The Golden State Valkyries secured the first WNBA championship in franchise history on Saturday, edging the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in a dramatic Game 7 that capped a season of unprecedented growth for the league.
Gabby Williams powered the Valkyries with 30 points, 4 blocks and 3 steals in 38 minutes on the floor.
"All we heard last year: We don't have no stars, we don't have no talent," Williams said after the game. "Yeah right. We got good people. We got winners."
For Atlanta, Jordin Canada led the scoring with 18 points while contributing 5 assists and 4 rebounds. Dream superstar Angel Reese never found her rhythm, managing 8 points on 3-of-7 shooting in 33 minutes.
The result marked the first time a team has won a WNBA title in a Game 7, as the league shifted from a five-game Finals format to a seven-game series beginning last year. The Valkyries lifted the trophy in only their second season of existence, while the Dream fell to 0-4 in WNBA Finals appearances.
The championship closed a landmark 2026 campaign for the league. According to the WNBA, a record 3.8 million fans attended 330 regular season games, and average attendance rose 21% over last year's previous record high. ESPN, ABC and CBS each posted their most-watched seasons ever, and the league had three times as many games averaging at least 1 million viewers as the prior record set last year.
Golden State, owned by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, who also own the NBA's Golden State Warriors, went 23-21 in its inaugural season and exited in the first round of the playoffs. After signing Williams in the offseason, the Valkyries surged to a 32-12 regular season record, then eliminated the Paige Bueckers-led Dallas Wings and the A'ja Wilson-led Las Vegas Aces to reach the Finals. Atlanta arrived unbeaten in the postseason, sweeping the Kiki Iriafen-led Washington Mystics and the Breanna Stewart-led New York Liberty.
The series swung back and forth. Golden State took Game 1 at home 68-64 behind 26 points from Williams, but Atlanta answered with two dominant wins fueled by Reese, who delivered 30 points and 16 rebounds in Game 2 and 21 points and 12 rebounds in Game 3. Reese then went cold in Games 4 and 5, shooting a combined 4-of-20 for 15 points as the Valkyries grabbed control of the series.
Game 6 in Atlanta drew attention off the court as well. The game tipped off at 12:30 p.m. because the Atlanta Hawks were scheduled to play at State Farm Arena that Thursday night. The Dream play their regular season games at Gateway Center Arena, which holds just 3,500 fans compared with about 17,000 at State Farm Arena. In a statement, Dream owners Larry and Robyn Gottesdiener, Suzanne Abair and Renee Montgomery said they raised concerns two months earlier that the Finals schedule conflicted with NBA games at the arena, adding, "Our concerns did not receive the attention, nor the urgency that they deserved." The Dream still sold out the building despite the early start.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the league preferred staging the game at State Farm Arena, calling the sellout crowds and atmosphere for Games 3 and 4 "a tremendous success" and thanking the NBA, both teams, the Hawks, the arena and USA Network for the collaboration that made it possible.
