SAN FRANCISCO – At long last, the WNBA playoffs have arrived for the Golden State Valkyries. All of the games they've won, all the hours of film they've studied, all the time they've spent on and off the court, it all comes to a head as the Valkyries face the Dallas Wings in the two-versus-seven seed matchup of the first round. And as Golden State prepares for their second-straight playoff appearance, in just their second season in the WNBA, the team is embracing everything that has brought them to this moment.
“This is the message I'm giving to my teammates: just because it's playoffs doesn't mean do anything different than you've already been doing. Just be a more elevated version of yourself and what has brought us here,” All-Star forward Gabby Williams said after the Valkyries Saturday morning on the eve of Game 1. “Everything we do, our teaching of detail, the unselfishness of everybody, the way everyone's bought in– that to me is a winning culture. I think that's why we put ourselves in a really good position during these playoffs.”
The Valkyries' 2026 resume speaks for itself. With a 32-12 record, one of the best defenses in WNBA history, depth to the nines, and multiple players in contention for end-of-season awards, Golden State is well positioned to make a deep run in the postseason and accomplish its goal of winning a title within the first five years of its existence. They have the seeding, with only the Minnesota Lynx ahead of them in home-court advantage. They have the loudest crowd in the league in the form of Ballahalla. And they have the championship-caliber coaching of Natalie Nakase and her staff.
It's just about putting all of those things together when the spotlight hits the hardwood and the stakes of the playoffs spike astronomically. Starting with Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings.
The Valkyries' scout Paige Bueckers and the Wings
The key to whoever walks out of this series will be a chess match on the perimeter and at the point of attack.
“Ball pressure,” Williams noted, as one of the keys for the Valkyries in this series. “Picking them up full court, trying to make sure that, especially their heads of the snake, Paige and Arike (Ogunbowale), that they're under duress. That they don't have any easy looks.”
It's a bit like the riddle of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.
Bueckers is the Wings' unstoppable force, averaging 20.9 points on 51.2 percent from the field and 41.0 percent from the 3-point line, to go along with 5.9 assists and 4.1 rebounds in 42 games this season. As one of the best shotmakers in the league, with the best field goal percentage above expected (+12.1%) on one of the highest shot difficulties in the league (39.1 XFG%), the Valkyries described Bueckers as “the head of the snake” that is the Dallas attack.
But opposite her is the immovable object that is the Valkyries' defense. This season, Golden State generated a 99.1 defensive rating and held opponents to just 75.1 points per game, which is 7.6 points less than the next-best defense. Whether it's been hounding opponents with their legions of wing defenders, namely Williams, Veronica Burton, and Kaila Charles, or deterring anything at the rim thanks to Kiah Stokes and Kayla Thornton, the Golden State defense from top to bottom has few weak points to pry at.
For both teams' playoff preparation, they'll look to the regular-season series in which the Valkyries swept Dallas 3-0. But the last time they played was in August. And much has changed since then, namely the rise of Wings forward Awak Kuier, whose minutes and production have taken significant leaps since they last met. For Nakase, she's noticed how Dallas coach Jose Fernandez has also made some schematic changes to ease the pressure Bueckers faces in pick-and-rolls, which adds to their playoff prep but doesn't change their main focus of KYP: Know Your Personnel.
“He's changed a couple of sets, obviously, to free up Paige. She gets blitz a lot, so he's tweaked a couple of things,” Nakase explained. “But we also just want to just stay aggressive on their players, on their routes, on their tendencies. We just want to make sure that they take tough shots. But mainly, we take away their pace. They play fast, so it's just again meeting them early. Possibly, we're probably going to get cross-matched, and so everybody has to know everyone's tendencies.”
Article Continues BelowNatalie Nakase on playoff prep and what Dallas is doing differently since they last played:
“He’s changed a couple of sets to free up Paige. She gets blitzed a lot, so he's tweaked a couple of things. But we also just want to stay aggressive on their players.“ pic.twitter.com/qRS4yj9hQg
— Kenzo Fukuda (@kenzofuku) September 26, 2026
The Valkyries must overcome their offensive woes
The other key to this series will be how Golden State overcomes some of the offensive droughts they've been prone to all season long. When the Valkyries' high-volume 3-point offense is firing on all cylinders, they can blow teams out in one good three-minute run. But when it isn't, Golden State has serious stretches of disjointed and stagnant offense, exemplified best in their recent 90-82 overtime loss to the Portland Fire, a game in which they couldn't buy a bucket in crunch time.
But the way to solving that issue, Nakase explained, is to double down on their greatest strength: their defense.
“The way our defense can be a little bit (of our way) out of the (offensive) stickiness is getting stops. Getting stops, so we're pushing it in transition. That's our biggest thing. If we want to flow more, then we got to get stops,” the second-year coach said, a point she's been consistent about all season. Nakase used the example of how Williams closed out the Los Angeles Sparks in Nneka Ogwumike's farewell game, coming up with two steals in crunch time that got the Valkyries flowing, and by consequence, giving Williams the rhythm to knock down the two 3-pointers to win the game.
“We know we can control our defense,” Nakase stressed. “We don't know sometimes if we're going to shoot a high percentage, so we rely on that physicality, that lock in, and then we're going the other way.”
Regardless, the well-timed lesson the Valkyries took away from those two games heading into the playoffs is how important every possession is, both in the clutch and in playoff basketball.
“Understanding that one possession doesn't necessarily lose the game, but one possession can win the game,” Williams said, a takeaway from their close to the regular season that matches Burton's assessment of playoff basketball.
“The stakes are higher. (The regular season) doesn't matter. It's a complete reset. Everything is zero-zero. You're playing directly for it, and every game is kind of a do-or-die situation. But with that, we need to treat it mentally as we treat everything. The physicality ramps up. The fatigue can hit, but I think it just comes down to who can pay attention to details the most and who can be intentional and focused and play a complete game.”