Looking to hand the visiting Atlanta Dream their first set of consecutive losses this season, the Golden State Valkyries go for a two-game series sweep on Friday in San Francisco.
Golden State (11-7) held Atlanta (12-5) to just nine second-quarter points en route to a 77-66 victory on Wednesday. The Valkyries, led by Gabby Williams’ 23 points and Kayla Thornton’s 17, snapped the Dream’s four-game winning streak.
Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase understands her team will have to prepare for a motivated Atlanta squad in the rematch.
“You’re going to have a very upset, angry team,” Nakase said. “We have to expect a different toughness from them. We know that they have it because that’s who they are. We have to maintain humility through this win.”
Golden State shot 46.9% (15 of 32) on 3-point attempts — its second-best outside shooting clip this year. The Valkyries shot 48% (12 of 25) in a home victory against the Dallas Wings on June 17.
Atlanta, meanwhile, made a season-low four 3-pointers (on 18 attempts) in its lowest-scoring output of the year. Despite the lackluster offensive performance, the Eastern Conference-leading Dream will have an opportunity to even the score on Friday.
“I don’t think we’re going to overreact to this,” Atlanta coach Karl Smesko said. “We’ll watch film. We’ll see where the execution was a little bit sloppy. We missed a bunch of free throws (12-for-22), we missed a bunch of open threes, a lot of layups at the rim. The only adjustment is to make those at a higher percentage.”
A bright spot was the production from rookie center Madina Okot on a night that Atlanta’s leading scorers Allisha Gray (18.8 points per game) and Rhyne Howard (18.7) finished with eight points and 12 points, respectively. Gray sustained an upper-body injury in the final minute of the third quarter and didn’t play the rest of the game but is not on the injury report for Friday.
A first-round draft pick out of South Carolina, Okot has averaged just 9.5 minutes off the bench, but has combined to score 34 points in her last two games. The 21-year-old led the team with 16 points on Wednesday.
“She’s been getting more minutes every night,” Smesko said of Okot. “She’s earned more minutes. She is somebody that plays really hard and after three or four minutes, she needs a break. I don’t know how many minutes she’ll get (on Friday), but I think she’ll be a consistent presence.”
–Field Level Media
