Wasted Game 1 Opportunity Could Haunt Dream for the Remainder of the WNBA Finals
The Atlanta Dream have proven they can win big road games. They eliminated the New York Liberty in the semifinals at Barclays Center. But stealing a game at Ballhalla in the finals is a different beast altogether. The Dream are the lower seed, so they will have to win a game on the road to win the title.
The Dream put themselves in a great position to steal Game 1 on the Golden State Valkyries’ home court. They held the Valkyries to 32% shooting from the field and 21.3% from deep. They forced ten turnovers, and Gabby Williams was the only Valkyries player to score more than nine points. Limiting all of Veronica Burton, Kayla Thornton, Cecilia Zandalasini, Janelle Salaün, and Tiffany Hayes as scorers usually gives teams a solid chance to beat the Valkyries.
Nevertheless, Atlanta lost the game by four points, letting its opportunity to get that necessary road win early slip away with an eight-point fourth quarter and too many missed shots. Rhyne Howard, Naz Hillmon, and Allisha Gray all missed 3-pointers in the last minute of the game. In fact, the Dream didn’t score at all after Howard made two free throws with 3:12 left in the game.
The Dream Have to Win a Road Game Quickly
The Valkyries know how to win ugly games. They thrive in games that become gritty defensive grinds, and that creates an incredibly small margin of error for their opponents. The Dream had their opportunity to win one of those low-scoring games at Ballhalla and squandered it. There is no guarantee that they will get another shot like this.
After this 68-64 loss, the Dream must now win either Game 2, Game 5, or Game 7 in Ballhalla. If they cannot get a road win soon, they might be in trouble. The Valkyries’ top players got more rest during the regular season—no one averaged even 30 minutes per game, while Rhyne Howard, Jordin Canada, Allisha Gray, and Angel Reese all averaged between 31 and 34.2 minutes per game—and Natalie Nakase goes deeper into her bench.
Karl Smesko played DeWanna Bonner for 13 minutes and Isobel Borlase for 12. The Valkyries, meanwhile, got 30 minutes out of Kaila Charles off the bench, 24 from Hayes, 14 from Laeticia Amihere, and 10 from Kaitlyn Chen. The longer the series drags on, the more of a depth and rest advantage the Valkyries will have, and that will only make it more difficult to beat them on their home court.
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Elaine Blum covers women’s basketball for On SI from Europe. She has been writing about women's hoops since 2023 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism and a master’s degree in American Studies with a focus on women’s and gender studies. She started playing basketball when she was 10 years old and won several league and state championships at the youth and senior level.