{"id":915069,"date":"2026-10-03T21:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T21:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/915069\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T21:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T21:00:13","slug":"wnba-playoffs-valkyries-rally-from-16-down-to-oust-wings-and-reach-last-four-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/915069\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA playoffs: Valkyries rally from 16 down to oust Wings and reach last four | WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gabby Williams scored 19 points and hit a go-ahead 17-footer with 1:17 remaining, and the Golden State Valkyries<\/a> won a late replay review to complete a rally from 16 points down and beat the Dallas Wings 77-73 on Friday night in a wild deciding Game 3 of their first-round WNBA playoff series.<\/p>\n

With 13.1 seconds left and Golden State leading by one, Williams jumped back inbounds to corral her own miss on a play that was originally ruled Dallas\u2019 ball, but Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase \u2013 who moments earlier had fallen to her knees on the sideline before being helped up \u2013 successfully challenged the call. Nakase walked off the court escorted by a member of her staff after the final buzzer, holding her face as the team celebrated at midcourt.<\/p>\n

The team said afterward that she was fine and expected to coach Sunday in Game 1, but assistant coach Kasib Powell addressed the media in the postgame news conference where Nakase typically speaks.<\/p>\n

The Valkyries will be back at rocking Ballhalla for the series opener, with the team\u2019s deafening, violet-crazed home crowd at Chase Center.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Arike Ogunbowale knocked down an off-balance jumper with 3:13 to play that put Dallas up by five and finished with 30 points, following a 45-point performance in the Wings\u2019 overtime win Wednesday night at home.<\/p>\n

Williams scored all but two of her points after halftime. Veronica Burton had 16 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. Burton\u2019s layup with 8:19 to play pulled the Valkyries within 61-59, Williams hit two three-pointers late in the third and they both willed Golden State into the best-of-five semi-finals against the defending WNBA<\/a> champions, the Las Vegas Aces.<\/p>\n

Tiffany Hayes scored 18 points off the bench, Kaila Charles hit a tying three-pointer with 6:51 left and Kiah Stokes pulled down 13 rebounds.<\/p>\n

The second-seeded Valkyries won a playoff series for the first time. Last year, they became the first expansion team to reach the playoffs in their inaugural season.<\/p>\n

Arike Ogunbowale drives against Veronica Burton during the fourth quarter of the Dallas Wings\u2019 77-73 loss to the Golden State Valkyries in Game 3 of their first-round WNBA playoff series on Friday in San Francisco. Photograph: Stephen Lam\/San Francisco Chronicle\/AP<\/p>\n

Paige Bueckers had 17 points and six assists but shot only 3-for-14 for Dallas, making all 10 of her free throws.<\/p>\n

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The Valkyries missed three straight three-pointers and nine shots in a row overall to start the third quarter as Dallas used a 9-0 run to take their largest lead at 53-37. Golden State pulled within 59-54 heading into the final 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

Ogunbowale was 11-for-21 after scoring a playoff-record 45 points in the Wings\u2019 108-100 overtime win Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

That prompted Nakase to declare before the game: \u201cWe made a promise to ourselves we are going to play the best four quarters of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the Valkyries didn\u2019t recognize themselves in that game \u2013 even though the team had scored 100 or more points in the first two matchups, including a 104-80 win in the series opener last Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabby Williams scored 19 points and hit a go-ahead 17-footer with 1:17 remaining, and the Golden State Valkyries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":915070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-915069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}