{"id":922064,"date":"2026-10-05T23:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T23:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922064\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T23:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T23:26:10","slug":"dream-valkyries-open-wnba-semis-with-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/922064\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream, Valkyries open WNBA semis with wins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.miningjournal.net\/sports\/national-sports-apwire\/\" class=\"article_cat_label\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">National Sports<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                                            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/10-6-6b-wnba-playoffs-205x300.webp\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Dream forward Angel Reese, left, drives to the basket against New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu during the first half of Game 1 of the WNBA  semifinals on Sunday in Atlanta. (AP photo)<\/p>\n<p>ATLANTA (AP) &#8212; Jordin Canada scored 20 of her 25 points in the second half and had five steals to help the Atlanta Dream beat the New York Liberty 92-82 on Sunday in Game 1 of the best-of-five WNBA semifinals series.<\/p>\n<p>DeWanna Bonner added 23 points and helped fill the void when Allisha Gray went down with a left hand injury in the second quarter. Atlanta once again played stellar defense, scoring 32 points off 21 forced turnovers, including 16 in a dominant third quarter.<\/p>\n<p>New York trimmed a 16-point deficit down to five in the closing minutes, but a clutch 3-pointer by Canada just before the shot clock buzzer followed by another transition layup off a stop stemmed the tide. Sabrina Ionescu led the Liberty with 27 points and Breanna Stewart added 19.<\/p>\n<p>Valkyries 71, Aces 60<\/p>\n<p>At San Francisco, Gabby Williams had 25 points, 11 rebounds and five assists, Kiah Stokes added 14 rebounds and three blocked shots, and Golden State<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/10-6-6b-wnba-playoffs-205x300.webp\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Dream forward Angel Reese, left, drives to the basket against New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu during the first half of Game 1 of the WNBA  semifinals on Sunday in Atlanta. (AP photo)<\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1368540\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dream forward Angel Reese, left, drives to the basket against New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu during the first half of Game 1 of the WNBA  semifinals on Sunday in Atlanta. (AP photo)<\/p>\n<p> took Game 1 of the WNBA semifinals by beating defending champion Las Vegas 71-60 on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>A\u2019ja Wilson scored 24 points while Chelsea Gray contributed 16 points for Las Vegas, which lost guard Jewell Loyd to a left leg injury early in the third quarter. The team said she was being evaluated.<\/p>\n<p>Playing to chants of \u201cGabby! Gabby!\u201d from the sellout crowd at Chase Center, Williams scored 18 of her points on 6-for-10 shooting in the first half, including a 3-pointer that put Golden State ahead 32-23 with 5:43 left before halftime.<\/p>\n<p>Golden State coach Natalie Nakase was well enough to coach after she went down on the sideline near Golden State\u2019s bench with 1:40 remaining Friday night in a 77-73 comeback win to clinch the first-round series against Dallas. She was examined by a doctor during the day off Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Jackie Young\u2019s 3-pointer with 8:25 left pulled Las Vegas within 58-53. WNBA leading scorer and reigning MVP Wilson made 6 of 11 first-half shots for 15 points for the third-seeded Aces.<\/p>\n<p>It was a defensive, low-scoring game in which neither team shot particularly well &#8212; the Valkyries 37.7% to 33.9% for Las Vegas &#8212; after both went the distance in the best-of-three first round to advance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National Sports Dream forward Angel Reese, left, drives to the basket against New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":922065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[732,49,48,1612,3460,3457,36547,52454,132305,82,630],"class_list":["post-922064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golden-state-valkyries","tag-las-vegas-aces","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-playoffs","tag-pro-basketball","tag-semifinals","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/922065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}