Updated
The 2026 WNBA Finals begin Saturday with a championship neither the Golden State Valkyries nor the Atlanta Dream have ever won. Golden State is playing for the title in just its second season, while Atlanta is back in the Finals for the first time since 2013. The series gives the league’s 30th season a new champion and two teams with very different paths to the same opportunity.
Atlanta arrives on a 10-game winning streak that stretches back to the regular season. The Dream swept the Washington Mystics in the first round and the New York Liberty in the semifinals. Golden State also swept its semifinal series, taking down the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, but needed three games to get past the Dallas Wings in the first round. The Valkyries are the first WNBA expansion team to reach the Finals in its second season.
Angel Reese turned all heads and raised temperatures with her sexiest WNBA playoff looks
The regular-season sweep may not tell the whole story
Golden State won all three regular-season games against Atlanta, holding the Dream to an average of 74.7 points. But those matchups took place in June and early July, and the teams haven’t faced each other since July 4.
Atlanta has also added veteran forward DeWanna Bonner since then. She has given the Dream more scoring and championship experience as they enter their first Finals in 13 years.
The teams’ defenses could shape every game. Atlanta’s Angel Reese, the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, finished ahead of Golden State’s Gabby Williams in the voting. Both were named to the All-Defensive first team, alongside Dream guard Rhyne Howard.
Four of the six players who received votes for Defensive Player of the Year are in this series. The Dream create turnovers and convert them into points; the Valkyries make opponents work for nearly every shot.
Williams also gives the Finals a personal edge. The San Francisco native joined Golden State this season because she wanted to compete for a championship, and she has become one of the Valkyries’ most important players in the playoffs.
After the team’s home crowd helped power its run, she called Chase Center her “safe place.” Now she gets to lead the Valkyries into a Finals series in front of those fans.
Atlanta’s chances could also depend on Allisha Gray. The Dream’s leading scorer during the regular season missed the final two games of the semifinal sweep with a left-hand injury. On Thursday, Gray said she was “trending in the right direction” and hoped to play in Game 1, but Atlanta’s medical staff will make the final decision. Her availability matters against a Golden State defense that has made scoring difficult all season.
There is a home-court story in Atlanta, too. The Dream usually play at Gateway Center Arena, which seats about 3,500 fans. For the Finals, they moved Games 3 and 4 to State Farm Arena, with room for roughly 17,000.
The change followed a complicated scheduling puzzle involving a concert and an Atlanta Hawks game. It means the Dream will play their first Finals game in the Atlanta market since 2013 in front of a much larger crowd.
Game 1 is Saturday, Oct. 17, at 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT at Chase Center in San Francisco, airing on NBC and Peacock. Game 2 is Monday, Oct. 19, before the series moves to Atlanta for Games 3 and 4. The best-of-seven matchup could run through Oct. 31, with a first championship waiting for whichever team wins four games.