Gabby Williams leads Valkyries to Game 1 WNBA semi-final win

Gabby Williams had 25 points, 11 rebounds and five assists, Kiah Stokes added 14 rebounds and three blocked shots, and the Golden State Valkyries took Game 1 of the WNBA semi-finals by beating the defending champion Las Vegas Aces 71-60 on Sunday.

A’ja Wilson scored 24 points while Chelsea Gray contributed 16 points for Las Vegas, which lost guard Jewell Loyd to a left leg injury early in the third quarter. The team said she was being evaluated.

Playing to chants of “Gabby! Gabby!” from the sellout crowd at Chase Center, Williams scored 18 of her points on 6-for-10 shooting in the first half, including a three-pointer that put Golden State ahead 32-23 with 5:43 left before halftime.

That defeaning “Ballhalla” home crowd turned the arena into a sea of violet-coloured T-shirts and energy the Valkyries have so counted on in their first two seasons. Fans waved and cheered when the final buzzer sounded and confetti fell.

Game 2 in the best-of-five series is Wednesday night back at Chase Center.

Golden State coach Natalie Nakase was well enough to coach after she went down on the sideline near Golden State’s bench with 1:40 remaining Friday night in a 77-73 comeback win to clinch the first-round series against Dallas. She was examined by a doctor during the day off Saturday.

It was a defensive, low-scoring game in which neither team shot particularly well – the Valkyries 37.7 per cent to 33.9 per cent for Las Vegas – after both went the distance in the best-of-three first round to advance.

Mixing and matching rotations worked out after Golden State shot just 31.4 per cent – 11 for 35 and 5 of 15 on threes – in the first half. Newcomer Aminata Gueye came off the bench to score nine points in 12-plus minutes for the Valkyries. She signed with the team Sept. 20 after playing with Williams and Janelle Salaun on the French team in the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup.

Salaun received a rousing ovation when she entered the game with 2:25 left in the first quarter after being named WNBA sixth player of the year before the game.

Kayla Thornton pulled down 11 rebounds to go with eight points for the Valkyries, who were 3 for 10 from three-point range in the opening quarter and finished just 7 of 24 from deep.

Dream take series opener against Liberty

When leading scorer Allisha Gray went down with a left hand injury early in Game 1 of the WNBA semi-finals, the Atlanta Dream needed someone to step up.

Playing in just her eighth game with the franchise, 39-year-old DeWanna Bonner provided everything the Dream needed. Bonner had 23 points, nine rebounds, two assists and two steals in over 30 minutes off the bench, helping Atlanta stabilize and eventually pull away in a 92-82 victory over the New York Liberty.

“I’m still learning a lot,” Bonner said. “My head is always spinning, because I’m learning new people, learning the plays, learning the city, but they just made it easy.”

Bonner, who has played in a WNBA record 101 playoff games, signed with Atlanta as an unrestricted free agent on Aug. 27. It was a rare late season addition for a team desperate to finally find playoff success after three consecutive first round exits, and the six-time all-star and two-time WNBA champion felt like the final piece of the puzzle.

“We tried to get her a couple times and it just never worked out,” Dream head coach Karl Smesko said. “I just thought she was exactly what we needed. Not just because she is a veteran presence and all of those things, but because she still plays like she did tonight. That was a huge performance. When we needed a play, she made it.”

Heading into Sunday she was averaging 20 minutes and nine points per game in a sporadic role, but Gray’s injury shrunk the rotation and forced her into more action. She played every second of the fourth quarter and all but two minutes of the second half, making crucial plays at both ends of the floor and in the locker room after Atlanta went into the intermission trailing 40-37.

Bonner opened the fourth quarter with an offensive rebound and score on a putback, and knocked down a three-pointer to take the lead back into double-figures after New York had closed to within eight.

“She played multiple positions,” Smesko said. “She guarded people that were MVPs in this league. She moved positions in this game when she hasn’t even been practising really in that position. But she adjusts and is able to flow in it just because she has so much basketball experience. She has a sense of what she should do on a play even if she never ran the play before, and she just knows where the ball should move and what the next action should be. She has a lot of enthusiasm about her, but she also has a calming presence about her.”

Atlanta is now 8-0 with Bonner, and moved two wins away from its first trip to the WNBA finals since 2013.