Dream Force the First Game 7 in WNBA Finals History

The Atlanta Dream were not ready to go home.

Facing elimination on Thursday afternoon — a 12:30 p.m. ET tip in front of a sellout crowd at State Farm Arena — Atlanta played its best game of the Finals when anything less would have ended its season: an 80-69 win over the Golden State Valkyries that ties the series 3-3 and sends the WNBA Finals to a Game 7 for the first time in the league's history. Two nights after scoring 55 points in a Game 5 loss, the Dream scored 32 in the first quarter alone.

A first quarter that settled it

Golden State led 6-5 in the opening minutes. Then the floor tilted. Atlanta ripped off 13 straight points — five apiece from Allisha Gray and Jordin Canada in the run — to lead 19-5, and when Gabby Williams finally stopped the bleeding with the Valkyries' first 3-pointer, Rhyne Howard answered with consecutive treys to make it 25-8. The Dream made six of their eight 3-point attempts and 11 of 15 shots overall in the period, and walked out of the first quarter up 32-15.

For context: Atlanta's first-half totals in Games 4 and 5 were 26 and 22 points. On Thursday, the Dream matched Game 5's entire first half in the first six and a half minutes.

"They scored 32 points in the first quarter — that's unacceptable on our end," Golden State guard Veronica Burton said. "There needs to be a sense of urgency. It's the WNBA Finals."

The defense did the rest

The shooting got the headlines, but the lead was built at the other end. Golden State — the No. 2 seed, owners of the league's best defense all season — shot nine of 34 in the first half and reached halftime with 26 points. Atlanta's 20-point halftime lead, 46-26, was the largest of the series, and the margin peaked at 25 when Reese's first 3-pointer and a Howard jumper made it 44-19 late in the second quarter.

Reese's corner 3 carried a footnote that is becoming a storyline of its own: Atlanta entered the game 15-0 this season when Reese makes at least one 3-pointer. She made two on Thursday.

Gray was the best player on the floor at both ends — 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 5-of-7 from deep, with six rebounds, three assists, two steals and three blocks. Howard added 21 on four 3s. Reese, the league's Defensive Player of the Year, shot just 5-of-18 but controlled everything else: 15 points, 14 rebounds, six assists — her fourth double-double in six Finals games. Atlanta's starters scored 76 of its 80 points, and the team finished 13-of-30 from three while Golden State went 7-of-27.

"You could definitely tell we got our swagger back," Reese said. "We fed off their energy — they were loud from the beginning, so we're definitely thankful for that. Everybody left everything they had out there."

Golden State's last stand

To their credit, the Valkyries refused the script. They won the third quarter 21-17 — Kaila Charles beat the buzzer with a 3 to cut it to 63-47 — and the fourth 22-17. Williams, held to four points in the first half, poured in 22 after it, and a 14-3 run made it a game again: her three-point play with 1:15 left cut Atlanta's lead to 77-69, eight points, with the building suddenly very quiet.

That was as close as it got. Howard fouled out on the play, but Gray — who else — sank her fifth 3-pointer with 56 seconds remaining, and 80-69 is where it ended. Williams finished with a game-high 26 for Golden State and Tiffany Hayes added 15, but the other Valkyries combined for 28 points on 8-of-38 shooting.

70 is the line

Six games into this Finals, the series has a rule, and it has never been broken:

• Game 1: Atlanta 64 — loss (64-68)
• Game 2: Atlanta 79 — win (79-65)
• Game 3: Atlanta 97 — win (97-71)
• Game 4: Atlanta 62 — loss (62-67)
• Game 5: Atlanta 55 — loss (55-64)
• Game 6: Atlanta 80 — win (80-69)

When the Dream score 70, they win. When they don't, they lose — 3-0 one way, 0-3 the other, no exceptions. Stranger still: Atlanta has outscored Golden State 437-404 across the six games, a 33-point edge, and the series is level anyway. The Dream's wins have been routs; their losses, rock fights. Saturday asks which version shows up.

One game for everything

Game 7 is Saturday — Halloween — at 5:00 p.m. PT at Chase Center, on USA Network, Peacock and CNBC. It is the 13th winner-take-all game in Finals history and the first ever played as a Game 7: the Finals only became best-of-seven in 2025, and that series ended in a sweep. The 12 deciders before this one were Game 5s and Game 3s, and home teams won 10 of them. Atlanta is both the team that forced this game and the road team — history calls the first part a coin flip (the forcing team went 4-4 in decisive Game 5s) and the second part a wall: only Phoenix in 2007 and Los Angeles in 2016 have ever won a Finals decider on the road.

The stakes need no decoration. Golden State is an expansion franchise in its second season, which swept Atlanta in the regular season and swept the defending-champion Aces in the semifinals. Atlanta, the No. 4 seed, was unbeaten in these playoffs until the Finals. Neither has ever won a championship. One of them does on Saturday.

Two watch items out of Game 6's fourth quarter: Hayes took an awkward fall in a collision as she picked up her fifth foul with about five minutes left, and Laeticia Amihere came down hard and limped to the bench. No official availability designations for Game 7 had been announced as of Thursday night — both are worth watching, neither is news yet.

Dream coach Karl Smesko set the tone for the next 48 hours: the mentality, he said, is "yeah, we're happy we won, but we know the job is not done. We have one more game."

So does everybody else. For the first time in 29 seasons of Finals basketball, the WNBA season ends with a Game 7.

Game 6 in full — the box score, the play-by-play and the official highlights reel: Valkyries at Dream — Game Center. More Finals coverage in the WNBA hub.