Dieter Kurtenbach: The Valkyries' Game 6 no-show was a disaster -- and sets up an epic Game 7
Published in Basketball
If you’re a Golden State Valkyries fan who missed Game 6 of the WNBA Finals because it tipped off just after 9:30 a.m. in America’s finest time zone, count your blessings.
You didn’t miss much, because the Atlanta Dream didn’t miss much of anything from the opening tip.
If you did, in fact, ditch work to watch that unmitigated disaster of a close-out opportunity from Golden State, the lone silver lining is that you could’ve slunk into the office before your coworkers’ morning coffee kicked in.
You could sit at your desk, nod knowingly and pretend you were grinding the whole time.
The Valks cannot do the same.
There are dud performances, and then there’s the loud, resonant thwump the Valkyries made Thursday morning.
This game was over just moments after it started. It ended 80-69, but don’t let that scoreline fool you — it was all Dream.
Golden State’s trademark, boa-constrictor defense? Completely absent. Atlanta drained as many 3-pointers in the opening quarter as it did in the entirety of Game 5.
Any semblance of shotmaking from Golden State? It didn’t make the cross-country flight.
That reality set in fast when Veronica Burton missed two point-blank layups on consecutive possessions during the first quarter. On the first, she took a shot to the face; on the second, she got kicked while falling on the hardwood. Neither foul was called, neither basket was made.
Just one of those mornings.
Five minutes in, Atlanta led 14-5. Then it was 19-5. Then 31-10.
By the time the horn sounded on the first quarter, the Dream had put up 32 points on an absurd 11-of-15 shooting from the floor. It marked the first time in franchise history that the Valkyries surrendered 30 or more points in an opening frame.
Fin.
The Valkyries eventually trailed by as many as 25. They never once sniffed even a faint whiff of competitiveness — even with a late 14-3 Valks run with a bit under six minutes remaining, that only pulled it to within 8. And then the Valks missed three straight 3-pointers.
Maybe this no-show was simply a classic body-clock failure. We already saw what a brutal cross-country trek for an early kickoff in Atlanta did to the 49ers on Sunday. Apparently, the sports gods mandated two morning beatdowns in Georgia in five days for Bay Area title contenders.
Maybe it was what happens when a roster whose entire tactical playbook reads “play with desperation” collides with an opponent facing actual extinction. Atlanta had to win or stay home. The Dream played like it and the Valkyries couldn’t match anything they did. Perhaps Golden State was still in its own dream-like state.
Or maybe it was just basic basketball regression. In this league, the (justified) expectation is that shots from deep — open or contested — won’t fall. And for the last two games, they didn’t for the Dream. Then on Thursday, Atlanta hit everything it hurled toward the rim.
It was, simply put, a wretched day at the office for the Valks. Those who sheepishly clocked in by 10:30 a.m. can certainly relate.
Now, the entire championship chase boils down to 40 minutes on Saturday in San Francisco.
It tips off at a civilized 5 p.m. In a venue secured well in advance.
That alone will be a welcome change.
How do the Valkyries respond? Probably the only way they know how: by trying harder.
There was no late-game schematic breakthrough on Thursday. No throw-it-against-the-wall lineup or clever lets-try-this-out offensive wrinkle that coach Natalie Nakase used in Game 6 that she can bottle up and bring into Saturday’s winner-take-all showdown. There’s nothing on Thursday’s defensive film Nakase can point to other than telling her squad, “Don’t do that again.”
In a series that’s hovered roughly half a step above an unsanctioned parking lot brawl, Game 7 will feature two exhausted teams with identical incentives and the exact same game plan: out-scrap the other side.
The deciding edge won’t come from chalkboard wizardry. It’ll probably come down to the home crowd, the whistle that might come with it.
Yes, it’ll be Kiah Stokes battling Angel Reese in the trenches, Jordin Canada trading paint with Burton, and Gabby Williams going toe-to-toe with Allisha Gray to make big shots. But, really, Game 7 will be determined by the undefined but readily apparent concept of who wants it more.
The Valkyries spent Thursday morning looking like a team that wished it were anywhere else. On Saturday, they have the luxury of 18,000 screaming partisans demanding they leave a piece of themselves on the hardwood.
There won’t be any beauty in it. There probably won’t be any rhythm, either.
It’s going to be ugly, hostile and utterly exhausting — exactly the way a Game 7 should be. Exactly the way these teams want it.
And don’t get to script a storybook ending if you aren’t willing to absorb a few punches to the jaw along the way.
Golden State took its beating in Georgia Thursday.
Now we find out if they have enough to hit back once again.
____
©2026 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.







Comments