Kiah Stokes Is The Unlikely Star Of These Grueling WNBA Finals

SAN FRANCISCO — Moments after the Golden State Valkyries wrapped up a dominant, ugly, 64-55 Game 5 win, the home PA announcer pulled in Valkyries center Kiah Stokes for an on-court interview. The crowd roared its approval with such deafening force that Stokes was completely drowned out. I wish I could tell you a single thing she said, though the crowd’s “MVP!” chant was clear.

The idea of a player who’s averaging 4.3 points per game in the playoffs winning Finals MVP may seem a little ridiculous on its face, but these are no typical WNBA Finals, and Stokes is no typical defense-first center. These are the Finals of anti-basketball, the flow of the game only rarely doing anything besides oozing or sludging along as each team’s excellent defense neutralizes their relatively inept counterparts. Stokes is more responsible for this than anyone else in these Finals, both for the way she’s made the paint a zone of impossibility for the Dream, but also for her own peculiar offensive contributions. The box score captures some of what makes Stokes so special, though most of her impact eludes quantification. If you can see it, it’s in the size of her shadow, an Angel Reese 2-for-8 night here, nine steals for Stokes’s teammates there. Watch these Finals closely, and you’ll see Stokes at the center of everything.