ATLANTA – Early in the fourth game of the WNBA Finals, a foul call didn’t go in the Golden State Valkyries’ favor. Their head coach wasn’t thrilled about it. Penalizing a bump in this series seemed absurd. So Natalie Nakase complained to the officials. As one does. Then she did a thing no coach really does, and it was hilarious, and it said it all about the taut, petty spectacle we’re in for now.
She balled up her fists. She held them below her eyes. She flexed her wrists.
She called someone a crybaby.
Nakase’s target was unclear, at least from a seat up on the concourse level. It could’ve been the Atlanta player who drew the foul. It could’ve been Dream coach Karl Smesko, who didn’t fail to notice, or another staffer. It could’ve been someone chirping near the home team’s bench. It could’ve been anyone. But it was definitely someone.
Oh, they’re getting on each other’s nerves now. It’s the good stuff. Shooting daggers and spitting venom. Playground insults as fair play. None of it is an accident. This is the best outcome for any postseason series that grinds along, at least for the audience, and it’s a fascinating, if inevitable, turn given how these finals are going.
A 67-62 imposition by Golden State on Saturday — and it was that, just as much as it was an according-to-Hoyle win — locked the series at 2-2. The Valkyries reclaimed a sense of themselves, saving the season. The Dream muttered about failing to be who they were in the previous two games. Now they both have to figure out who they’ll be in a totally unfamiliar spot.
Three games left, tops. Neither group has chased a title this deep, together. They’re still learning what to do and how to act, collectively, under the circumstances. The winner will be the group that best imitates having been here before, starting Monday back at the Chase Center.
This is not pretty on purpose. Both the Dream and the Valkyries understand who they are and who they want to be. In the previous decade of WNBA Finals, only one game saw both teams fail to score 70 points. It’s now happened twice in this series alone. They’ve taken turns bullying each other out of place. Our 2026 championship is a case of identity theft: The side with more purposeful orneriness tilts the scales.
Presenting Gabby Williams as an example. The Valkyries star stood outside the locker room before Game 3, blowing on her hands thanks to the overactive air conditioning inside State Farm Arena, and said she kept the team’s temperature down after a disappointing Game 2 home loss. Can’t get that one back, she said. Shake it off. Move on. “Logical,” is how she described her approach.
By the end of that night, Williams was molten. She tore into those same teammates in a post-loss huddle. She continued in the locker room. She decided she’d been “too loose” as a leader and properly clamped down. “I wanted to show my team something different,” Williams said the next day, “because we need something different.” On Saturday, she hit a turnaround jumper in the first quarter and barked at the referees or the Dream sideline, or both, or whoever. She seethed as much as she played. This was fury, and the only logic was how she targeted it.
It was as Williams told the Valkyries before Game 4: There would be no regrets this time.
“I didn’t like who I was in that last game,” she said Saturday. “Stepping up in that (vocal) role made me step up individually. If I want to lead my team, I have to be the one that sets the tone.”
The Dream, meanwhile, lost their grip. They’d done well to unravel the Valkyries by being mentally tougher in consecutive games. When Golden State clawed back and clawed back — somewhat literally, with 26 team fouls — Atlanta looked taken aback. Like it didn’t expect the Valkyries to have it in them.
Then Nakase bumped Tiffany Hayes and Kaila Charles into the starting lineup on Saturday. Among the intended benefits was more emotion and energy from the jump. It’s going too far to say the Dream assumed they’d won the series and had the Valkyries underfoot after two runaway wins. They just didn’t recognize the vibe change soon enough Saturday, nor respond with enough composure when they did.
Seventeen turnovers, nine missed free throws and the previously undeniable Angel Reese botching two point-blank shots on one fourth-quarter possession would be the empirical proof of that. “I didn’t take my time and finish around the basket like I’ve been doing the last three games,” Reese said. “It happens. I’m just looking forward to the next game, and I’ll just be better.”
She started the afternoon being named a second-team All-WNBA honoree. She ended it sounding annoyed, as expected, and it only meant she’d joined the club.
The WNBA will have a first-time champion this season. In this case, too, most of the players vying for that title haven’t been here before. What we’ve seen is two elite defensive teams making each other miserable, but we can’t discount the pressure of the moment creating some of the unsightliness, too. Throats tighten, and frustration passes back and forth.
There is a reason the cliché is growing pains, not growing pleasures.
“We took a breath,” Nakase said of her team on Saturday, knowing full well how determinative that can be when the air is this thin.
Still, the more the Dream and Valkyries play, the more they figure out. And the more they tangle, the more they realize they don’t like each other a whole lot, at least for now. The basketball probably won’t look great at any point. The theater of what is now a best-of-three contest could be tremendous. Two willful groups, wrestling their way out of an oven.
The winner gets a trophy and gets to stick their tongue out.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Atlanta Dream, Golden State Valkyries, WNBA
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