Gabby Williams And The Valks Are Golden

SAN FRANCISCO — What now? Any ideas? The Golden State Valkyries trailed Atlanta by six at halftime, and every point in this series felt like a hundred. The Valks will tell you theirs is an “egoless” team, one on which no one is above a scramble for a loose ball or a box-out. Zero All-WNBA players. Zero MVPs. The concept of “MV” wouldn’t even sit right with them. That spirit carried them far in the regular season, kept them fresh for the postseason, and made them nimble enough to handle a mid-series shake-up to the starting lineup. So committed were they to this formula that even six games in, Finals MVP really was anyone’s for the taking. Only no one was taking it. If you have 10 stars on your team, you have none. 

Basketball is a team sport, but even its team-iest sequences end in something individual. For the ball to get through the net, one player has to entertain a selfish thought: I am taller than you, or I am stronger than you, or I can get this shot up faster than you can get here. Gabby Williams, Golden State’s only All-Star selection this year, was brought here in the offseason to be that player. But for six games, scoring—even finding decent shots to take—had been a pain for her, and 20 minutes into the seventh, it didn’t seem like the struggle was letting up. She finished with two points at the half, having scored zero in the first quarter and the two on only one field goal attempt in the second. At some point in the third, though, you could see it all dawn on her. She is stronger than the Dream’s point guard, Jordin Canada, whom she hunted in switches. She is a former track champion who is faster than everyone else on the floor. Just like that, she was the most confident player out there, her heat-check threes bringing life back into Ballhalla in a 28-point second half for the ages.

When it all clicked, Williams solved two problems: After a 68-63 Game 7 win in a sometimes stomach-turning series, the Golden State Valkyries are WNBA champions in the franchise’s second year. The eventual Finals MVP finished with 30 points, three rebounds, two assists, two steals and four blocks.