Golden State 76 , Seattle 72
By the Numbers
- Tiffany Hayes reached 5,000 career points on an and-one free throw in the second quarter, becoming the 21st player all time with at least 5,000 points, 900 assists, and 300 steals in their career. Hayes finished with 17 points on the night on 5-9 (.556 percent) shooting while going 7-for-7 from the line.
- Janelle Salaün tied her career high with 22 points and made five three pointers, becoming the ninth-fastest player all-time to reach 100 career threes (49 games).
- Gabby Williams added 19 points, shooting 5-for-5 from the line and serving four assists.
- Veronica Burton had 11 points and a game-high eight assists.
- Kiah Stokes had six assists and one block, which came in the closing seconds to seal the win.
- Total contribution to Youth UpRising: $11,000.
Quotes
HEAD COACH NATALIE NAKASE:
ON TONIGHT’S WIN:
“I'm really proud…Tip [Tiffany Hayes], she hit 5,000 points, I mean, that's incredible. Coming from a player who maybe was about to walk away from the game, and came back, and she made two crucial free throws. Game on the line, I thought she stepped up with confidence…So just proud of Tip. I thought Kiah Stokes did an amazing job down the stretch, coming in and getting key blocks. Ja [Janelle Salaün] had 100 threes, one of the fastest to do it…She just had a lot of confidence shooting.”
ON KEYS TO VALKYRIES DEFENSE:
“Putting in Kiah [Stokes] I thought was really important, because she didn't get phased by their plays. When we say we rely on our defense, that's how we rely on our defense, and we close with our defense. We’ve got to give Seattle credit, they were fighting…But so many positives that we can take away, and a lot of learning lessons. I'd say for sure that we can look back at this, but we got four games in seven days, so we’ve got to get our energy, we’ve got to get our recovery, we’ve got to get back home and get ready to get back to work.”
ON GOLDEN STATE’S REBOUNDING:
I think we did a good job keeping [Dominique] Malonga, and we kept her to the nine. We kept Awa Fam to eight. We won in terms of the rebounding battle, that was something we really honed on about getting better, and then obviously getting 10 offensive rebounds, that's crucial in a game where sometimes we're not shooting really well. So I give credit to our fight, probably wasn't sustaining the four quarters, but I thought we closed really well.”
GOLDEN STATE FORWARDS JANELLE SALAÜN AND GABBY WILLIAMS:
ON TONIGHT’S TAKEAWAYS:
Williams: “We can't come out and just expect things to roll over. We also can’t just rely on our offense, we have to come out with more energy.”
ON THE HALFTIME RESET:
Williams: “I wanted us to just come out with a completely new mentality, as if it was a new game, because that first half just wasn't us.”
Up Next: The Valkyries return home Monday, June 15, to host the Los Angeles Sparks at 7 p.m. PT on Peacock, KPIX, KOVR, 95.7 The Game, and the Audacy App.
