There's no questioning that the Golden State Valkyries are the underdogs in their very first WNBA playoff series– they've drawn the No. 1-seeded Minnesota Lynx in the first round. And while the Valkyries' feel-good season has been nothing less than magical, it's hard to see them upsetting MVP-candidate Napheesa Collier and company, a team that fell just short of the title last season.
Minnesota leads the league in offensive rating (109.5), defensive rating (97.5), and net rating (12.1). They're first in field goal percentage and 3-point percentage, shooting 47.2% and 37.8% respectively. Opponents have shot only 42.3% from the field when facing them, all while coughing up an average of 15.4 turnovers a game.
You can pick any Lynx statistic, traditional or advanced. More likely than not, it will only make you believe that this is their season and everyone else is just a page in their storybook run to the championship.
But that's not how Golden State views this series, according to MIP-favorite Veronica Burton.
“I think every single team in this league is beatable,” Burton said in response to a question about the Valkyries' confidence level after falling to Minnesota in the final game of the season.
“We can compete with anyone. And when we're doing what we talk about doing, when we're connected and on the same page… I mean, for sure, we're confident… So we know we're right there and the playoffs are a clean slate.”
The first hurdle to pulling off an upset is belief. And it's clear the Valkyries believe. They believe in themselves, in each other, and their ability to translate that connectivity into winning basketball. Can they do the impossible? Only time will tell. For now, here are three bold predictions for the Valkyries' round one matchup with the Lynx.
Valkyries will hold the Lynx to fewer than 80 points in every game this series
If there is a pathway to Golden State pulling off a 1-8 upset, it starts with slowing down the Minnesota offense. That's mostly because the Valkyries are going to have an extremely hard time maintaining their own offensive output.
The Lynx's offense has strangled Golden State this season, collecting a subpar 93.1 offensive rating in their four games this season. The Valkyries have gone 32-for-128 from beyond the arc versus Minnesota this season (25.0%). And while COTY contenderNatalie Nakase‘s not going to budge from shooting a high volume of threes, they're going to have to drag the Lynx into the mud if they want the triples they do hit to stick.
But defense is the strength of this Valkyries squad. Golden State holds its opponents to a league-best 40.4% from the field. Opponents also shoot a measley 31.7% from beyond the arc, which is just 0.2% off from the league best New York Liberty in that category.
They play a highly schemed, team-oriented brand of defense that has a way of causing opponents trouble on that end of the court. Nakase talks often about taking away what opponents do best, what opposing stars do best. In this matchup, it will certainly come down to game planning around Collier. The only problem with that is the fact that the second and third best things she does are pretty darn deadly.
Not to mention the Lynx have killed Golden State in transition this season. They've uncorked some of these impressive Valkyrie defensive games by making them run. StudBudz Natisha Hiedeman and Courtney Williams' performances against them are proof of that. But playoff basketball is inherently more physical, which helps the Valkyries' defense. It's also not that high a bar: Minnesota has scored 72, 78, 82, and 86 versus Golden State this season.
Cecilia Zandalasini will be the series X-Factor
A quiet plotline in this series is the fact that this is a potential revenge series for Valkyries' Cecilia Zandalasini, who was on the Lynx in their run to the finals last season. Golden State acquired Zandalasini through the expansion draft, and she's been a big part of their success this year, averaging 10.5 points on 40.7% from beyond the arc.
But those stats don't demonstrate how good Zandalasini was playing before suffering a calf injury that cost her eight games. Between July 29 and August 17, Zandalasini averaged 15.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.4 assists on 54.8% from the field and 51.4% from beyond the arc. And in the seven games Zandalasini played, the Valkyries went 5-2.
The offense just makes a lot more sense with Zandalasini in the shooting guard spot next to Burton. The Valkyries' ball-movement heavy offense flows better when she can run off-ball actions off of Janelle Salaün and Iliana Rupert, two great shooters in their own right. Not to mention her underrated on-ball creation and playmaking lessens Burton's offensive burden, giving her more stamina to use elsewhere.
She looked rusty in her first two games back, having yet to make a 3-pointer. But Nakase has faith in her sharpshooter.
“Her misses, they [were] like, in and out,” Nakase said after the last game. “Ceci's good, we 100% believe in her. Let it fly mentality. If she has an open shot, we want her to let it go. I thought she had great rhythm, I thought she had great timing with screens. I thought she played really well.”
A lot of the offensive weaknesses Minnesota was able to exploit in the last two matchups would have been a lot harder to prod at with Zandalasini at full-tilt. The Valkyries' offense, and the series, hinges on Zandalasini returning to form.
Golden State will make this series a dog-fight
My first two predictions fit the criteria of bold, but they were both still tied to logic. But logic dictates that the Lynx sweep through this series with little to no effort. With the talent up and down the roster, the veteran experience, and one of the greatest basketball coaches in Cheryl Reeve, all signs point to Minnesota turning on the burners and officially kicking off their title campaign.
However, while it's undeniable that the Lynx have an advantage in nearly every important facet of basketball, I believe it's equally undeniable that it's not in the Valkyries' nature to roll over. Their underdog traits, the killer mentality Nakase brings up whenever possible, and the franchise-wide emphasis on connectivity are all carved into the very fibers of their DNA.
Those intangibles go a long way in a basketball game. This Valkyries season is proof of that. They overcame the toils of a first-year expansion franchise. They were one of the three teams most impacted by injuries this season. And they genuinely enjoy each other, which is rarer than you'd think. Nakase talked about how they're doubling down on connectivity in the lead-up to Game 1.
“For the next two days, I told them, ‘Continue to do something for your teammates.' Whether you guys can hang out, do treatment together, you know, I'm sure we're gonna have a ton of film sessions together. But do something for your teammate in the next couple days,” Nakase said.
“Get as connected as we can, because again, we're going against a very experienced team, but that's okay. Like, that's fine. We know what we're about to face, and so how can we match that? [It's] the connectivity that we've built so far, the trust that we have, the belief that we have in each other.”
Golden State is more than capable of stealing a game from the Lynx. And once that happens, anything is possible, especially in a three-game series. I wrote it before they made their end-of-season run to clinch the playoffs– they've earned the runway for people to believe.
