The Golden State Valkyries are now one win away from a WNBA championship in the franchise's second year of existence. The No. 2 seed put together a decisive 64-55 victory against the Atlanta Dream on Monday night, with an "MVP" chant-worthy performance from Kiah Stokes (13 points (3-4 from beyond the arc), eight rebounds, three blocks) and three other Valkyries—Veronica Burton, Tiffany Hayes, and Cecilia Zandalasini—scoring in double digits. Golden State held Angel Reese to just seven points (2-8 FG).
Despite the on-court successes of the Valkyries, much of this Game 5 seemed to be won in the things we couldn't see between the lines. Before the game, Kaila Charles said the mental preparation for the Finals started well before the playoffs began.
"It's not like you just turn on the switch. It's the habits you built over the year," said Charles. Even though the Maryland alum has never herself played in the Finals—like Gabby Williams, Burton, and much of the Valkyries roster—she's been that calming force on the floor by doing the little things: diving for loose balls, forcing jump balls, the list goes on. "That was the big thing that we've been preaching all year: being composed, especially with the pressure."
The focus is just as important during the moments when the ball isn't in play. For the Valkyries, something as small as how you physically hold your body can be the difference between a performance like Game 3 and one like Monday's.
"When your teammate's head is down, [or] maybe someone's not as engaged after missing a shot, little things like that trickle down to someone else and seep into each other. So it's all of us," said Burton.
The Valkyries are battle-tested
Golden State will tell you themselves: it took a lot of adversity to get where they are today. "We had battle tested moments with the game in LA [September 24th 76-75 win], the game with Dallas [108-100 OT loss in the second round of the playoffs], the series with the Aces," recalled Charles. "We were tested and we had to...build on that, and so it's just a matter of the work that we put in all year."
Ahead of Game 1 of the series, Burton remarked that the October version of the Valkyries was vastly different than the team that swept the Dream 3-0 in the regular season. "We've continued to just win in different ways; in different fashions. We've won close games. We've held leads, we've had overtime games...I think we've just grown to be a more complete team," she said.
It's through these wins that the Valkyries have learned how to push each others buttons: Coach Natalie Nakase took all of the blame for the Valkyries' shortcomings in Games 1, 2, and 3 , giving herself an "F-minus", and said the biggest shift in mindset between Games 3 and 4 came from her delivery. She knows her mind sometimes runs a mile a minute, and she's learned to slow herself down and to poll players like Stokes and Burton about what she could be doing better to prepare the team to snag wins.
A masterclass in affirmation
When we speak about the mental aspect of sports, we usually are referring to the toughness required to keep balling when times get tough and refs aren't calling fouls and shots refuse to fall. The Valkyries have plenty of mental toughness, yes, but they've struck a balance between it and gentleness (from player to player, from player to coach and vice versa) that makes this team's wins that much more satisfying to watch.
After Game 5, the crowd at Chase Center, or Ballhalla for the initiated, chanted "M-V-P" for Stokes after her highest scoring game since June 26th against none other than the Dream. Williams, the Valkyries' other strongest contender for the Finals MVP award if they were to win the 2026 championship, lit up and joined in on the chants as if she'd paid to watch Stokes like the 18,000 fans in the building. In her postgame interview, Zandalasini said she wanted to chant "Kiah" with the crowd because of how well she's been playing, and Burton told media postgame that it's simply "so nice" to be on a team with the veteran center.
Soon after, the attention shifted back to Burton, and Coach Nakase asserted that she believed she was the best point guard in the league in response to learning that, in Games 4 and 5, Burton played 75 minutes and only recorded two turnovers.
This is the kind of talk that allows the Valkyries to play with as much joy as they do. As Burton said, "You wanna run through a brick wall when you love the people around you."
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