Depth has been the pride of the Golden State Valkyries all season long.
During the regular season, they had 10 players seeing double-digit court time on a nightly basis, with no single player logging an average of more than 30 minutes per game. That’s rare for a team seeing so much success.
While we’ve already detailed the “win by collective” approach to roster-building that has led Golden State thus far, does that strategy have redundancies on the WNBA Finals’ stage?
As the 1-1 series shifts locations for Game 3, let’s compare the player-usage approaches of the Atlanta Dream and Valkyries.
Atlanta is committed to maximizing their core stars
The question of depth and playing time comes at the heels of Atlanta’s Game 2 victory, in which they played four players for more than 30 minutes. Jordin Canada played an exhausting 36, while Allisha Gray and Angel Reese ran for 34 minutes each, despite Reese picking up three early fouls and ending one short of a forced exit.
The Dream only went seven-deep in their rotation as a whole, compared to Golden State’s 10-player rotation which only slightly increased in garbage time. Kiah Stokes wasn’t just the only player to play 30 minutes for the Valkyries, she was the only one to play more than 26.
Dream head coach Karl Smesko said after Game 2 that his staff made a concerted effort to give Reese incremental breaks during the game to keep her motor up. She never had a slow moment, contributing a historical 30-point and 16-rebound game for Atlanta’s series-changing road win. Atlanta was able to manage Reese’s stamina while keeping her on the court for nearly the whole game.
Atlanta is a well-balanced team that has never felt overly top-heavy, but they’ve still made an effort to feature their best players to an even greater extent than in the regular season.
They’re trying to keep their core of Gray, Reese, and Rhyne Howard on the hardwood as much as possible. Jordin Canada’s postseason ascension has also given her a seat at that table. She’s proven to be a steady floor general for Smesko, but her newfound volume scoring has added a new dimension of offense, especially when she’s playing nearly every minute of the game.
The only players seeing real minutes off of Atlanta’s bench thus far in the Finals are DeWanna Bonner and Isobel Borlase, neither of whom have been overly impactful thus far in the series. Bonner has Finals pedigree and will continue to be a solid decision maker at this point of her career, but her scoring chops have landed somewhere between an added bonus and an afterthought.
Monday night showed that Atlanta has the ability to dominate with a streamlined lineup.
Should Golden State start to give more minutes to their stars?
With Atlanta investing more minutes into their top players, Natalie Nakase’s substitution sheet becomes an interesting story. Is she holding her starters back from playing more than 30 minutes out of need, or out of choice?
It’s always possible that it could help them stay fresh for an extended series, but each win is so important.
Gabby Williams had a difficult scoring night on Monday, but regardless, she needs to be on the court. Reese played seven more minutes than Williams, but is that because Williams needs more time to recharge? Given that Williams was a multiple-time Gatorade Player of the Year in Nevada for Track and Field, and an alternate for Team USA Track and Field at the 2012 Olympics, it’s hard to see stamina as a pressing issue. Nakase is likely leaning into her depth because they got the Valkyries thus far, and that’s not at all unreasonable.
Kaitlyn Chen, Kaila Charles, Tiffany Hayes, and Laeticia Amihere have all contributed to Golden State’s dominant season on both sides of the floor. They’ve each averaged double-digit minutes this series but haven’t had consistently positive impacts. Golden State lost Tiffany Hayes’ and Kaila Charles’ minutes in Game 2 by 18 and 19 points, respectively. That’s not to say that Hayes or Charles are solely at fault, but there’s a clear momentum gap when Atlanta keeps their core in the game against the Valkyries backups.
Perhaps most interesting is Janelle Salaün, who just took home a unanimous Sixth Player of the Year award. Salaün set two monstrous records, being the first player to unanimously win that award and scoring the most points off the bench in a single season in WNBA history.
Salaün averaged 22 minutes per game throughout the regular season, which has been brought down to only 11 per game in the playoffs. Despite such a dominant reserve campaign, she’s now only seen four minutes per game through the start of the Finals. Salaün is one of the Valkyries best shooters and overall scoring options, but she’s a shaky defender who doesn’t fit Nakase’s need for team defense. She struggled to defend in their first-round series against Dallas, and hasn’t earned back minutes since the final game of that series. Before Monday night, Golden State had also won each game since Salaün had her minutes reduced. Now that they’ve dropped a game, does Nakase give her more of a chance?
Golden State’s Game 2 shortcomings run deeper than their rotational decisions, and at the end of the day, Gabby Williams shot herself out of the game regardless of minutes. However, Nakase’s substitutions are one of the easiest adjustments she can make to give Atlanta a different look.
Keep an eye on who’s getting big minutes for the Valkyries as the series moves to Atlanta on Wednesday night.