Gabby Williams scored 30 points, including a record 28 in the second half, as the Golden State Valkyries beat the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in Game 7 of the WNBA Finals on Saturday night at Chase Center in San Francisco to win the first championship in franchise history.
Why the result matters is that it completed one of the fastest rises in North American professional sports: the Valkyries won the title in only their second season, becoming the fastest expansion team among the major leagues to lift a championship, and they did it in the first Game 7 ever played in a WNBA Finals.
Williams, named Finals MVP, managed just two points in the first half as Atlanta led 30-24 at the break. She then took over completely, scoring 28 points in the final 20 minutes, a record for points in a half of a WNBA Finals game and the first time any player has scored 28 in a half in WNBA postseason history.
“I wasn’t gonna lose on Halloween,” Williams joked after winning Finals MVP, according to USA Today.
Williams finished 10 of 23 from the field with three rebounds, four blocks and two steals, and she averaged 19.6 points per game across the Finals. She also set Finals records for total points (137) and steals (18) in the series, according to Al Jazeera’s report.
Head coach Natalie Nakase, who built the roster from players left unprotected in the expansion draft, international imports and one key free-agent signing in Williams, praised a group that refused to accept its underdog status. “This is for all the people that have been underrated, misunderstood,” Nakase said in her on-court interview after the win.
Former United States President Barack Obama joined the celebrations online, posting: “Congrats to the new WNBA champs, the @Valkyries! Ballhalla was rocking all season, and this team was fun to watch. Enjoy the celebration.”
Williams takes over after halftime
Golden State opened Game 7 with eight unanswered points, but Atlanta answered with a run spanning the first and second quarters to take a 21-14 lead, and the Dream stretched the margin to nine early in the third quarter.
Williams then scored 15 points in the third quarter, including her team’s final 11 points of the period, as Golden State outscored Atlanta 21-14 to carry a 45-44 lead into the fourth.
With the game tied at 53 in the fourth quarter, Williams scored nine straight points for the Valkyries, including a deep three-pointer with 2:18 remaining that made it 60-57. She added two free throws, Kiah Stokes converted a putback off a Williams miss with 53 seconds left for a 64-57 lead, and Veronica Burton’s free throws with 5.1 seconds remaining sealed the 68-63 win.
Williams was the only Valkyries player to score in double figures besides Tiffany Hayes, who added 11 points. Burton recorded a double-double with 10 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, while Stokes finished with eight points, 13 rebounds and two blocks.
For Atlanta, Jordin Canada led with 18 points and five assists, Allisha Gray scored 16, and Angel Reese had eight points and 12 rebounds. Rhyne Howard, who had been a key scorer for the Dream, finished with six points on 3-of-14 shooting, including 0 of 7 from three-point range.
Atlanta shot 33.3 percent from the field and made just 6 of 30 three-point attempts, while Golden State made 15 of 16 free throws compared with Atlanta’s 11 of 15, a difference that proved decisive in a five-point game.
From expansion team to champions in two seasons
Golden State was awarded its franchise in 2023 and began play in 2025, finishing 23-21 and becoming the first expansion team in league history to reach the playoffs in its inaugural season.
Owner Joe Lacob declared in October 2023 that the Valkyries would win a championship within their first five years. They needed only two, winning the Finals 4-3 after taking Game 1, dropping Games 2 and 3, winning Games 4 and 5, and then losing Game 6 in Atlanta before the deciding game back home.
According to USA Today, Golden State became the first team in the league’s 30-year history to win a title without an All-WNBA player on its roster, a mark of the depth Nakase built around Williams, the franchise’s only All-Star, who signed as a free agent after stints in Chicago and Seattle.
Williams, a Bay Area native who returned home this season, had finished as runner-up for the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award before delivering the defining offensive performance of her career on the biggest stage.
Atlanta, meanwhile, was denied in the franchise’s fourth trip to the Finals, and the Dream’s wait for a first championship continues despite leading for much of the deciding game.
What is confirmed is the scale of the achievement: a second-year expansion team, a sold-out crowd of 18,064 at Chase Center, and a Finals MVP performance that rewrote the record book. The Valkyries have sold out every home game in franchise history, setting league attendance records along the way, and their championship parade and celebrations are expected to follow in the coming days.
