A title before breakfast? WNBA Finals update, including scheduling flop
No Offseason Newsletter 🏀 | This is The Athletic’s women’s basketball newsletter. Sign up here to receive No Offseason directly in your inbox. Good morning! Golden State leads Atlanta 3-2 and is one win away from its first WNBA championship. Make sure you don’t oversleep during a potential trophy ceremony on Thursday. Coming up: 🏆 Finals update 🤡 Arena fiasco ❌ Fever offseason shakeup Let’s…
The Golden State Warriors are leading the Atlanta Dream 3-2 in the WNBA Finals, one win away from clinching the championship. A surprising figure in the series is Kiah Stokes, who has been the Finals MVP contender. Despite being a late substitution in the first game, Stokes has been instrumental in the Valkyries' defense. She shot three 3s in the pivotal Game 5 win and forced a missed 3 that led to an Aces win in the final seconds.
The Atlanta Dream, however, struggles with breaking the paint and getting second-chance opportunities. Their defensive struggles have been a major issue, especially against the top defenses in the series, including the trio of A'ja Wilson, Angel Reese, and Jessica Shepard. Reese, who was dominating the series earlier, has been struggling lately, shooting poorly and making more turnovers.
The Valkyries could potentially win their first WNBA championship on Thursday, April 11, in a game that has been rescheduled to 12:30 p.m. at Golden State's home arena, due to limited capacity. The reasons behind the late scheduling and poor final decisions are unclear, but the blame falls on the WNBA, the Dream, and even the NBA for not being more flexible in scheduling the championship game.
Written by urgent.news from Yahoo Sports's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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