Want the latest Bay Area sports news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to receive regular email newsletters, including “The Dime.”
Natalie Nakase is quick to call herself “crazy.” The first-year head coach is admittedly basketball-obsessed, passionate, and competitive. And she loves a good expletive — her favorite starts with the word “mother.”
So after the Valkyries’ third straight win, she turned to colorful language to sum up her team's achievement: “It’s pretty f—ing cool.”
“I’m super proud of the fact that we’re gelling really well together quicker than I thought. The trust that we have right now is pretty much unmatched,” she said after the Valkyries won 75-63 over a Fever team that’s still missing injured superstar Caitlin Clark on Sunday night.
The win, which completed a 3-0 season sweep of the Fever, wasn’t quite the 37-point blowout the Valkyries produced the night before against the Mystics, but it was more than enough to get the job done — it nearly firmed up their grip on a postseason berth amid a dream first season in the WNBA.
Subscribe to The Dime
News, gossip, and inside-the-locker-room access for Bay Area sports fans, every Friday and Monday.
With just five games left in the regular season, Golden State jumped two slots in the standings, climbing from eighth to sixth. It now sits ahead of both Indiana and Seattle, and continues to hold a 2.5-game cushion over the ninth-place Los Angeles Sparks.
Still down three starters in Cecilia Zandalasini (calf), Tiffany Hayes (knee), and Monique Billings (ankle), the Valkyries are nonetheless hitting their stride right on time. They will close out their final homestand this week, welcoming the Liberty, Wings, and Lynx before hitting the road for final rematches in Seattle and Minnesota.
Ask Nakase, and she’ll say every game from here on out is a “must-win.” And her players claim to look no further than the game directly ahead of them.
“If you start thinking too far ahead, then you’re not in the moment, you’re not present, and you can’t fully be where you are and give it your all,” Kate Martin said after her 10-point performance Sunday. “We never look ahead. We just stay game by game.”
But technically, any mix of three Valkyries wins and Sparks losses will be enough to formally clinch a playoff spot, which seemed like a fantasy just four months ago when the expansion franchise played its first WNBA game. Of course, Golden State would prefer to control its own destiny — but it’s worth noting that Los Angeles faces a tough closing stretch, with a pair against Atlanta plus matchups with Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The regular season finish line is close, but on Sunday, the very end of the game felt like it was nowhere in sight at one point. Technical issues with the shot clock caused lengthy delays throughout the first half, while official reviews and coach’s challenges stretched the game to nearly three hours.
“We just tried to make it as an advantage as best we can,” Nakase said of the near-constant first half delays. “We kept huddling, so we used that as an advantage because we can’t control it, it’s out of our hands.”
And through the first-quarter stoppages, Iliana Rupert and Janelle Salaün got Golden State rolling. The French duo combined for five of the Valkyries’ seven triples in the frame. The team knocked in nine of its first ten attempts — and looked poised to trample its single-game record of 16 threes set in Dallas last weekend. Instead, the Fever adjusted their zone defense to tighten the perimeter and hold the Valkyries — typically a high-volume three-point shooting team — without another triple until the fourth quarter. They finished off well despite the pause, though, fending off the Fever’s threatening third quarter with a 12-for-19 (63.2%, a season-high) mark from deep on the night.
The Valkyries’ defense held strong — effectively shutting down Aliyah Boston, who averages 15.6 points per game, and limiting her to just four. Instead, it was former Valkyrie Aerial Powers (she appeared in two games with the team in June) who led Indiana for the evening, scoring a season-high 17 points, while Kelsey Mitchell, the third-leading scorer in the WNBA, added 14.
And she's done throughout the second half of the season, Veronica Burton found a way to take command of the floor for the Valkyries. Facing tight coverage in one of her lighter scoring nights, Burton dished out 13 assists and grabbed seven boards. After the game, Nakase continued to praise the only player who has remained in her starting lineup for every game.
“She doesn’t stop fighting … I’m definitely on board with her being all-WNBA, she deserves it.” Nakase said. “Her resiliency has to be credited — availability is the best ability.”
Three minutes into the fourth quarter, when the Valkyries held just a 55-50 lead, Kate Martin delivered a monster four-point play that directed the momentum back in the home team’s favor. Her converted and-one on a three-pointer preceded the big swing, which included two more triples from Rupert, who finished with a career-high and game-high 21 points.
“Kate is kind of notorious for momentum plays, and a lot of times if we get an offensive rebound, they search for her,” Nakase said about Martin’s big play. “We always talk about wanting to get the ball to higher percentage three-point shooters. We call it family shots.”
Family shots is a recently coined term that characterizes the Valkyries' unselfish ball movement and love of the three-point line. If the team can continue to knock those down, it will also knock down the door to a historic playoff berth.
Imagine what Nakase might say about that.