The 18-3 run that settled it
Golden State missed 10 of its first 13 shots. Dallas made seven of its first 10 and led 15-8, which is roughly how the Valkyries have started plenty of games this season and roughly how little it has mattered.
Tiffany Hayes ended the first quarter with a 3-pointer from just inside half court to put the hosts ahead 20-19. The second quarter is where the game went away: an 18-3 run over the final 5:55, an 11-0 close, and a 44-28 halftime lead.
The defensive numbers carried the rest. Golden State forced 18 turnovers and converted them into 20 points, and held Dallas to 22% from 3-point range. Paige Bueckers went 1-for-7 in the first half and finished with 21 points on 8-of-18 shooting — with seven turnovers. Arike Ogunbowale added 17 and Alanna Smith 13 for the Wings, who lost for the fifth time in six games and needed a late run to make the margin respectable enough that head coach Natalie Nakase kept her starters on the floor to the end.
Where the points came from:
- Gabby Williams — 23 points, the game high, plus the primary assignment on Bueckers.
- Veronica Burton — 16 points, five assists, four rebounds.
- Tiffany Hayes — 10 points off the bench, including the quarter-ending 3.
- Janelle Salaün — 10 points off the bench.
- Bench scoring — Golden State 27, Dallas 12.
The Valkyries playoff berth arrived 18 days sooner than in 2025
Twelve months ago this was a scramble. Golden State needed a win over the same opponent, in the same building, on Sept. 4 to get in as the No. 8 seed, and it took an 84-80 result to do it.
This time the magic number was down to one before tip-off, and the clinch came as the 25th win of a season that has already rewritten the franchise record. Golden State has won 15 of its last 17.
| 2025 clinch | 2026 clinch | |
|---|---|---|
| Date | Sept. 4 | Aug. 17 |
| Opponent, venue | Dallas Wings, Chase Center | Dallas Wings, Chase Center |
| Score | 84-80 | 78-70 |
| Record on the night | 23-18 | 25-9 |
| Position | eighth seed | second in the league |
Records are as of the clinching game; Golden State finished the 2025 regular season 23-21.
Nakase, the reigning Coach of the Year, matched last season's 23-win total in 12 fewer games. That is the cleanest single measure of what has changed: the same head coach, a deeper rotation, and a defensive template the roster now executes without needing a hot shooting night to survive.
Williams framed it around the process rather than the result after the game. "I'm more excited just about how we've done it more than us doing it," she said. "I knew we were going to do it since I got here, but I didn't expect us to do it this way and have this much fun."
A list of 14, across every North American league
The 2025 season made the Valkyries the first expansion franchise in WNBA history to reach the playoffs in year one. It also produced 21 sellouts, an 18,064 average attendance that stands as the highest in league history, and a first-round exit — swept 0-2 by top-seeded Minnesota, with Game 2 lost by a single point, 74-75.
That first postseason came with an asterisk of logistics rather than merit. A pre-existing booking at Chase Center pushed the club's home playoff game to SAP Center in San Jose, roughly 40 miles south.
Doing it again in year two puts Golden State in a much smaller category: by the San Francisco Chronicle's count, the 14th team in North American professional sports history to reach the postseason in each of its first two seasons of existence. The relevant point is not the trivia. It is that the 2025 run, which read at the time as an unusually well-drafted roster catching a soft eighth seed, now reads as a functioning organisation.
The building has held up its end. More than 18,000 turned out again on Monday for another sellout, with Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy, Moses Moody, Gary Payton II and Stephen Curry shown on the video board during the second-quarter surge.
Seeding, tiebreakers and a Wednesday date with Minnesota
The berth is settled. The seed is not, and the tiebreaker maths is not friendly.
Minnesota is 29-7, three games clear at the top, and Golden State is 0-2 against the Lynx this season with two meetings left — the first of them Wednesday at Chase Center. Las Vegas sits third at 24-12. The WNBA's first tiebreaker is head-to-head win percentage, and the Valkyries lost that series to the Aces 0-3 with no games remaining, meaning any finish level on record with Las Vegas breaks against Golden State.
So the cushion in the standings is doing real work. Hold it and the Valkyries open the postseason at home for the first time in franchise history; lose it and they repeat last year's arrangement of travelling for Game 1.
The schedule does not ease off, either. Monday's game began a run of seven games in 14 days before the league breaks for the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup, which is the stretch Nakase has spent the past fortnight preparing her rotation for. Dallas, meanwhile, hosts Indiana on Thursday, still holding the eighth and final playoff place at 20-16.
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