Game 22 wrap: Valkyries fade in last 3 min, Nneke takes over; Always… wait for it… Close Enough To Hurt™

early start good for campers, bad for working folk

(Spoilers below)

Game 22 wrap: Valkyries fade in last 3 min, Nneke takes over; Always… wait for it… Close Enough To Hurt™

Valkyries limp into the All-Star break with another spirited performance on the road unrewarded. With the game hanging in the balance 2 points down with 3:10 to go, whammo, too much from Seattle Stormers Nneke Ogwumike and Erica Wheeler.

• Official Box Score

Time to rest up for the All-Star break (except for Kayla Thornton) and get a fresh start afterwards, probably with Iliana Rupert in the fold.

ON THE FEELING GOING INTO THE ALL-STAR BREAK:

Coach Nakase: “I feel proud, especially with a bunch of players not knowing each other and seeing their faces day one, and now being able to kind of go at them in a different way and just be authentically myself; but be truth tellers and go right at them. I feel great. We just had a great conversation of ownership of all the things that we could have done better today, including myself. I thought I could explain things better, quicker in timeouts. I love where we're at right now.”

Zandalasini: “Yeah, everybody needs rest. It's a mixed feeling since we didn’t play very well in the last two weeks, week and a half, so we’ve got things to get back when we come back, but for now everybody needs to go switch off a little bit. So we will be back more prepared for sure.”

On “Always Close Enough To Hurt™”

I’d like to elaborate on this phrase, which I’ve been using for years to describe the Golden State Warriors. On the one hand, it’s the plain truth wrapped in gallows humor. That’s how it feels when there are amazing comebacks that fall short or leads that dwindle into nervous time, or even when there are wonderful nerve-wracking efforts that end in wins.

But to be clear, I consider it a badge of honor for a team. For instance, the 2025 Connecticut Sun games are not ACETH™. The 2024-25 Utah Jazz were not ACETH™. Because, to earn the ACETH™ status,

1. The team has to overachieve.

When you overachieve, you are rarely going to blowout the other team.

The Warriors have been an aging, under-talented team whose window was supposedly closed in 2020. This means that sometimes they will get a big lead against a team that they should lose to, and the rest of the game is about whether they can hang on. Sometimes it means they will play a supposedly bad team close because they are exhausted from keeping up with the good teams in a brutal schedule.

The Valkyries are a young, under-talented team. They should not be able to compete with a Seattle Storm team that trots out a Williams/Diggins/Ogwumike/Magbegor/Wheeler lineup - five All-Stars.

But they overachieve and more often than not, they achieve the GOOD scenario of a close game with a random ending, which is going to be bad for your heart, win or lose.

2. The team has to never give up.

That means a sure loss (that you accepted in your heart) suddenly rips open the wound again to give you that hope that it might turn around... only to be disappointed again. Teams that keep hustling beyond reasonableness create situations where sure losses become long shots which become coin flips.

To love, you must accept the possibility of heartbreak. Sports without heartbreak is mere bookkeeping.

In short, a team that makes it Always Close Enough To Hurt™ is a team to be proud of. But consult a heart doctor before watching.

Apricot’s Brief In-Game Notes

Sorry folks, I can’t watch a lot of the game, so I’ll just do detailed notes on the start.

Q1

• 10.00. The play after a time stoppage, including the beginning of the game, is usually a called play, often called an ATO (after timeout) play. This one is a Horns play. Feed the left elbow, then Hayes sets a back screen for Burton to cut to the basket, and then Hayes pops out. It's a way to start off a Hayes-Fagbenle pick-and-roll while the defense is off-balance.

  • Seattle is playing a soft show-and-recover defense, Fagbenle punishes by rolling, and that play would have worked except there was a great rotation from Burton's defender, leaving her in the corner. The play resets, but there's no time to do anything effective.

• 8.50. The Valkyries are playing a deep drop defense. This is going to give Seattle open jumpers all day, but they miss this one.

• 8.40. Kind of a cool subtle adjustment here. GSV flows into a wing pick-and-roll again, with Thornton getting a Hayes screen. Burton's defender again completely leaves her to be a goalie behind the play. Then GSV quickly swings into another pick-and-roll, and the extra help defender now recovers all the way back to Burton. But in that crucial moment, GSV does a Thornton-Fagbenle pick-and-roll again, defended with Show-and-Recover again. Again, Fagbenle rolls into open space, and this time there is no help defender behind.

• 7.25. That was a fun play for defense aficionados. Valkyries show off their very energetic rotations (not always super precise, sometimes two players rotate to the same player, but they get the job done). Seattle tries finding the open shot on the weak side, but the rotations are in time. Wheeler has to hit a difficult shot, which she does, with aplomb.

• 6.57. Seattle again rotating the help way off the opposite corner to meet Burton in her drive in the lane. Her brute force attempt is repelled.

• 6:50. Really good example of how speed kills. Early with a bucket, Burton gets knocked down by a hard screen (maybe should have been called out by a teammate). So Hayes has to pick up Burton’s mark, leaving Nneka open jumper. That opening was only there for a second. Timeout.

• 6.40. I don't think Seattle has gotten great shots. The bigger problem is the Valkyries attacking Seattle, packing the paint. Again, SEA bring the help from the opposite corner. GSV eventually is going to have to find and hit those open threes.

• 6.20. GSV throws out the surprise 2-3 zone. Seattle shoots over it, misses. Burton sacrifices her face to get the foul call on the rebound.

• 6:04. GSV again with the wing pick-and-roll, Thornton sees the opposite side (weak side) help coming and tries to punish by throwing out to the open wing. Overthrown pass. The ball turns to flubber and it's chaotic for the next few seconds.

• 5:10. Same play, I think, as before: wing pick-and-roll, ball swings to the open opposite wing. Carla Leite with a nice attack and floating bank shot as opposed to firing up a three.

• 4.25. Salaun gets guarded by a small, and instead of GSV posting her up and going to a mismatch, Carla Leite takes a running start at her defender, gets her backing up, and she runs into a completely pure three. Apologies for doubting you, Carla.

Valkyrie Valor

As the winner last time, Janelle Salaun is not eligible for today’s poll.