WNBA Semifinals Game 2 Preview: Dream and Valkyries Look to Push 2-0 Leads as Liberty, Aces Fight Back

SAN FRANCISCO — The WNBA semifinals resume Wednesday night, and both series are already tilting. Sunday's Game 1s delivered two statements at once: the Atlanta Dream smothered the New York Liberty 92-82 at State Farm Arena, and the Golden State Valkyries held the defending champion Las Vegas Aces to a season-low 60 points in a 71-60 win at a deafening Chase Center. Game 2s go Wednesday — Liberty at Dream at 7:30 PM ET on ESPN, Aces at Valkyries at 9:30 PM ET on Peacock and NBCSN — and both home teams have a chance to take commanding 2-0 leads in the best-of-five, 2-2-1 format.

Start in Atlanta, where the Dream's defense authored one of the wildest quarters of these playoffs. Down 40-37 at halftime, Atlanta outscored New York 32-15 in the third — forcing nine turnovers, nearly all steals, and scoring 16 points off the giveaways, tying a WNBA playoff record for points off turnovers in a quarter. For the game, the Dream forced 21 turnovers and scored 32 points off them, also tying a playoff record. It was a clinic in turning defense into offense, and it broke the back of the team that had just made history.

The engine was Jordin Canada, who scored 20 of her 25 points in the second half and added five steals — including the dagger three that killed New York's last comeback, a shot-clock-beating bomb followed by a transition layup off a stop that sealed it. DeWanna Bonner added 23 points and helped fill the void when Allisha Gray went down with a left hand injury in the second quarter; Gray's severity and series status remain unconfirmed, and her availability looms as the single biggest variable of Wednesday's Game 2.

And then there was Angel Reese — honored pregame as the 2026 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, then immediately showing why: 17 points, seven rebounds, four steals and three blocks in the Game 1 win. The award, covered in our story earlier Sunday, is the exclamation point on a record-setting first season in Atlanta, and the Liberty had no answer for her activity on either end. Sabrina Ionescu led New York with 27 points and Breanna Stewart added 19, but the Liberty trimmed a 16-point deficit to five in the closing minutes and still couldn't survive the Dream's third-quarter avalanche.

For New York, Game 2 is about survival of the story they just wrote. The 8-seed Liberty stunned the league by sweeping the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx in the first round — the first No. 8 seed to ever eliminate a No. 1 in WNBA history. That magic ran straight into a Dream team that has now won three straight playoff games by force of defense. The Liberty's path back is turnovers: cut the giveaways, and the talent gap narrows fast. Keep giving Atlanta 30-plus points off mistakes, and Wednesday could be the night the Cinderella run meets its wall.

Out west, the story is even more startling. The Valkyries — a second-year franchise that had never won a playoff series before Friday night — didn't just beat the defending champions in Game 1. They dismantled them. Golden State held Las Vegas to 60 points, a season low, behind a ferocious defensive game plan: everywhere A'ja Wilson touched the ball, a wall of lavender-clad defenders met her, usually with Kiah Stokes shadowing her. Wilson, the four-time MVP and the league's leading scorer, finished with 24 points but needed 21 shots to get there (8-for-21) and was a minus-12.

The star of the afternoon was Gabby Williams, who poured in 25 points with 11 rebounds and five assists — 18 of those points coming in a first half in which she shot 6-for-10, including a three that pushed Golden State ahead 32-23 late in the half as the sellout crowd chanted 'Gabby! Gabby!' Stokes, who won three championships with Las Vegas, was immense against her former team: 14 rebounds and three blocked shots. The Valkyries out-rebounded the Aces 52-25 — Las Vegas didn't secure an offensive rebound until roughly two minutes into the second half — and held the Aces to 33.8 percent shooting after they had shot 45.3 percent in their first-round finale against Indiana.

The Aces' problems compound beyond the box score. Guard Jewell Loyd exited early in the third quarter with a left leg injury and did not return — scoreless in the game, 0-for-2, with the team saying she was being evaluated and coach Becky Hammon offering no immediate update afterward. Las Vegas was already depleted: NaLyssa Smith, Stephanie Talbot and Dana Evans are all out, and Hammon acknowledged it pregame — 'We're a little bit depleted right now. We just have to be next woman up.' Chelsea Gray, who became the WNBA's all-time playoff assist leader on Sunday, finished with 16 points, but the Aces need far more creation if Loyd can't go Wednesday.

There is one more piece of good news for Golden State: head coach Natalie Nakase, who collapsed on the sideline late in Friday's series-clinching comeback over Dallas and was examined by a doctor on Saturday, was well enough to coach Sunday — and her team responded with the biggest win in franchise history. The Ballhalla crowd, a sea of violet 'We Are Ballhalla' shirts with confetti falling at the final buzzer, has become one of the league's great home-court advantages. Game 2 is back at Chase Center on Wednesday, and the building will be shaking.

So here is Wednesday's doubleheader in full. In Atlanta, the Dream can go up 2-0 on the team that just made history — but a healthy Allisha Gray question mark and a Liberty team with Ionescu and Stewart is no one's idea of a safe lead. In San Francisco, the Valkyries can go up 2-0 on the defending champions — but counting out a Wilson-led Aces team with its season flickering has never been a winning bet. The full schedule from here: Game 3s on Friday, Oct. 9 (Dream at Liberty, 7:30 PM ET, ESPN2; Valkyries at Aces, 9:30 PM ET, Peacock/NBCSN), Game 4s if necessary on Sunday, Oct. 11, and Game 5s if necessary on Wednesday, Oct. 14. The Finals — a best-of-seven — begin Saturday, Oct. 17.

Two Game 1s, two home teams up 1-0, two dynasties-in-the-making against two teams that refuse to read the script. The Liberty already rewrote WNBA history once this postseason; the Valkyries are trying to do it twice in one week. Wednesday night decides whether these series become coronations or comebacks — and after Sunday, nothing about this postseason feels predictable.