The Golden State Valkyries beat the Atlanta Dream 68-63 on Saturday night to win a championship in only their second season of existence.
Zoom in: Finals MVP Gabby Williams scored her team's final 11 points of the third quarter and 30 for the game at a sold-out Chase Center. Veronica Burton, cut by Dallas two years ago, corralled a jump ball and sank two free throws with 5.1 seconds left to seal it.
- "Gabby is our closer, she stayed patient, she stayed with it," coach Natalie Nakase said. "Closing with 30!"
By the numbers: This was the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history. Jordin Canada scored 18 for Atlanta, Allisha Gray 16, and Angel Reese finished with eight points and 12 rebounds as the Dream fell short in the franchise's fourth Finals try. Kiah Stokes, now a four-time champion, grabbed 13 rebounds.
The backstory: Golden State went 23-21 in its expansion season and exited in the first round. Signing Williams lifted it to a 32-12 record, then past the Dallas Wings and the Las Vegas Aces. Atlanta had swept Washington and New York to reach the Finals.
- "All it took was good people," Williams said, recalling the preseason verdict on her team: "All we heard last year was we don't have no stars. Yeah right! We got winners."
The big picture: The WNBA set an attendance record of 3.8 million fans across 330 regular-season games, up 21% on last year's high, per the league. ESPN, ABC and CBS each delivered their most-watched WNBA season ever, and three times as many games averaged at least 1 million viewers as the previous record.
Why it matters: A two-year-old expansion team just won a title in front of a sellout crowd during the league's best-attended season, which is the strongest demand signal the WNBA has produced: records at the gate, records on television, and a first-time champion in year two.
