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Amid a run of unexpected success for the Valkyries in their inaugural season, two consistent themes have emerged that threaten their fairytale story.
The first? Golden State is struggling to win on the road. The second? The offense is missing too many open shots.
The issues converged Wednesday in Seattle, when finding the bottom of the net became a daunting challenge.
In their final game ahead of the All-Star break, Golden State shot 31.7% (19 of 60) from the field and 22.6% (7 of 31) from beyond the arc, failing to score 60 points for the first time this season in a 67-58 defeat to the Storm.
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“We just didn’t make shots,” Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase said. “The ball just didn’t bounce our way. That is going to happen sometimes.”
Even before the stumble in Seattle, the expansion franchise’s 3-8 road record begged the question: Can the Valkyries pull out wins away from their beloved “Balhalla?” Wednesday’s loss to a team they had twice beaten in San Francisco did not help their case, but Nakase is unfazed by the pattern.
In fact, she does not see it as a pattern at all.
“I don’t think it’s road struggles. If that’s what the number is, that’s what it is. It is what it is,” Nakase said following her team’s eighth road loss of the year. “I feel it’s more on us; we have to make sure that we followed the game plan and were locked in today, but well, the ball just didn’t go in the hole. But we created good shots, wide-open shots, rhythm shots.”
To Nakase’s point, the Valkyries’ numbers on paper do not point to drastic underperformance on the road — at least not in ways that suggest panic. Other than the defense allowing an average of 7.7 more points on the road than at home and producing slightly more action in the transition offense in front of home fans, the margins don’t tell the tale of a collapse.
Five of the eight road losses have come by single digits and, with the exception of a defeat to the last-place Dallas Wings, six of Golden State’s losses outside of Chase Center have come against the league’s top five teams.
The other exception? A 104-102 defeat to the 11-11 Las Vegas Aces when three-time MVP A’ja Wilson scored 34 points.
So maybe it is, in fact, premature to sound the alarm on the Valkyries’ road form. But even so, their offensive flatline against the Storm highlighted the areas in which they’ve struggled most. They missed open looks and couldn’t find a consistent rhythm like they did in their earlier wins against Seattle.
The Valkyries’ performance was a far cry from the 48.4% field goal shooting they produced between their two wins over the Storm in June. The pair of Western Conference teams had previously met twice in Chase Center, where the Valkyries defeated the Storm on both occasions — first, a six-point win behind All-Star selection Kayla Thornton’s 22-point effort June 14, then a comfortable 84-57 win two weeks later.
All of this suggests that maybe it’s the Valkyries’ undefined identity on offense, not their road record, that is a bigger cause for concern. Nakase’s team executes a high-quality defense — they are fourth in the league in defensive rating — and their culture is centered around just that. Their defense has been the leading factor behind their strong, surprising entrance to the WNBA, but as it has proved over their last three losses to Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Seattle, it isn’t always enough to pull out close games.
Golden State’s shooting miscues were uncharacteristic as the team produced its worst marks of the season. Seattle didn’t receive a friendly bounce in its home arena either (32.8% from the field and 24.1% from 3-point land) — but it’s fair to wonder if the Valkyries’ loss is indicative of a larger problem at hand.
Where the Valkyries had excelled on the interior on both ends of the floor before, they struggled — scoring only 20 points in the paint, the second-lowest total of the season, as compared to 48 points in the paint against the Storm two weeks ago. The visitors didn’t notch a single second-chance bucket in the game and received minimal offensive output from their frontcourt.
“They were more physical than us. We had good runs, but we weren’t able to really get behind them until the last quarter,” said forward Cecilia Zandalasini, who finished with a team-high 12 points.
If Golden State is going to bounce back from three consecutive losses and make a legitimate postseason push, it will require more than a luckier stroke and simply making open shots. The Valkyries must learn to edge out wins in close games and determine which players they can trust in the fourth quarter.
One factor that could help change the Valkyries’ fortunes is the arrival of center Iliana Rupert, an expansion draft selection who was activated Thursday and will make her team debut after the All-Star break. Rupert played alongside Janelle Salaün with the French National Team in Eurobasket, where she averaged 8.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game during the tournament.
Developing an offensive identity is a big expectation of a new team still learning how to win in tight games, but it’s a challenge Nakase embraces. Even with the Valkyries’ 1-5 skid in July and retreat to the No. 9 spot in the WNBA standings, just outside of the playoff threshold, Nakase takes plenty of pride in her team’s 10-12 record at the halfway benchmark of the season.
“I feel great. We just had a great conversation on ownership of all the things we could have done better today, including myself,” Nakase said postgame, ahead of her team’s eight-day break. “I love where we’re at right now.”