{"id":960810,"date":"2026-07-26T17:35:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/960810\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T17:35:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T17:35:21","slug":"valkyries-rolling-yet-face-some-stretch-run-realities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/960810\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries rolling, yet face some stretch-run realities"},"content":{"rendered":"

To quote the iconic Colonel John \u201cHannibal\u201d Smith of \u201cThe A Team<\/a>\u201d: \u201cI love it when a plan comes together.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the beginning, the Golden State Valkyries have had a clear plan. The coach who would lead them. The kind of players they wanted. The style they wanted to play. The expectations of ownership. The embrace of the Bay Area basketball fan base. And it has indeed come together.<\/p>\n

Golden State comes out of the All-Star break with a 19-8 record, good for second place in the league standings. They have won nine of 10 games, a nine-game winning streak ended at home last week with a tough loss to Washington.<\/p>\n

Deep, defensive-minded and benefitting from the addition of All-Star Gabby Williams<\/a> to a team-first group, the Valkyries have earned their position among the best teams in the WNBA as the season barrels toward the playoffs.<\/p>\n

But the path to the WNBA title runs through a pair of elite teams, some MVP contenders and another upstart.<\/p>\n

First-place Minnesota (22-6) have forward Napheesa Collier<\/a> back on the floor. After sitting out since last fall following surgery on both of her ankles, Collier returned on July 22 against the Seattle Storm to score 24 points with 10 rebounds. Adding Collier, one of the best players in the league (and the world) back to this roster \u2014 which already features rookie revelation Olivia Miles<\/a>, All-Star Natasha Howard<\/a> and the venerable Kayla McBride<\/a> \u2014 makes the Lynx a very scary team in the second half.<\/p>\n

A half game behind Golden State are the defending champion Las Vegas Aces at 18-8. A team with a four-time MVP in A\u2019ja Wilson and a roster of experienced championship-level talent.<\/p>\n

At this point, the WNBA title looks like it will run through either or both of those teams.<\/p>\n

Do the Valkyries, the league leader in scoring defense (76.4), bench scoring (35.4) and 3-pointers made (256), have everything they need in the final 17 games of the regular-season and then the playoffs to run through either of those teams?<\/p>\n

Listen now to The IX Sports Podcast & Women\u2019s Sports Daily<\/strong>
We are excited to announce the launch of TWO new podcasts for all the women\u2019s sports fans out there looking for a daily dose of women\u2019s sports news and analysis.
Stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you listen to your podcasts and make sure to subscribe!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at what the final stretch holds for Golden State:<\/p>\n

The schedule: <\/strong>Golden State will play 10 road games over the final stretch, including a nine-day, five-game road trip to Chicago, Minnesota, Connecticut, New York and Portland.<\/p>\n

Twelve of their final 17 games will come against teams currently with a sub .500 record, including two games against Toronto, three games against Portland and two games against Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

In fact, Golden State will face every one of the seven lowest teams in the current WNBA standings down the stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeams are getting better,\u201d said Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase. \u201cThey\u2019re going to be better after the break. Everyone is going to be looking at all of their losses and the things they can improve. My staff is already starting to think about what things we can do better. The main thing is we get healthy over the break and prepare for the postseason.<\/p>\n

The roadblocks: <\/strong>An Aug. 19 home game against Minnesota will surely be circled on the Valkyries\u2019 calendar as the Lynx are the only team in the WNBA that they have not yet beaten in their 1.5 years of existence. They will play again in Minneapolis on Aug. 24.<\/p>\n

The two games these two teams have played so far this season have been decided by a total of nine points. That means the Valkyries are close. But Collier\u2019s return may widen that gap.<\/p>\n

Dallas has the same ambitions that the Valkyries harbor in Golden State, to upend the conventional thought about who can win in 2026. Golden State won the first matchup in SF by 11 in mid-June. These teams will play two more times on Aug. 7 in Dallas and on Aug. 17 at Ballhalla, games that will likely figure very big in postseason positioning.<\/p>\n

Rep The IX Sports at your next game! <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shop the logo collection or special \u201cWomen\u2019s Sports are Front Page News\u201d collection now on Shopify.<\/p>\n

The realities:<\/strong> Defense can lead to titles in the WNBA. Shots might not fall on a given night, but defense can always show up and the Valkyries have proven themselves there.
The offense is another matter. For all of their depth \u2014 and the Valkyries are the best team in the WNBA in bench contributions, riding players such as Janelle Salaun, Kaitlyn Chen<\/a> and Tiffany Hayes<\/a> on any given night \u2014 the Mystics outscoring the Valks 17-2 in the final minutes of their loss on July 20 showed that a go-to scorer may be the one thing they still need. This team needs someone who can get them a bucket when it matters most.<\/p>\n

Will the Aug. 2 trade deadline be an opportunity to get one? Hard to say. The Valkyries are clear that they like who they have, that the roster they\u2019ve constructed gives them the best chance to play the selfless, intense, defensive-minded basketball that is their identity. Would they be willing to disrupt their chemistry for a late-season boost of offense?<\/p>\n

Could they get a Kelsey Plum<\/a> (if she is available) or even a Skylar Diggins? And would they be willing to give up what it takes to get them at the expense of their carefully constructed roster?<\/p>\n

More questions than answers. And 17 games to go to get some, starting on Wednesday against the Mercury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of the way we\u2019ve shown up,\u201d said point guard Veronica Burton<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve competed at home and on the road. We\u2019ve gotten close. We\u2019ve stuck together and I think we have shown just how good of a team we are and how we play true team basketball. We are very deep and we are ready to continue on with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your business can reach women\u2019s sports fans who share your passion!<\/strong>

<\/strong>Here at The IX Sports, our audience is a collection of the smartest, most passionate women\u2019s sports fans in the world. If your business has a mission to serve these fans, you should reach out to our team at BAlarie@theixsports.com<\/a> to discuss ways to work together in 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To quote the iconic Colonel John \u201cHannibal\u201d Smith of \u201cThe A Team\u201d: \u201cI love it when a plan…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":880194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[9769,2473,43951,9770,5610,2336,17271,88622,62,9771,67,132,68,43950,232],"class_list":["post-960810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-gabby-williams","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-janelle-salaun","tag-kaitlyn-chen","tag-kelsey-plum","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-natalie-nakase","tag-ohemaa-nyanin","tag-sports","tag-tiffany-hayes","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-veronica-burton","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116987490842146379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}