SAN FRANCISCO — Wings coach José Fernández said Sunday night that Game 1 followed the same pattern as Golden State’s three regular-season wins over Dallas. The Golden State Valkyries outscored the Dallas Wings 37-11 in the second quarter and won 104-80 at Chase Center to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three first-round series.
The 37 points set a WNBA postseason record for a second quarter. Dallas trailed 21-20 after the first quarter and 58-31 at halftime.
José Fernández Points To Second-Quarter Pattern Against Golden State Valkyries
In the June 17 meeting at Chase Center, Dallas led 26-17 after one quarter before Golden State won the second 27-7 and the game 91-80. The Valkyries also won 94-76 on Aug. 7 in Dallas and 78-70 on Aug. 17 in San Francisco.
“If you look at all three games, my previous three games, look at the first quarter scores. We’ve all been one possession, two possession games going in the second,” Fernández said. “Game one, second quarter, it was 27-7. Now look at game two, third quarter. I don’t know how we lost the third quarter. And game three, 24-9 in the second quarter. So it was the same outcome tonight.”
Golden State opened Sunday’s second quarter on an 11-4 run, with Tiffany Hayes scoring 8 of the points, and Fernández called timeout with 7:21 left in the half down 32-24. A 12-4 push made it 44-28 and brought another timeout with 3:33 remaining. The Valkyries shot 13-of-18 in the quarter, went 7-of-10 from three, and did not turn it over.
Dallas shot 5-of-16 in the quarter and missed all 4 of its three-point attempts. Paige Bueckers made all 3 of her shots in the period, and the rest of the Wings went 2-of-13.
José Fernández Says Dallas Wings Missed Two Of Three Keys
On Friday, Fernández had singled out ball security and three-point defense, noting that Dallas turned it over more times than it had assists in each of the last two regular-season meetings. Across the three games, the Wings averaged 14.0 assists and 13.0 turnovers. Sunday, Dallas finished with 19 assists and 10 turnovers, but 6 of the turnovers came in the first half and Golden State scored 9 points off them.
Minutes before Fernández spoke, Bueckers said the Wings have a bad habit of letting made or missed shots dictate how hard they defend, and she called it unacceptable in the playoffs. Golden State went 18-of-36 from three, the second-most three-pointers by a team in a WNBA postseason game. During the regular season, Dallas allowed 8.0 made threes per game, barely trailing only the Golden State and the Indiana Fever.
Fernández said the Valkyries’ second-quarter damage came off dribble drive and two-man action.
“I’m sure Paige was brutally honest about that,” Fernández explained. “Your defense shouldn’t dictate on how your offense is playing. We play a lot harder on the defensive end when the ball’s going through the basket, and when you do that, things like this is going to happen. But you got to give Golden State a lot of credit. 18-of-36 from threes. We’ll watch film, how many of those were contested, how many were not.”
“But the second quarter, they’re running dribble drive and two-man game, getting downhill on flips,” Fernández continued. “The three things I talked about, we had to limit turnovers, especially live-ball turnovers, we had to keep the ball in front of us, and we had to guard the arc well. The turnovers, the live-ball turnovers, hurt us in the first half, but we didn’t do either of the other two.”
Dallas’ reserves went scoreless in the first half and finished with 36 points, all after halftime. Golden State’s bench scored 40, led by Hayes’ 21 in 18:38. Fernández said Golden State’s bench is the strength of its roster.
“In the second half, the game’s out of hand, right? You want everybody to continue to play hard, and guys get opportunities to play, and that’s what you want. The score shouldn’t dictate your effort, right?” Fernández said. “And I thought our second unit did that in the second half.”
“But Golden State’s strength is their bench. They got the number one bench in the league,” Fernández added. “So, like I said before the game, they got guys in their second unit that can start for teams in this league. And that’s a credit to their roster construction and what they’ve done.”
Fernández is in his first season with Dallas after coaching South Florida from 2000 to 2025. The Wings went from 10-34 last season to 27-17 this year and are in the playoffs for the first time since 2023.
“We’ll be off tomorrow, and then we’ll come back, regroup, watch film, and get ready for Wednesday,” Fernández said.
Game 2 is Wednesday at College Park Center in Arlington, with tip-off at 8 p.m. CT on ESPN. A Game 3, if needed, would be played Friday, Oct. 2, at Chase Center.
