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SAN FRANCISCO — It's fitting for Natalie Nakase that the Golden State Valkyries' best performance of their inaugural season came against the Las Vegas Aces and Becky Hammon. The former Aces assistant coach, who helped Hammon and the team to back-to-back WNBA titles, secured a signature 95-68 upset win in front of a raucous Chase Center crowd. After a week and a half of losing close game after close game, Nakase and the Valkyries came out with an intensity and aggression that Las Vegas could not match.
In the wake of the Valkyries' third win of the season, Nakase and Hammon shared a moment at half court together. Nakase shared a little bit about what she said to her mentor.
“We embraced each other. She said ‘Great job' and I literally said, ‘I learned everything from you,'” Nakase recounted. “She's the reason why I'm here. … She literally had to push me to interview. So again, I would not be sitting here and being as confident as I am as a head coach if it wasn't for Becky.”
That confidence Hammon passed on to Nakase was palpable throughout the entire game, particularly on defense. The Valkyries keyed in on Aces superstar A'ja Wilson, containing her to 17 points on 5-of-13 shooting, a low mark for the former MVP's standards.
In the same press conference, Nakase explained how the Valkyries planned for Wilson.
“She's the best player in the world. We all know that. She's capable of going off for 50 [points], I think that's what she told me when I got hired,” Nakase explained. “Our game plan was to show her multiple bodies as much as we could. But obviously they tried to manipulate it and get her in an action where we had to space, and she had multiple shooters around her. So there were times where we couldn't, but I think the overall scheme was trying to get her to be as disrupted as possible.”
It helped that the Nakase probably has the best understanding of Las Vegas's schematics of any WNBA head coach, but the defensive game plan was impressive nonetheless.
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How Aces' coaching reunion affected Valkyries players
Despite the Nakase-Hammon reunion, Valkyries players didn't let the emotions of that overshadow the task at hand. Nakase had her team ready from the jump. After dropping the last four games, Golden State was desperate to get back into the win column. And as the 27-point win indicated, that desperation fueled them more than anything else. In her postgame press conference, Kayla Thornton revealed that she forgot about Nakase's connection to the Aces.
“I actually forgot that she came up from over there,” Thornton said honestly. “I think we were so locked in, trying to get this dub, trying to get back to the win column. We weren’t worried about her being there or that being Kate’s ex-team or stuff like that. We were just worried about getting the job done tonight.”
Thornton's honest account of how the Valkyries approached this game speaks to the urgency they played with. After the Phoenix loss, Nakase and Veronica Burton were both critical of the team's energy on the defense. Against the Aces, they dialed their intensity up, which resulted in seven steals, three blocks, and 22 fast-break points. Thornton herself played with laser focus from the tip-off to the final buzzer. She finished with a game-high 20 points along with 11 rebounds and a pair of steals.
In the same press conference, Burton praised the Valkyries' improved defensive effort and credited Thornton for her leadership.
“It just comes down to our energy level, our effort level. When we set the tone defensively, it's a game-changer for us,” Burton said. “I give a lot of credit to KT because I think her steadiness throughout the course of the game just kept us calm. And when she's calm and when she's focused, we follow her lead. So it's a big testament to her. But also, we bought in. A goal of ours was to overcommunicate and dictate the pace of the game. I think we did a pretty solid job with that from the start.”
