The Valkyries have a playoff week — and a 1-seed still to chase
Natalie Nakase's Golden State is 31–11, a game behind Minnesota, with Portland tonight and the Sparks on Thursday. Kaitlyn Chen is a real bench piece now. The first round opens Sunday.
Kaitlyn Chen with the ball for Golden State at Indiana on May 22, 2026.
Photo: Sarah Stierch / CC0
The WNBA playoffs start Sunday. The Golden State Valkyries are already in. Natalie Nakase's team is a game behind Minnesota, with two games left and the 1-seed still open.
Golden State is 31–11, on a six-game winning streak. The Lynx are 32–11 and own the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Valkyries play the Portland Fire tonight and finish Thursday at the Los Angeles Sparks. Minnesota already lost 96–77 at Indiana on Tuesday and hosts the Fever again Thursday. Golden State has to win both remaining games, and the Lynx have to lose once more, or Minnesota stays No. 1.
They allow 75.4 points a night, fewest in the league, and they have won 21 of 25 since late June. Saturday's 70–57 win over Seattle closed the home regular season at 17–5. They have sold out every home game in each of their first two seasons.
Last year a 23–21 record still only bought an 8-seed and a first-round date with these same Lynx. Minnesota swept them. Game 2 in San Jose finished 75–74.
Kaitlyn Chen scored 17 off the bench Friday against Portland — a career-high five threes — in an 82–66 win after the World Cup break. Coming into this week she was at 6.8 points in 14.8 minutes, on 53.2 percent shooting and 40 percent from three.
She is 24, from San Marino, and the first player of Taiwanese descent drafted by a WNBA team. Golden State took her 30th overall in 2025, waived her, then brought her back. As a rookie she averaged 10 minutes and two points. This year Nakase kept her when the last guard spot got tight, and the mid-teen minutes have held.
Nakase is the first Asian American head coach in the league — a 5-foot-2 UCLA walk-on who spent a decade with the Clippers, starting in the video room, and won two titles as a Las Vegas assistant before Golden State hired her. She won Coach of the Year in year one. When the Valkyries clinched this second berth, she would not put on the commemorative T-shirt. "The goal is to be the team that wins their last game in the season," she said.
The first round is best-of-three and starts Sunday. A 1-seed is home court all the way through — including a Finals against Minnesota, if both get there.