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Veronica Burton helped off her assignment to the nail, cutting off a drive before recovering to force a miss from 3-point range. After tracking down the long rebound, she pushed the ball up the court right past her head coach on the sidelines.
Burton didn’t need to look over to Natalie Nakase for a play call. She knows innately what Nakase wants. Pace and space. The system. Scrap. Flow.
In semi-transition, Burton ran a quick pick-and-pop with Janelle Salaun, finding the wing for the Valkyries’ ninth 3-pointer in their first 10 tries during Sunday evening's 75-63 win over the Indiana Fever.
Burton’s seventh assist in the first 11 minutes was Nakase’s platonic ideal: put the ball in Burton’s hands and trust her to make the right read. She’s earned it.
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Nakase and Burton are the dual conductors guiding the upstart Valkyries toward the playoffs after a triumphant weekend of back-to-back, double-digit wins.
In Saturday’s 37-point blowout win over the Mystics, Burton needed just 21 minutes to put up a clinical 15 points, five assists, and five rebounds. Then to put away the short-handed Fever, the point guard dished out 13 dimes.
Burton has supplied more buckets than ever after leading scorer Kayla Thornton and other key rotation players went down with injuries. In the month of August, she averaged 14.7 points, 7.1 assists, and 4.3 rebounds per game, making Nakase’s vision reality with her court awareness and low-risk distribution.
It’s almost like leading candidates for Coach of the Year and Most Improved Player of the Year are made for each other.
“She has been the dream point guard for me,” Nakase told The Standard. “I couldn’t ask for a better point guard.”
“She’s very caring, very open, and receptive,” Burton said. “And also really hard on me, too. She challenges me, she pushes me. She’s kind of been that way from Day 1.”
If Burton is the Valkyries’ heartbeat, Nakase is the blood pumping through the team's veins. Early in their relationship, Nakase — an avid swearer — suggested Burton take on her tough-love persona for herself. Burton, more keen to wrap her arm around a teammate’s shoulder and spend free time reading biblical devotionals, demurred.
“I think that is cool that she decided to stay true to herself,” Nakase said. “That takes a lot of guts to kind of go against what I thought was right, but I’ve got to give her a lot of props.”
Burton being both her own person as well as an extension of Nakase is why the Valkyries are on the doorstep of becoming the first expansion team to make the postseason in its inaugural season.
Nakase, a former point guard, sees the game similarly to Burton. Sometimes the head coach gets concerned about how much information she and the coaching staff feeds her, but Burton is relentless about asking for more.
Burton calls out her teammates on the court so Nakase doesn’t have to. Players see the game faster than Nakase on the sidelines, and Burton’s voice carries her coach’s weight. Before out of bounds plays, Burton points out where her teammates need to be. She looks over to the sidelines with a play in mind, often receiving affirmation from Nakase, who had the same idea.
“She’s there helping direct everyone and she’s like Nat on the court,” said backup point guard Kaitlyn Chen.
If a single stat line could be a basketball coach’s dream, it very well might be a 10-assist, zero turnover game.
Only eight times this season has a player registered at least 10 assists without turning it over. Burton has three such games. She ranks fourth in the WNBA in total assists and fourth among rotation players in assist-to-turnover ratio.
“She’s picking apart the defenses really well,” Nakase said. “Getting assists is not easy in this league. And then obviously doing it while taking care of the ball. That is very hard, because this league is all about physicality, pressure and tough defense. Lastly, just like her voice — her ability to bring her energy every single day, lead people, demand people, and honestly call people out.
“It’s not an easy role, but she’s just kind of taking it like, ‘Please give me more, challenge me more because I know I can do this.’”
The floor general isn’t just an extension of the first-year head coach, she’s also a reflection of her.
On the sidelines, it’s often Nakase’s job to project poise to her players. Yet she — like just about anything else in her position — has had a coach’s temper for poor officiating. She can be salty after losses, a symptom of the competitiveness that got her here.
On the court, Burton is supposed to be the steady hand, the calming influence organizing her teammates. But she has a habit of tilting her head and rolling her eyes after making mistakes. She, Nakase, and position coach Sugar Rodgers watch film for her body language, pointing out instances where she needs better keep her composure.
“Even just the other day, telling me what she needs from me, saying I can’t afford to have any bad days from a body language perspective, from a leadership perspective,” Burton said. “I can’t afford to put my head down or show frustration.”
Even their journeys somewhat mirror one another. Nakase, the undersized point guard who had to walk-on at UCLA before becoming a three-year starter; Burton, the defensive specialist buried on depth charts for her first three WNBA seasons, cut by the Wings and eventually left unprotected for the expansion draft.
Nakase once played through a sprained ankle so severe she ended up tearing her calf on her other leg because she was overcompensating. When Burton was seven years old, she broke her arm playing flag football with her older brother, going days before asking her mom to go to the emergency room.
“He sacked her,” said Veronica’s older sister Kayla Burton. “Like absolutely decked her, and she kept playing, she didn’t cry.”
That grit is still there, just on the court instead of with her brother. Against Indiana, Burton hit the hardwood after trying to take a charge, windmilling her arm to test out her shoulder. She stayed in the game, just like Nakase would have.
"Natalie, I think, has this perfect balance of belief and being critical," Kayla said. "But also, it has a heart in it. Like, she understands Veronica."
During a stoppage in play due to a technical difficulty on Sunday night, Nakase motioned her team over to the sidelines with her hand. Across the court, Burton mimicked the same beckoning hand motion.
Point guard and head coach, on the same wavelength all the way to the playoffs.