Dieter Kurtenbach: 'Big Shot' Gabby Williams' evolution is the Valkyries' not-so-secret weapon entering the WNBA Finals

Dieter Kurtenbach, Bay Area News Group on Oct 16, 2026

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Yes, defense wins championships.

But what happens when both teams have a championship-caliber defense?

That, folks, is what we call a double-negative, so we have to get back to basics:

Buckets.

Defense gets you to the dance. Offense will pay for the parade.

Don’t kid yourself about why the Golden State Valkyries are playing for a WNBA championship in Year 2. Yes, the trademark defense is suffocating. But we knew that back in July when they were locking opposing teams into a windowless torture chamber — making that “Valkatraz” nickname all too fitting. In fact, we knew that in the franchise’s inaugural year.

But a gritty rock fight with scores barely nudging over the half-century mark is only fun until the shot clock dips below five in a close game and nobody on your roster can buy a bucket in the half-court.

That was the knock on Golden State — its perceived weakness — all summer, and it was entirely fair.

This team lived and died on prayers from deep. For all the grit and chaos of the Valks, their offense was rote. And that’s no way to win in the postseason.

Well, the Valkyries have answered the bell and silenced every skeptic.

If that continues in the WNBA Finals against the Atlanta Dream, you’re going to see a lot of violet on Market Street.

All credit in the world to Atlanta — they’re a great team and every bit the Valks’ defensive peer.

And with both teams are clamp-down juggernauts, the paint and the perimeter will be walled off with razor wire. That means this entire championship hinges on basketball’s most abandoned real estate — the area the analytics tell you to avoid: the midrange shot.

That means it’s Gabby Williams Time for Golden State.

Williams hasn’t just accepted the fact that the midrange is where the best shots are in the playoffs; she’s weaponized it.

In these playoffs, 30% of Williams’ shots have come between 10 feet out and the 3-point line, up from 21% in the regular season.

That might not sound like a massive jump on paper, but I assure you it’s a huge difference, especially in the W.

More importantly, she’s making them. After generating just 16% of her points from the midrange in the regular season on limited attempts, she is shooting 48% on four midrange attempts per game (fifth-highest in the league) in the postseason.

Meanwhile, midrange shooting is simply not Atlanta’s game. Dream star Rhyne Howard — Atlanta’s best high-minute midrange shooter — made one midrange bucket every three games during the regular season, and she’s only up to one every other game in the playoffs.

Williams didn’t come to the Bay Area to just be another cog in a great defensive machine. Don’t get me wrong, she’s doing that, too, named to the WNBA’s all-defense first team on Thursday. But she came here to take the biggest shots in the biggest games.

And when the time came to prove it, she has.

Remember the elimination game against Dallas? With the Valks trailing late, Williams buried a contested midrange pull-up that ripped the heart out of Texas.

Then she took her roadshow to Sin City. Sure, she missed two shots late in Game 3 to close the series in regulation, but in overtime against the defending champions, she isolated and drilled a 17-foot dagger — the biggest (long) two of her eight extra-frame points.

Through the first two rounds, Golden State hasn’t just survived on the offensive end — just getting enough for their world-class defense. No, they’ve posted the best offensive rating in the postseason.

An expansion franchise in its second year of existence is suddenly torching playoff defenses for 87 points a night.

The big difference? “Big Shot Gabby,” as dubbed by Tiffany Hayes earlier this postseason.

It’s a well-earned moniker.

Now comes the Dream, and this won’t be a polite exchange of pleasantries. It’s going to be a 40-minute brawl. The total points oddsmakers expect for Game 1 is 153 or 154.

As I said: defensive donnybrook.

And when legs feel like wet cement, the perimeter is a gantlet of swiping hands, the paint has a no-fly list, and the hoop looks like a thimble, fancy sets and the analytically correct thing to do disappear.

No, at that point, one must do whatever it takes to find the bottom of the basket. At this stage, with these two teams, with everything on the line, any good shot is a great shot — style points don’t count, but long 2s can.

Those shots will be there against the Dream.

Williams wants them.