{"id":942712,"date":"2026-10-27T12:16:40","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T12:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/942712\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T12:16:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T12:16:40","slug":"valkyries-could-clinch-wnba-title-before-clock-strikes-noon-at-home-because-an-nba-game-took-priority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/942712\/","title":{"rendered":"Valkyries could clinch WNBA title before clock strikes noon at home because an NBA game took priority"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA scheduled its potential championship-clinching game<\/a> for 12:30 p.m. ET Thursday, the league announced<\/a>, settling a logistical nightmare that appeared to have few satisfactory solutions. <\/p>\n

That means for California fans of the Golden State Valkyries, who are now one win away from a title, tip-off over the Atlanta Dream will happen over morning coffee about 9:30 a.m. PT. <\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t matter what time it is. At the end of the day, we just need 94 feet, two hoops and each other,\u201d Golden State center Kiah Stokes told reporters after her team\u2019s Game 5 win in San Francisco on Monday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as much as we love \u2018Ballhalla\u2019 [Chase Center in San Francisco], we don\u2019t want to come back here [for a Game 7],\u201d she continued. \u201cSo we need to go in with the mentality that we have to win. It\u2019s do or die.\u201d <\/p>\n

Game 6 had always been set for Thursday night in Georgia with its location and exact tipoff time listed as TBD because of a series of scheduling conflicts.<\/p>\n

The Dream\u2019s playoff home, State Farm Arena, has an Atlanta Hawks game scheduled for Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thank the NBA, Dream, Valkyries, Hawks, State Farm Arena and USA Network for the collaboration and flexibility that made this move possible,\u201d retiring WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert<\/a> said in a statement Monday afternoon. <\/p>\n

The Dream played most of its 2026 season at the 3,500-seat Gateway Center Arena at College Park, the league\u2019s smallest building. The team had been able to move major regular-season games and all playoff contests to State Farm Arena, the 17,000-seat home of the NBA\u2019s Atlanta Hawks.<\/p>\n

But with Game 6 set for Thursday, the same day as a 7 p.m. Hawks game against the Cleveland Cavaliers at State Farm, that big venue was not available for a primetime women\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

The Valkyries took a 3-2 series lead Monday night with a 64-55 victory <\/a>in San Francisco as the second-year franchise closed to within one triumph of winning it all.<\/p>\n

Golden State\u2019s West Coast fans will have to get to a TV by 9:30 a.m. PT and possibly pop champagne bottles before noon local time should the Valkyries wrap it up in Atlanta. <\/p>\n

In the WNBA\u2019s prepared statement, Engelbert did not address the odd start time and focused on the league\u2019s playing in front of a larger crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sellout crowds and extraordinary atmosphere of State Farm Arena for Games 3 and 4 were a tremendous success, and we\u2019re excited to give thousands more fans the opportunity to experience Game 6 with a championship on the line,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Game 6 will be televised on USA Network and stream on Peacock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Hawks game was moved to 8 p.m. ET for more time to prep State Farm Arena for NBA action.<\/p>\n

The WNBA, the arena, the broadcasters and the teams had to make adjustments just to get Games 3 and 4 into State Farm.<\/p>\n

Game 3 was moved up by one day to Wednesday<\/a>, rescheduled from Thursday, when State Farm played host to a Sombr concert.<\/p>\n

Game 4 was shifted to an earlier time Saturday, to 1 p.m. from 3:30 p.m. ET, so arena workers had enough time to convert State Farm for the Hawks\u2019 game against the Houston Rockets that night<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA scheduled its potential championship-clinching game for 12:30 p.m. ET Thursday, the league announced, settling a logistical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-942712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942712","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=942712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}