Natalie Nakase’s Valkyries swept the Aces and made the Finals in year two

Natalie Nakase tried to walk the tunnel at Michelob ULTRA Arena with her head down. Becky Hammon, the coach who hired her into the WNBA, was the opponent she had just beaten. Golden State’s 87–77 overtime win on Friday closed a three-game sweep of the defending champion Las Vegas Aces. “This is a dream come true to be going to a Finals in our second year,” Nakase said.

The lead took until the third quarter. Golden State went scoreless for the first three minutes and never led in the first half. Chelsea Gray, the Aces guard, scored Las Vegas’s first eight points of the second quarter on a string of off-balance jumpers, and the Aces took a nine-point lead into the break. Then Tiffany Hayes stole an inbounds pass under her own basket and fed Kiah Stokes — a champion in this building in 2022 and 2023 — in transition. Golden State ran off 17 straight. Kaitlyn Chen checked in for Veronica Burton and, with 3:25 left, scored on a driving layup from four feet. It was 48–47, the first lead of the night. She found Stokes in the corner for a three that made it 53–47. Las Vegas scored seven points in the quarter, tied for the fewest the Aces have ever put up in a playoff period.

The fourth got messy again. Gabby Williams stole the ball from A’ja Wilson and hit Kayla Thornton for a layup that tied it at 69 with 1:50 left. Burton scored to put Golden State back ahead. Stokes blocked a Wilson jumper, the rebound got away, and Jackie Young tied it on the inbounds. In the huddle before overtime, Burton pulled them in and told them this was their time. Golden State won the extra five minutes 16–6 and made all eight free throws. Williams scored eight of her 16 in that period, including a step-back with 54.7 seconds left. Thornton finished with 18 and made the last two free throws. Eight Valkyries scored at least six.

Wilson had just been handed a fifth MVP trophy before tip. She shot 6-for-19 and scored 21. Las Vegas had won three of the past four titles, and the series was already bent before Friday. Game 1 at Chase Center was 71–60, a season low for the Aces, with Williams at 25 points, 11 rebounds, and five assists. Game 2 was 83–81. Burton’s three with 41 seconds left was the shot that held, after Hayes had scored 21 to build the cushion. Before that game, Hammon had said leaving San Francisco with a split was the point. She left down 0–2. There was no fourth game.

Nakase spent the postgame on the whole roster. “I told them that I was proud of our whole team, all 14, because I saw another fight tonight,” she said. “We talked about leveling up one more as a team, and I think that overtime proved strength in numbers. We really left it all out there on the floor. We really emptied the tank.” She is the first Asian American head coach in the league — a 5-foot-2 walk-on at UCLA who came up through a Clippers video room, then won titles in 2022 and 2023 as one of Hammon’s assistants. Last year she was Coach of the Year and an 8-seed. Minnesota swept that first-round series. When this year’s berth was clinched in September, she would not put on the commemorative T-shirt. The goal, she said then, was to be the team that wins its last game. Friday is what made that game a Finals game.

The basket that put Golden State in front belonged to Chen. She is 24, from San Marino, the first player of Taiwanese descent taken in a WNBA draft. Golden State picked her 30th in 2025, waived her, and brought her back. In Game 1, Burton sat with 7:29 left in the third and did not return. Nakase stayed with Chen, who scored 11. “Kaitlyn Chen was fresh and I’m playing a fresh Kaitlyn Chen,” Nakase said that night. On Friday the stint was shorter. She also scored Golden State’s last four points of the first quarter — two free throws and an 11-footer — while the Aces still led. The layup was the first time her team was ahead on the night they ended Las Vegas’s season.

Joe Lacob hired Nakase and general manager Ohemaa Nyanin with the same clock he put on the Warriors after he bought that team in 2010: a championship within five years. The Warriors used all five. The Valkyries need four more wins to do it in two. Williams, who had eight points through regulation and then took the extra period, said the group had gone the year without much belief from outside and that it had made them smile. “All we need is each other.”

Atlanta swept the Liberty the same night, 85–83, with Angel Reese — the Defensive Player of the Year — scoring 22. New York had been the No. 8 seed and had already knocked off top-seeded Minnesota. The Dream’s own Finals history is a longer ache. They were swept in 2010, 2011, and 2013: nine championship games, none of them wins. Hayes, who had 20 points for Atlanta in the 2013 closeout, had 11 for Golden State on Friday, and the steal that started the 17–0 was hers. The Valkyries already beat this Dream three times between June 24 and July 4. Two of those were at Chase Center, where they are 4–0 in these playoffs after going 17–5 at home in the regular season. Game 1 is Saturday, October 17, at 12:30 p.m. Pacific, on NBC. Best of seven.

Burton stood in the tunnel and called the night a dream, then said they were not done. Hammon is the coach who invited Nakase into the league. Nakase is the one with home court. The series that decides who wins the last game starts a week from Saturday, in San Francisco.