Valkyries and Dream Leave Two Contenders at 0-2

The Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries each seized a 2-0 WNBA semifinal lead on Wednesday, Oct. 7. That leaves the New York Liberty and the defending champion Las Vegas Aces one loss from going home, a hole no team has ever climbed out of in a best-of-five.

Atlanta won 101-98 in overtime without leading scorer Allisha Gray. Golden State held off Las Vegas 83-81 after a 17-point lead nearly vanished. Both Game 3s are Friday, Oct. 9, on the road for the clubs that just took control.

Atlanta Wins Overtime Without Its Leading Scorer

Naz Hillmon laid the ball in with 20.8 seconds left in overtime, and the Dream beat the Liberty 101-98 at State Farm Arena to go up 2-0. Angel Reese scored 23 points, six of Atlanta’s 13 in the extra period, and Jordin Canada matched her with 23 points and eight assists in a game that had already required a regulation buzzer-beater that never dropped.

Gray missed the night with a left hand injury she first felt in Sunday’s 92-82 Game 1 win, when she lasted 11 minutes. Coach Karl Smesko had called her day-to-day after an X-ray. Brionna Jones was already ruled out for the rest of the season with a left leg injury. The Dream still sold out the building, 9,574 strong, and still found enough scoring from the next names on the sheet.

Rookie Isobel Borlase scored 11 points in 13 minutes, 38 seconds off the bench, including three 3-pointers. Rhyne Howard added 18 on a rough 5-for-20 night. DeWanna Bonner, who had 23 points in Game 1, managed 10 on 2-for-11 shooting while starting in Gray’s place. The visitors actually shot it better. New York made 54.7 percent from the field and still lost, because Atlanta got to the line (21-for-23, 91.3 percent) and because the Liberty turned it over 17 times for 28 points the other way, per the official Game 2 box score.

Breanna Stewart scored 35 points, 25 of them before halftime, and still spent the last possession of regulation launching a desperation try after New York did not use a reset to advance the ball. Stewart said officials told the Liberty they did not have one left. With New York down 86-80 inside two minutes, Sabrina Ionescu cut it to three with a deep 3-pointer, an Atlanta shot-clock violation with 31 seconds left opened a door, and Stewart’s layup made it 86-85. Reese made two free throws at 14.5 seconds for 88-85. Marine Fauthoux, off the bench for 20 points, tied it at 88 with a 3-pointer at 10.3 seconds. Howard’s midrange floater rimmed out at the horn.

Overtime ran hot in both directions. Atlanta scored the first five points, New York answered with the next eight for a 96-93 lead, then Canada and Reese put the Dream back in front before Stewart scored again. Hillmon’s layup was the one that stuck. The Dream forced a jump ball on New York’s first look at a last possession; the Liberty won the tip, Ionescu overthrew a pass, and Reese made two free throws with 4.3 seconds left.

We’re not focused on winning three games straight right now. We’re focused on winning one game, and that’s Friday, and then we go from there. This group has experience. I’ve been part of some crazy series and I have a lot of confidence in our group.

Breanna Stewart, Liberty forward, after Game 2

Smesko had told his team it could be the better side over the last five minutes if it ran the first couple of plays clean. “Everybody was locked in on what those plays were, and they went out there and executed them,” he said. Reese put it simpler: they stayed on the same stream and won because they stayed together.

A 17-Point Lead Nearly Vanishes in San Francisco

The nightcap at Chase Center was quieter for 29 minutes and loud for the rest. Tiffany Hayes scored 21 points off the bench, Gabby Williams had 20, and Kayla Thornton added 16 as the Valkyries beat the Aces 83-81 for a 2-0 lead in their first semifinal series. Veronica Burton’s only field goal of the night was the one that mattered, a deep 3-pointer with 41 seconds left after a shot-clock violation gave Golden State the ball with 1:01 to play.

Las Vegas trailed 66-55 after three quarters and had led the entire series for only a sliver of Game 1, when it was up 18-17. A’ja Wilson scored 18 of her 24 points after halftime, Chelsea Gray had 19 points and six assists, and Wilson’s layup at 1:36 produced a 76-74 Aces lead, their first of Game 2. Williams answered with a jumper. Burton’s 3 made it 79-76. Burton later made two free throws in the last half-minute, and Jackie Young made the first of two free throws with six seconds left to cut it to 83-81, then missed the second on purpose. Gray grabbed the miss and drove. Kiah Stokes blocked the layup. Burton came up with the ball.

Hayes went 6-for-10 from the field and 8-for-8 at the line. Williams reached 20 points for a second straight game after a 25-point, 11-rebound night in Sunday’s 71-60 Game 1 win, when Golden State pulled down a franchise-high 52 rebounds. The Aces shot 44 percent to the Valkyries’ 41 and still could not get a split on the road. Coach Becky Hammon had called Game 2 a must-win and said her team could not go home down 0-2. It is going home down 0-2 anyway, to Michelob ULTRA Arena on Friday.

Williams has started talking about the Chase Center crowd as if it were in the rotation. “This is our sixth man. I feel like I got superpowers when I’m in here,” she said after the Valkyries closed it out in front of that room.

GAME ✌️, W.

SAY IT WITH US, VALKS WIN 🗣️@doordash | Final Score pic.twitter.com/AqDBABo7f2

— Golden State Valkyries (@valkyries) October 8, 2026

No WNBA Team Has Come Back From 0-2

The league’s own Game 2 preview put the math in one sentence: no team has rallied from 2-0 to win a series, and only the 2018 Phoenix Mercury even forced a Game 5 after dropping the first two, then lost that fifth game 94-84 to the Seattle Storm. Best-of-five has been the Finals format since 2005 and the semifinal format since 2016. Wednesday put two clubs in that graveyard on the same night.

THE TWO SERIES AFTER GAME 2

New York is not a random 8-seed that lucked into this round. It became the first No. 8 seed in league history to knock out a No. 1, sweeping Minnesota in the opening round, and Stewart is a three-time champion. Las Vegas is defending a 2025 title it won by sweeping Phoenix, part of three titles in four years with Wilson as the constant. Both of those résumés now have to do something the league has never seen.

Two Aces Alumni Now Stand in Las Vegas’s Way

Golden State finished 32-12 in the West, one game ahead of the 31-13 Aces, and still spent the first half of the season unable to beat them. Las Vegas won all three regular-season meetings. Sunday’s 71-60 win was Golden State’s first against this Aces group all year. Two nights later the Valkyries did it again, with a roster that does not look like a superteam and a coach who used to work for the other bench.

Natalie Nakase was an Aces assistant for two of those titles before she was named WNBA Coach of the Year in 2025, her first season as a head coach, when Golden State went 23-21 and became the first expansion team in league history to reach the playoffs in year one. Stokes backed up Wilson through all three Las Vegas championships and scored zero points in Game 1 while Nakase called her the MVP of the night for 14 rebounds, four blocks, and the job of guarding Wilson (8-for-21). In Game 2 Stokes scored zero again and still took the last shot off the rim.

That is the disruption in plain terms. A club in its second season, built on defense that ranked first in points allowed during the year, just pushed the repeat champions to the edge with a former Aces assistant on the sideline and a former Aces center at the rim. Jewell Loyd, the Aces’ first guard off the bench, sat Game 2 with the left leg injury she suffered in the third quarter of Game 1. Dana Evans, back from a right knee problem, hit a 3-pointer in the fourth-quarter run. It was not enough.

New York Swept the No. 1 Seed and Still Trails 0-2

The Liberty’s path here was the other shock of the first round, and it has not traveled. Stewart and Ionescu combined for 46 points in Game 1 while New York’s bench scored six, and the Dream still won 92-82 with Gray leaving before halftime. Canada had 25 points in that opener, two more than her regular-season high, and five steals. Bonner had 23 points and nine rebounds. Game 2 asked the same supporting cast to do it again without Gray, and Fauthoux (20 points) plus Jonquel Jones (21 points on 8-for-11 shooting) almost dragged New York into a split. Almost is the word that sends a series to Brooklyn down 0-2.

Atlanta is 30-14, the No. 4 seed, and has not been to the Finals since 2013. The Dream swept the Washington Mystics in the first round and have now taken two from a Liberty team that had just taken down the top seed. Howard’s 18 points will not be the clip anyone remembers. Hillmon playing 43 minutes, 30 seconds and finishing the extra period will. So will a Dream defense that survived Stewart’s 35 and a night when New York’s field-goal percentage suggested it should have left Atlanta even.

We just had a message that we thought we could be the best team over the last five minutes, let’s start off by executing the first couple plays. Everybody was locked in on what those plays were, and they went out there and executed them.

Karl Smesko, Dream coach, after Game 2

Gray’s status for Friday is the live variable. Smesko has kept her day-to-day. If she cannot go in Brooklyn, Borlase, Bonner, and Canada will have to do on the road what they just did at home, against a Liberty group that still believes one win resets the math even if the league’s history says otherwise.

Friday Puts Both Series on the Road

The 2-0 club in a best-of-five has never coughed up the next three, but the next three start on someone else’s floor. Atlanta goes to Barclays Center at 7:30 p.m. ET. Golden State goes to Michelob ULTRA Arena at 9:30 p.m. ET. If those games leak, Sunday is still in those buildings, and only a Game 5 would send either series back to the teams that just won twice.

WHAT THE 0-2 SIDES CARRY TO FRIDAY

• Las Vegas at home: Wilson’s 18-point second half, Gray’s 19, and a crowd Hammon wanted with a split that never came.
• New York at home: Stewart’s 35, Fauthoux’s tying 3, and a reset the officials said was already gone at the end of regulation.
• The injury sheet: Gray day-to-day with her shooting hand, Jones out for the season, Loyd out with a left leg injury after Game 1.
• The first-round residue: Valkyries survived Dallas 2-1, Aces survived Indiana 2-1, Dream swept Washington, Liberty swept Minnesota.

A Valkyries-Dream Finals is now one win apiece from being the actual draw, a pairing almost nobody would have written down in May. Golden State closed Game 2 because Williams found Burton when the half-court set had stalled, and Atlanta closed Game 2 because Hillmon and Reese still had a possession left after Stewart’s 35. Friday is the first of three the Liberty and Aces would need. History has never granted the second and third. Both visiting benches will show up as if it has.