Valkyries star Gabby Williams had a short and blunt answer when asked about what she liked about her team’s first half.
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“Nothing. We need to do better,” Williams said on the ION broadcast.
After a sluggish first half that left Williams unimpressed, Golden State answered the call in the second half. Despite following up a strong third quarter by nearly collapsing in the fourth, the Valkyries beat the Storm 76-72 to avoid a meltdown to one of the worst teams in the league.
Janelle Salaün came off the bench and scored a career-high 22 points. Williams added 19.
The Valkyries shot 36% from the field and 22% from the 3-point line, but held Seattle’s young frontcourt duo of Dominique Malonga and Awa Fam to just 17 points combined.
The home teams came out hot from the start, opening with an 18-8 run.
Golden State took a two-point lead at halftime, but it was not pretty.
The Valkyries shot 40% from the field and hit just four of their 19 3-point attempts. Veteran guard Natisha Hiedeman got going in the first half as she scored 13 of her game-high 26 points through the first two quarters.
But Golden State flipped the script in the third quarter.
Led by a barrage of buckets from Williams and Salaün, the Valkyries took a 66-53 lead going into the final 10 minutes.
With all the momentum, the Valkyries looked poised to cruise to an easy win. A few stops and a few buckets might have taken the young Storm’s heart.
But somehow, the Valkyries went cold and the Storm kept fighting.
Golden State didn’t score a point through the first five minutes of the fourth quarter. Seattle meanwhile chipped away at the Valkyries’ double-digit lead.
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With 50.3 seconds left, Malonga drew Salaün’s sixth foul and made two free throws to make the score 71-70.
On the next possession, Tiffany Hayes turned the ball over to give Seattle a shot at the lead. However, after the Valkyries got another stop, Hayes hit two free throws with 21.3 seconds left to give the Valkyries a three-point advantage.
On the ensuing possession, Jade Melbourne’s layup cut the Valkyries’ lead back to one. Williams added two more points to the lead, hitting two clutch free throws.
On Seattle’s last possession, starting center Kiah Stokes came up huge as she blocked Hiedeman’s pull-up 3-point attempt and won the jump ball after the two players got tied up on the rebound.
Nakase switches it up
The Valkyries desperately needed a spark after such a sluggish first half.
After starting the game with Cecilia Zandalasini and Kayla Thornton, Nakase opted to replace the veteran forwards with Salaün and veteran guard Tiffany Hayes.
The duo helped the Valkyries make their third-quarter push, combining for 10 of Golden State’s 26 points.
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