First WNBA Finals Game 7: Valkyries Host Dream for First Title
Golden State and Atlanta meet at Chase Center at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday with the Finals tied 3-3. One game decides the first championship in franchise history for the winner.
Key points
- The 2026 WNBA season ends on Saturday night with the game the league has never had.
- This is the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history.
- Golden State took Game 1 at home, 68-64.
The 2026 WNBA season ends on Saturday night with the game the league has never had. The No. 2 seed Golden State Valkyries host the No. 4 seed Atlanta Dream in Game 7 of the Finals at Chase Center in San Francisco, with tipoff at 8 p.m. ET. The series is tied 3-3. The winner takes home the first championship in franchise history.
This is the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history. The Finals moved from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven format in 2025, and the second season under the new format has gone the full seven games. There have been 13 winner-take-all games in Finals history, all of them Game 5s under the old format, most recently in 2024, when the New York Liberty beat the Minnesota Lynx to win a first title of their own. The home team won 11 of those 13 games, according to ESPN figures cited by NBC Sports.
How we got here
Golden State took Game 1 at home, 68-64. Atlanta answered on the road in Game 2, 79-65, behind 30 points and 16 rebounds from Angel Reese, then routed the Valkyries 97-71 in Game 3 in Atlanta to lead the series 2-1. Golden State steadied itself with a 67-62 win in Game 4 and a 64-55 win in Game 5 back in San Francisco, moving within one win of the title. Atlanta refused to let its season end in Game 6, and now the series comes back to Chase Center. Home court has settled nothing so far: Atlanta won Game 2 in this building, and Golden State won Game 4 in Atlanta.
Game 6 reset the series
Atlanta won Game 6 on Thursday in Atlanta, 80-69, with a start Golden State never recovered from. The Dream took the first quarter 32-15 and led by as many as 25 points. Allisha Gray scored 23 points with five 3-pointers, six rebounds, three assists, two steals and three blocks. Rhyne Howard added 21 points with four 3-pointers. Atlanta made 13 3-pointers as a team, tied for the most by a team facing elimination in Finals history.
Reese finished with 15 points, 14 rebounds and six assists. Her 14 rebounds pushed her series total to 78, passing the Finals record of 75 set by Sylvia Fowles with Minnesota in 2017. Reese has averaged 15.8 points, 13.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists across the series, with four double-doubles. Gabby Williams led Golden State with 26 points in the loss.
"The job's not done," Reese said after Game 6, according to USA Today. "We have more work to do. I think we definitely have another level that we can get to."
The matchups that decide Game 7
Turnovers sit at the center of this series. USA Today noted that all six games have been decided by points scored off turnovers: the team that cashed in the other side's mistakes won the game. Golden State gave up 18 points on 12 turnovers in Game 6. If the Valkyries protect the ball at home, their half-court defense gets to work against a set floor.
The second fight is on the glass. Reese has turned rebounds into extra possessions all series, and Golden State has no clean answer when she seals deep position early in a possession. The Valkyries need a team rebounding effort, with guards digging down to help, without giving Gray and Howard clean looks from three. Atlanta shot over 43 percent from the field and from three-point range in Game 6, and Gray and Howard combined for 44 points and nine 3-pointers. Golden State cannot let both shooters heat up early, the way they did in that 32-point first quarter on Thursday.
Golden State also waits on Tiffany Hayes. She scored 15 points in 28 minutes in Game 6 before a fourth-quarter collision on a loose ball left her holding her left hip, and she did not return. Coach Natalie Nakase said afterward that Hayes looked fine, and no official restriction for Game 7 had been announced. Her ball handling and her defense on Gray matter in a game this tight.
What history says, and what it cannot
The home team record in decisive Finals games favors Golden State, and Chase Center, nicknamed Ballhalla during Valkyries games, will be loud from the first possession. But this Atlanta team has already won in the building in this series, and it played its best game of the Finals with its season on the line on Thursday. The Dream reached the Finals in 2010, 2011 and 2013 and lost each time. The Valkyries are in their second season as a franchise. One of those waits ends on Saturday night.
Key numbers
Series: tied 3-3. Game 6: Atlanta 80, Golden State 69. Reese rebounds in the series: 78, a Finals record, passing the 75 of Sylvia Fowles in 2017. Gray in Game 6: 23 points and five 3-pointers. Atlanta 3-pointers in Game 6: 13, tied for the most by a team facing elimination in Finals history. Decisive Finals games won by the home team: 11 of 13.
How to watch
Game 7 tips off Saturday, October 31 at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) at Chase Center in San Francisco. TV: USA Network and CNBC. Streaming: Peacock and Fubo.
Timeline
- Oct 19, 2026Atlanta wins Game 2 in San Francisco, 79-65, behind 30 points and 16 rebounds from Angel Reese, tying the series 1-1.
- Oct 21, 2026Atlanta routs Golden State 97-71 in Game 3 in Atlanta to take a 2-1 series lead.
- Oct 24, 2026Golden State wins Game 4 in Atlanta, 67-62, to tie the series 2-2.
- Oct 26, 2026Golden State wins Game 5 in San Francisco, 64-55, and moves within one win of the title.
- Oct 29, 2026Atlanta wins Game 6 at home, 80-69, as Allisha Gray scores 23 and Angel Reese reaches 78 rebounds for the series, a Finals record. The win forces the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history.
- Oct 31, 2026Game 7 at Chase Center in San Francisco, 8 p.m. ET on USA Network and CNBC, streaming on Peacock. The winner wins a first franchise championship.