Valkyries WNBA Title Won in Historic Game 7 Thriller

The Valkyries WNBA title is real, and it came in the most dramatic way possible. Golden State beat the Atlanta Dream sixty-eight to sixty-three in the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history on Saturday night, and the franchise did it in just its second season, according to ESPN and the Associated Press.

The hero was Gabby Williams, who dropped thirty points and was named Finals MVP. Twenty-eight of them came after halftime, which is wild for a player who barely touched the scoreboard in the first two quarters.

A slow start, then a takeover

Golden State trailed thirty to twenty-four at the break after Atlanta outscored them eighteen to ten in the second quarter. Williams had only two points at that stage, according to NBC Sports Bay Area.

Then the third quarter happened. With the Valkyries down thirty-seven to thirty-two, Williams scored thirteen points in a row, including three straight three-pointers, per ESPN. She put up the team's last eleven points of the quarter and kept cooking in the fourth.

The record book gets rewritten

Her thirty points tied Penny Taylor's 2007 mark for most points in a winner-take-all WNBA Finals game, according to ESPN. Her twenty-eight second-half points were the most ever in a half of a WNBA Finals game, and the highest-scoring half in WNBA playoff history.

The dagger came late. Fox News reported that her thirty-one-foot three-pointer with two minutes and eighteen seconds left broke a fifty-seven all tie and put Golden State ahead for good. She also blocked four shots in the clincher.

That defensive grit defined the Valkyries WNBA title run. Golden State leaned on its defense all season, and Game 7 was no different, with both teams grinding through a low-scoring slugfest where every possession felt heavy. Tiffany Hayes finished with eleven points and Veronica Burton added ten, the only other Valkyries in double figures, per NBC Sports Bay Area.

What coach Natalie Nakase said

Head coach Natalie Nakase called her star the team's closer. "Gabby is our closer, she stayed patient, she stayed with it," Nakase said. "Closing with thirty!" Williams credited that patience herself, saying the coach told her to stay patient in the first half and she listened.

It is her first WNBA title after stops in Chicago and Seattle. The thirty-year-old had already won championships in college and overseas, but had fallen just short with France in the Olympics and the FIBA World Cup.

Atlanta's heartbreak

For the Dream, it is another painful finish. Jordin Canada scored eighteen points, Allisha Gray added sixteen, and Angel Reese had eight points and twelve rebounds. Atlanta was denied a championship in the franchise's fourth Finals try, according to the AP game recap.

The series also went the distance in every sense. It was the first WNBA Finals to need a seventh game, and the first time all series that the team leading at halftime did not win.

Atlanta did not go quietly. Gray made two free throws with eleven seconds left, and the Dream kept pushing until the final buzzer, but the Valkyries held on. The Dream had held off a late Golden State rally earlier in the series to win Game 6, which is how the series got to a decider, according to NBC Boston.

A promise kept in Ballhalla

The win also made good on a bold promise. Owner Joe Lacob said three years ago that the team would win a title within its first five years, and the Valkyries beat that timeline by a wide margin. They finished the regular season as the second seed and went on a remarkable playoff run.

A violet-clad crowd of about eighteen thousand packed Chase Center on Halloween for the clincher. For Gen Z fans who watched this expansion team go from new kids to champions in two seasons, it is the kind of story that makes the league's growth feel real. Catch up on more sports coverage as the offseason begins.