By admin 
SAN FRANCISCO – If you wanted artistry in the city Friday, you should’ve gone to the opera or a museum.
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Because what the Golden State Valkyries put on the Chase Center hardwood can’t be called beautiful basketball. No, it was more akin to a mugging with a box score.
But it worked.
Down 16 in the second half, unable to throw a pebble into the bay, and possessing a half-court offense that left fans wondering if the team in purple could see the basket, Golden State clawed out an improbable, gutsy and yet altogether deserved 77-73 Game 3 win over the Dallas Wings anyway.
They didn’t survive this first-round series.
No, they laughed in the face of their shortcomings. They conquered it with pure, concentrated, uncut effort.
They were so intense that their head coach Natalie Nakase – a true leader in the field of intensity – collapsed on the sidelines in crunch time. (She finished the game and was deemed “fine” after the contest.)
It’s such a cliche to say that one team “wanted it more.”
But what other analysis can you provide on a Valkyries win like Friday’s?
This team doesn’t know any path forward except through.
And now they’re through to the WNBA semifinals – the final four – in only their second year of existence.
How’d they do it?
On Friday, there wasn’t a storybook shot at the buzzer or a brilliant final-minute run of two-way execution.
No, the Valkyries dragged Dallas down into the muck, had their fans use every bit of oxygen in the building, and then beat the Wings over the head with the rulebook.
The fourth quarter wasn’t a showcase; it was an alley fight with an orange ball.
It featured five – count ’em, five – jump balls.
But these Valks are well-trained, seasoned, calloused in that kind of combat. They’ve prepared all season for it. No, make that all of their short existence.
By the final buzzer, the Wings didn’t look like a playoff team; they looked like shell-shocked survivors scanning the concourse for the nearest emergency exit.
The Memphis Grizzlies once bragged about “Grit and Grind.”
These Valkyries – to a woman – make Tony Allen look like a ballroom dancer.
Golden State’s last field goal dropped through the net with 1:17 remaining Friday; it gave them a 73-72 lead.
It was the final field goal anyone scored all night.
For the next 77 seconds, the Valkyries slammed the vault shut and swallowed the key.
And how fitting that the definitive, winning play of the game won’t show up on a social media sizzle reel. I’m not even sure it’s reflected in the box score.
No, it was Gabby Williams re-establishing her foot inbounds by a millisecond and a millimeter to snag a loose-ball rebound, giving the Valks another possession with only 12 seconds on the clock, up one.
Of course it was a hustle play.
And of course the final moments of this young team’s favorite moment included a ton of intentional fouls.
Perhaps the only surprise was that Williams – who famously called herself a choker after critical missed free throws in a similar situation earlier this season against fellow final four qualifier Atlanta – stepped to the stripe, sank four straight free throws without incident, and put the final nail in Dallas’ coffin.
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Yes, it was all so fitting for a team that treats forced turnovers like the final score of the game; a team that takes borderline sadistic pleasure in making their opponents’ lungs burn so much they want to tap out.
Between the second and third quarter Friday, the Valks went more than seven continuous minutes of game action without a single made basket.
Normal teams, faced with a lid on the basket that tight, start daydreaming about flights to Cabo and wondering how many packing boxes they’ll need to clear out their lockers.
Not these maniacs.
They responded, eventually, (mercifully?) with a furious 14-0 blitz that nearly blew the roof of Chase Center into orbit.
Yes, Dallas punched back; they have three certified bucket getters, but Golden State closed the fourth quarter on an 8-0 haymaker.
Almost literally, I should note.
The Valks aggregated every unglamorous habit that separates winners from their peers: floor burns, drawn charges, eager scrums and an unmatched sonic hostility from an unmatched home crowd. And they did those things with a near-feral repetition that shooting percentages for either team ceased to matter.
It might matter moving forward, though.
This is the big-girls party, now – where the carnival gets genuinely terrifying.
Waiting in the semifinals is A’ja Wilson, the undisputed ruler of planet basketball, and a Las Vegas Aces juggernaut that has treated Golden State like an underqualified sparring partner over these last two seasons.
The Valks have proven they can play with and beat just about anyone.
Now they’re meeting their final boss.
Vegas is 6-1 all-time against the Valks, sweeping all three meetings this year, with two being laughers.
In just two years, Golden State has built a championship-level culture, championship-level grit and a championship-level defense.
They possess everything required to hang a banner in the rafters, except for one kind of super important thing:
For all its heart and positives and winning, this team lacks a singular, cold-blooded bucket-getter when the shot clock is bursting red and the paint is swarmed.
Against Dallas, desperation, smarts and toughness papered over the cracks. If the Valks couldn’t get baskets, no one was getting baskets. They’d eventually will the ball into the hoop.
Against Wilson and Becky Hammon’s precision winning machine, you probably can’t force five fourth-quarter jump balls and expect the scoreboard to reward you over the course of a best-of-five series.
Then again, maybe you can.
Most teams would discuss this imposing challenge as an opportunity to take their game to a higher level. Surely the Valks will do that, too.
But the truth they won’t tell you is that they’re, instead, going to look for a new level of basketball Hades in which to drag the three-time champs.
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And I wouldn’t bet against them discovering it.
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This story was originally published October 3, 2026 at 6:23 AM.