Gabby Williams came to Golden State on a mission to win, and she’s now going to the WNBA Finals

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Moments after helping the Golden State Valkyries rally to beat the defending champion Aces and earn a trip to the WNBA Finals, Gabby Williams stopped on her way back to the locker room in Las Vegas and shared a little celebratory shake with coach Natalie Nakase.

Face to face, they squatted, cheered and used their hands as if eating while the Valkyries star beamed.

“Just having fun with that,” Williams said Tuesday.

It’s been a season of joyous moments for Williams, not to mention a fresh start to find her footing in the WNBA alongside Nakase and all the others who have made it such a positive move for the veteran guard. She wanted a basketball culture, and she got it.

Days before, Williams had grabbed the microphone and shared something with a sellout crowd of more than 18,000 people: Golden State’s rocking home arena has become her “safe place,” a space where she is appreciated and adored.

“I think I said that because everyone’s there just to see good basketball,” she said.

Williams left Seattle to sign with the Valkyries in the spring on a mission to win, and she is one of the biggest reasons the team is playing for a championship six months later. She wanted to show she belonged on the WNBA’s postseason stage after winning national championships at UConn and a silver medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics with France — not that any of her teammates doubted it for a second.

“Gabby doesn’t need to prove herself. Even when she was in Seattle she was doing great things,” Kayla Thornton said. “Her coming to this team, she unlocked a lot of different things, and that’s coming from the coaches and us just giving her the confidence and telling her, ‘Hey, do what you do, you got it overseas, now you’ve got it over here.’ We back her up every day, and she’s unbelievable.”

After going up 2-0 against the Aces at home, she thanked the assist from a rocking “Ballhalla.” It’s a play on Valhalla from Norse mythology.

“This is our sixth man, honestly, on the floor. We feel it,” Williams said. “I feel like I got superpowers when I’m in here.”

It’s true, Williams is thriving in front of the familiar Bay Area crowd after playing her youth basketball in San Francisco.

Williams has many memories of her AAU and club days playing here and she is making some new ones nearly two decades later in her spectacular first season with the Valkyries.

In her latest clutch playoff performance, Williams scored eight of her 16 points in overtime of Friday’s 87-77 victory at Las Vegas to sweep the best-of-five semifinal.

“It just feels right, it just feels right with this group,” she said of reaching the finals.

The atmosphere and community the Valkyries have built from the ground up in just two years is something Williams has longed for in recent years.

“That’s what give me confidence, it gives us all confidence because we get to be our authentic selves here,” she said of the raucous home crowd in Chase Center. “There’s some magic in this building, I swear there is.”

Williams landed with the Valkyries on a three-year contract in April and it has been a perfect fit from the start. She is set to lead Golden State into Game 1 of the best-of-seven WNBA Finals on Saturday at home against Angel Reese and Atlanta.

“No one really believed in us except for us, and so we just leaned on each other all season,” Williams said. “We knew that we could get here. I signed here because I wanted to contend. I knew this team had what it took.”

Williams helped spark a 16-point comeback in the deciding game against Dallas in the first round, and she has said she wants the ball in her hands for the biggest of moments. The Valkyries are thrilled she does.

“We’ll do it again and again, over and over,” teammate Tiffany Hayes said. “We believe in her.”

As Williams decided on her WNBA future during the offseason, she mentioned some “key factors” in choosing Golden State:

“Where am I going to win?”

“Where am I going to be a part of somewhere that’s going to have a winning culture?”

“And even though this is a newer team, I strongly believe and I feel the competitiveness.”

Guard Veronica Burton could immediately sense the impact Williams would make on the defensive-minded Valkyries.

“From the jump, I think you could feel Gabby’s transition here like it was seamless,” Burton said. “And you could feel her energy just from a culture perspective. Even before she signed here I could feel the questions that she was asking like I just knew that it was a culture fit. Obviously the way she plays on both sides of the ball I was going to love her, our team was going to love her, and we saw it from the moment she stepped in.”

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