Valkyries Reach the WNBA Finals Faster Than Any Expansion Team

The Golden State Valkyries beat the Las Vegas Aces 87-77 in overtime on Oct. 9 in Las Vegas and finished a 3-0 sweep of the defending champions. In their second season, they became the fastest expansion team in WNBA history to reach the Finals.

They will host the Atlanta Dream in Game 1 of a best-of-seven series on Oct. 17 in San Francisco, and they opened as a -125 favorite to win the title. The club had said from the start that it wanted a championship inside five years.

Golden State Completes a 3-0 Sweep in Overtime

Kayla Thornton scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds at Michelob Ultra Arena, and forward Gabby Williams added 16, including eight in the extra period. Center Kiah Stokes went 5-for-5 for 11 points, 10 rebounds, and three blocks. Guard Tiffany Hayes scored 11, and guard Veronica Burton added eight with four assists.

Aces forward A’ja Wilson, honored before tip for her fifth MVP award, had 21 points and 10 rebounds on 6-for-19 shooting. Jackie Young scored 18 and Chelsea Gray 17, but Gray also had six turnovers, and Las Vegas managed six points in overtime. Golden State’s largest lead was 10; Las Vegas led by as many as 11.

THE SERIES

Those first two results sit in the 2026 semifinal series file, and Friday’s overtime closed the file at 3-0. Teams that take a 2-0 lead in a WNBA playoff series are 22-0 when they get there. Atlanta swept the New York Liberty on the same night, so both Finals clubs arrived that way.

Golden State entered as the No. 2 seed at 32-12. Las Vegas was 31-13 and the No. 3 seed, with titles in 2022, 2023, and 2025. In the first round the Valkyries had beaten the Dallas Wings 2-1 (104-80, a 100-108 loss, 77-73), after trailing by 16 in that Game 3. They did not panic when this series finally went double digits against them either.

No Expansion Club Had Made the Finals This Fast

The Valkyries were the league’s first new team since the Dream in 2008, and they already had a first: last season they became the first expansion club to make the playoffs in year one, as the No. 8 seed at 23-21. Across two seasons they own 55 wins in 88 regular-season games, a.625 clip, before this run.

Atlanta, the next-fastest expansion finalist, needed a third season. The Dream debuted in 2008 and reached the 2010 Finals as a 19-15 four-seed, then lost 0-3 to the Seattle Storm. Chicago, added in 2006, did not make a Finals until its ninth season. The other expansion clubs that actually won titles took longer still.

THE EXPANSION CLOCK

Chicago’s first Finals trip in 2014 ended in a sweep by the Phoenix Mercury; the Sky did not win a title until 2021. Indiana, another 2000 addition, waited until 2012. Minnesota, added in 1999, won in 2011. Washington, added in 1998, won in 2019. The Valkyries just lapped all of that.

The 2026 expansion class makes the clock look sharper. The Toronto Tempo went 11-33 in year one. The new Portland Fire went 17-27. Golden State, in year two, is in a title series. Coach Natalie Nakase called it a dream in year two. The franchise had sold the public a five-year window.

Start With the Players Nobody Protected

The Valkyries did not land here with a superstar draft pick. They built the 2025 roster from players other clubs left exposed, then added Williams and Stokes in free agency this year. Nakase, hired from the Aces bench on Oct. 10, 2024, had asked for competitors who hated to lose and would sacrifice minutes. The draft followed that brief.

On Dec. 6, 2024, Golden State took 11 players in the expansion draft and passed on the Seattle Storm. Each existing team could protect six names. The list looked like leftovers at the time. On Friday, three of those leftovers were still in the rotation in a Finals-clinching overtime.

STILL ON THE FLOOR FROM THAT NIGHT

• Kayla Thornton: Taken from the New York Liberty after a title in New York, she led Golden State with 18 points and nine rebounds in 33 minutes.
• Veronica Burton: Taken from the Connecticut Sun, she hit the 9-foot floater with 1:12 left in regulation that put Golden State in front, then told the huddle before overtime that it was their time.
• Cecilia Zandalasini: Taken from the Minnesota Lynx, she started and played 26 minutes on a night the bench had to keep running.

Williams, signed in free agency, was the closer. Stokes, signed in the same cycle, was the rim. The expansion pieces were the connective tissue. Thornton, asked about a 3-0 result in Vegas, called the road rough and the sweep crazy. Burton said the moment was a blessing and also what the group had expected.

Las Vegas Meets Its Own Alumni

The Aces spent three of the past four seasons as champions. Becky Hammon had not been swept in a playoff series since she took the job. Wilson had not been swept in the postseason since the 2020 Finals. The club that ended that run was coached by Hammon’s former assistant and stocked with two players who used to wear Aces colors.

Nakase spent three seasons on that Las Vegas staff and helped win the 2022 and 2023 titles before Golden State hired her. Stokes won those two, then won again with Las Vegas in 2025, then signed with the Valkyries. Hayes came over after a 2024 stint with the Aces. On Friday both former Aces scored 11, and Stokes’ plus-18 was second on the team to Hayes at plus-20.

Big dreams. This is a dream come true to be going to the Finals in our second year.

Natalie Nakase, Valkyries coach, after Game 3

Hammon said championship teams have to be a top-three or top-four defense, and she pointed to injuries, including NaLyssa Smith, as variables that did not lean Las Vegas’s way down the stretch. Golden State had the league’s best defense in the regular season, and Nakase brought that identity with her from the same bench. The alumni night was not a reunion. It was a matchup problem Las Vegas could not solve for three games.

How a 17-0 Run Flipped Game 3

Las Vegas looked like the recent standard for a half. The Aces led 45-36 at the break, and they pushed the lead to 11 early in the third, the largest deficit Golden State had seen in the series. Then the Valkyries held them without a basket long enough to wipe it out. A 17-0 run in a seven-minute stretch turned 36-47 into 53-47. Las Vegas scored seven points in the entire third quarter and crawled back to 53-52 after three.

The Aces rebuilt a six-point lead with three minutes left in regulation. With 1:50 to go and Golden State down two, Williams stripped Wilson and got the ball to Thornton for a layup that tied it at 69. Burton’s floater with 1:12 left put the Valkyries in front. Young finished a Gray inbound with 27 seconds left to knot it at 71. Gray’s look at the buzzer rimmed out.

GAME 3 SNAPSHOT

• Third quarter: Las Vegas scored 7 points; Golden State scored 17 and took a 53-52 lead into the fourth.
• Overtime: Thornton, Williams, and Hayes scored all 16 Golden State points in a 16-6 period.
• The steal column: Golden State had 12 steals, Las Vegas 3, and the Aces turned it over 15 times.
• The floor: Golden State shot 20-for-22 at the line (91 percent), won the glass 43-35, and outscored Las Vegas 40-32 in the paint.

Nakase had told them the response was to come closer, huddle, and grab hands. Burton told them before overtime to lay it all out. Thornton, Williams, and Hayes scored every Golden State point in the extra five minutes, which is the depth argument in one possession string. Wilson, Young, and Gray had logged 43, 42, and 43 minutes. The Valkyries keep throwing in fresh legs. Attendance was 10,218 in a 12,000-seat building, and the visiting purple section had the last chant.

Atlanta Returns After a 13-Year Finals Gap

The Dream are 30-14, the No. 4 seed, and they have never won a title. Their Finals trips came in 2010, 2011, and 2013. The 13-year wait since that last one is the other half of this bracket: an expansion club that got there in a hurry against an expansion club that has been trying for 19 seasons. Atlanta swept New York 92-82, 101-98 in overtime, and 85-83. Neither finalist has a banner.

Game 1 is Oct. 17 at 3:30 p.m. ET in San Francisco, with Golden State holding home court in a 2-2-1-1-1 setup that would send Games 5 and 7 back to the Bay if the series goes that long. The Valkyries’ five-year title bet is now a seven-game series. In the same city where the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights reached a Cup Final as a first-year club, the WNBA’s Las Vegas power just got run off its own floor by a two-year-old roster.

Williams said the group smiled when nobody picked them. Nakase said they emptied the tank. The next test is whether a year-2 expansion team can finish the clock it just broke.