like the Valkyries are doing every time they take the Chase Center court these days.
Expansion rosters aren’t supposed to be this tough, this adaptable, this deep, and this troublesome for a superstar like Caitlin Clark.
But if you want to really know how the Valkyries are doing this — how they blasted through Clark’s Indiana Fever with a thunderous second-half rally Thursday at Chase to get to 6-6 — you just have to watch how hard they play. How much they’re lifted by their buoyant fans, who have sold out the arena in all six home games. How little they’re surprised by any of this.
And then listen to Kayla Thornton, the reigning league player of the week, who didn’t love a suggestion after the game that the Valkyries are pretty good for a team that doesn’t have any stars.
“First of all, I think we’re stars in our own way,” Thornton said. “We all have our own little thing that we have, we’re all stars, we all do something special for this team. That’s why we are what we are. I think that’s why we’re succeeding way earlier than our expectations, probably [before] people thought we would.
“Just because at the end of the day, from 1 to 12, we’re all dogs. We’re going to bring what we did from other teams to here. We put that together, that’s something special. But we’re all stars.”
Then Laeticia Amihere, sitting next to Thornton on the podium, wrapped up the session with a perfectly sardonic mic drop: “It’s pretty impressive to be Player of the Week without being a star.”
Do not mess with this team — either on the court or in a press conference. Especially after the Valkyries held Clark, the league’s star of stars, to just 11 points on 3-of-14 shooting and without a made three-pointer for only the second time in her professional career.
The Valkyries obviously don’t have the top-end talent of the elite teams; Tuesday’s disappointing road loss to the last-place Dallas Wings — and star Paige Bueckers — was a harsh reminder that the Valkyries need to be at full speed against every single team.
But when the Valkyries get going full-tilt, it is something to behold. They reach out and grab games and do not let go. That’s talent, that’s stubbornness, that’s strength, and that’s pure basketball fortitude.
And the Valkyries’ 33-18 fourth-quarter stampede Thursday was all hustle and high decibels — Tiffany Hayes’ sticky defense on Clark, the blitzing scheme, Amihere’s flying blocked shots, Thornton’s playmaking and loud leadership, and that pulsating Chase crowd.
My goodness, this is a crowd that is taking on the jet-engine energy of the players, and vice versa.
The Valkyries’ fans had eagerly awaited this game from the moment it went on the schedule. They wanted to see Clark, but they wanted to see the Valkyries win.
“They were screaming,” coach Natalie Nakase said. “When they saw the [big video] screen a couple times and maybe the call didn’t go our way, they reacted. Those are the type of moments that we really need. It does affect — it does — it puts pressure a little bit on the refs, and it just kind of gives us the home-court advantage that we’re looking for.
“Yes, I definitely think our fans were the superpower tonight.”
Said Amihere: “Man, they fueled us up.”
But Nakase shook her head immediately when asked if this was a playoff kind of crowd. She’s right. The six games at Chase have been something between a party and big concert. Fun, without a lot of stakes. But it’ll start to change as the wins pile up and the playoff race beckons. Maybe it’s already started. And that will make the building even louder — because it will be meaningful noise. It will matter. It’s already beginning to echo around the league.
When the Valkyries make the playoffs, whether it’s this fall or another year, Chase will take on audio levels that I don’t want to contemplate right now.
“I just think that’s what our crowd is continuing to build,” Nakase said. “They’re continuing to build what they really love, and it’s just great basketball. That’s what you saw tonight. Two great teams, a lot of talent on the floor, and playing with a lot of passion.”
The larger point is that the Valkyries are already a pretty good team, and they’re doing it without the four key players who are participating in the EuroBasket tournament. And Thursday’s game was the first major winning contribution from Hayes, who suffered two nose injuries in the first weeks of this season.
How have they done this? General manager Ohemaa Nyanin and vice president of basketball operations Vanja Černivec found more than 12 solid players to start this — Amihere and Chloe Bibby were both cut after going through camp, were signed to replace the EuroBasket departures, and both were outstanding Thursday. It was Amihere’s third game with the team. This was Bibby’s first.
And clearly, Nakase and her staff can make adjustments on the fly. But Nakase said the Valkyries’ brain trust knew from the start that they were putting together an extremely tough team. They searched for this.
“When me, Vanya, and Ohemaa were watching a ton of film, yes, we knew they were … we call them killers,” Nakase said. “Kayla likes to say dogs, I call ’em killers. Yeah, we knew.
“You can see, like, the way they play even from last season. You have players that dive after the ball. Or players that take charges. Or they crash for rebounds. Those are the players to me that are always going to get you extra possessions, because they’re willing to sacrifice their body. They’re in really, really good shape. They take care of themselves off the court. They eat well, they sleep well, all those intangibles. You can tell that they do, because they play so hard. Yeah, we knew we had 12 dogs.”
Another point: These kinds of tough, stubborn, entertaining, talented players probably don’t love all the conversation, including by me, about this season as a setup for the Valkyries to sign one or two stars and really get going next season.
Well, I’ll listen to Thornton and Amihere: They’ve already got some stars. They’ve got some killers. They’re not perfect, but the Valkyries dare us all to underestimate what they can do right now.