Valkyries ponder adjustments after record outburst in loss to Wings

A three-game series can be unforgiving. In an instant, one team is playing with its back against the wall.

The Golden State Valkyries looked ready to soar through a breezy first round against Dallas when they beat the Wings by 24 points in Game 1. But Dallas brought them back down to Earth on their home court in Texas. Arike Ogunbowale made history with a 45-point performance — setting a record for points in a WNBA playoff game — serving the Valkyries a 108-100 overtime loss in Game 2.

Suddenly, the No. 2 seed faces potential elimination with a deciding Game 3 at Chase Center on Friday at 6 p.m. PT.

“This is playoff basketball, it was expected,” Kayla Thornton said after Wednesday’s loss. “Shout-out to Dallas, they played well tonight. … We have to go back to the film and see what we need to work on before the next game.”

Every playoff series is a chess match; competing teams use each game to try some new gambit, serve a counter, and react accordingly.

The Valkyries’ underlying defensive game plan didn’t shift much between Games 1 and 2 — there was no reason to change up the objective. Game 1 was partly a breeze because the Valkyries pressured superstar Paige Bueckers, picking her up near full court and suffocating the Wings’ momentum offense by cutting it off early.

That approach challenges secondary scorers like Ogunbowale to be the aggressor on offense and Bueckers to weave difficult shots against Gabby Williams and Kaila Charles. 

Ogunbowale wasn’t up to the task in Game 1, scoring just 10 points on seven field goal attempts, but in Game 2 it took a historic night and some of the most difficult shot making you’ll see for the veteran guard to topple the Valkyries. It was Dallas’ first win against Golden State all year.

By losing 108-100 in overtime, the Valkyries surrendered the most points in franchise history. Dallas’ 93 points at the end of four quarters were also the most Golden State allowed all year in regulation.

Williams went blow-for-blow with Ogunbowale, scoring a career-high 36 points on by going 12-of-23 from the field. She was finding her shots throughout, matching Ogunbowale’s clutch buckets and contested baskets with her own difficult shot-making.

It’s an encouraging sign that Williams has stepped up as the scoring load bearer, but Golden State can’t go into Game 3 playing at Dallas’ quick pace, looking to beat them in a shootout.

The Valkyries could have switched up their strategy down the stretch, perhaps by taking pressure off Bueckers and double-teaming Ogunbowale, the hot hand. More acutely, they could have fouled the Wings while up three, with Dallas out of timeouts and 14 seconds remaining in regulation to get the ball back with a one-point lead still intact.

Head coach Natalie Nakase didn’t consider fouling up three, she said. This is a defense that’s been able to contest at the perimeter all season — why change an identity with the game on the line? It’s worth arguing that the nature of the playoffs, when a series win is within reach, dictates that kind of sacrifice, though not always.

Film study may reveal tweaks to be made. Between Games 1 and 2, the Valkyries hoped to get tighter in their transition defense and “empty the tank,” as Nakase says, in all four quarters more readily.

What went wrong may not be solved through film. Once Ogunbowale started penetrating the perimeter, driving to the basket and finding gold along with her confidence, Golden State’s defensive focus lapsed.

“Our energy is different. I didn’t recognize us tonight, I don’t think any of us did,” Williams said after the game. “In some meetings, there are things (you can’t control). … We can control what we do, and it’s going to come back to those times.”

The Valkyries may not need to alter their strategy much. Bueckers is still the engine of the Wings’ offense, both as a scorer and playmaker. Concessions to keeping her contained include the risk that someone else might have the game of a lifetime — and it took a record-breaking scoring night from Ogunbowale — along with productive games from bench players Alysha Clark and Aziaha James to get Golden State into an overtime loss.

The game plan may lean heavily on the assumption that Game 2 was an outlier, unrepeatable in a deciding Game 3.

A more focused Valkyries defense has been this team’s tried and true strength.

“At the end of the day, I’m never going to be happy after a loss, especially when it doesn’t show our identity, and our identity is defense,” Nakase said. “So we got to lock in. We have to be smarter. We have to be more connected. We got to communicate at a higher volume, especially when they’re trying to break some of our defensive coverages. That’s what we got to make sure to look at on film, regroup, and be ready to go.”