SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Valkyries outscored the Dallas Wings 37-11 in the second quarter Sunday night and went on to win 104-80 in Game 1 of their best-of-three first-round series at Chase Center. Golden State’s 37 points set a WNBA postseason record for a second quarter, and the Valkyries took a 58-31 lead into halftime in front of a sellout crowd of 18,064.
Paige Bueckers scored 21 points on 9-of-10 shooting in her first WNBA postseason game, one point shy of the franchise record for a playoff debut. She played 25:03 and sat the entire fourth quarter with Dallas trailing 85-56.
Dallas, the No. 7 seed at 27-17, was playing its first postseason game since 2023. Golden State finished 32-12 as the No. 2 seed and has now beaten the Wings in all four meetings this year after sweeping the regular-season series 3-0.
Bueckers said Golden State’s defense stays locked in on nights when its shots are not falling, and that Dallas can take something from that. The Valkyries allowed a league-low 75.1 points per game during the regular season.
“Their defense is really good, and they start with that. They don’t let their offense dictate their defense,” Bueckers said. “It’s really the other way around. So when they’re flying around, getting stops, shots tend to go in more for them. So it’s tough on a team like that where you’re never going to get their worst night defensively.”
“I mean, they might miss shots, they might miss threes, they might have an off night shooting, but they’re always locked in defensively, and I think we can take something from that,” Bueckers continued. “We’ve been a team that has a bad habit of letting made or missed shots dictate how hard we play on the defensive end, and this is the playoffs. So that’s really unacceptable.”
Golden State Valkyries Pull Away With 37-Point Second Quarter
Wings coach Jose Fernandez started Bueckers, Arike Ogunbowale, Awak Kuier, Maddy Siegrist, and Jessica Shepard for the fifth straight game. Dallas led 8-4 early behind a three-pointer from Bueckers, two free throws from Ogunbowale, and an and-one from Siegrist. The first quarter had six lead changes and four ties, and Golden State led 21-20 after 10 minutes.
Bueckers had 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting in the opening quarter, including 2-of-2 from three. At that point, no other Wings player had more than 4.
Tiffany Hayes scored 8 of the Valkyries’ first 11 points of the second quarter, hitting two three-pointers and a pair of free throws. That 11-4 run put Golden State ahead 32-24 and forced a Dallas timeout with 7:21 left in the half. A 12-4 push after that made it 44-28 and brought another Wings timeout with 3:33 remaining.
Cecilia Zandalasini scored 12 of her 22 points in the second quarter. Veronica Burton closed the half with a step-back three-pointer with 17.9 seconds left for the 27-point lead.
Golden State shot 13-of-18 in the second quarter, including 7-of-10 from three, and did not commit a turnover. Dallas shot 5-of-16, missed all 4 of its three-point attempts, and turned it over 3 times.
After the game, Fernandez went back through all three regular-season losses to Golden State. The Valkyries won those by 11, 18, and 8 points.
“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,” Fernandez 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.”
When Dallas did not get stops, it did not get its transition game either. The Wings had no fast-break points in the first half, while Golden State had 7.
“We didn’t get stops, and they got whatever they want offensively. A 37-point quarter is insane work,” Bueckers explained. “So it was us just not sticking to our game plan, locking in defensively, and it starts with me, so I’ve got to be better. I know that.”
“But to just keep people in front, not have to be in scramble and constant rotations. They shot the ball really well from three, so guarding the three-point line better,” Bueckers added. “And then when we don’t get stops, you don’t get out in transition and get easy buckets that way. So it was just a tough second quarter for us on both ends.”
Before the series opened, Fernandez had singled out ball security and three-point defense. Dallas committed 6 turnovers in the first half, and Golden State turned them into 9 points while committing 1 of its own.
“I’m sure Paige was brutally honest about that. Your defense shouldn’t dictate on how your offense is playing,” Fernandez explained. “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,” Fernandez 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.”
Golden State finished 18-of-36 from three-point range. The 18 makes were the second-most by a team in a WNBA postseason game, and no team had made as many in a playoff game since 2022. Dallas went 6-of-20 from deep, which left the Valkyries with a 54-18 edge from beyond the arc.
“I’m not good at math, but that’s a lot more points from the three-point line than us,” Bueckers said. “So that’s not good.”
Zandalasini led all scorers with 22 points in 15:52, going 7-of-11 from the field and 4-of-5 from three. Gabby Williams added 20 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 steal. Burton had 10 points and 5 assists, Kayla Thornton scored 10, and Kiah Stokes grabbed a game-high 8 rebounds.
Hayes finished with 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting in 18:38 off the bench, 15 of them in the first half. She and Kaitlyn Chen combined for 29 points and 5 three-pointers as Golden State’s reserves outscored Dallas’ 40-36.
“It’s tough, especially when they’re knocking down threes, because they’re so quick and fast and shifty,” Bueckers said. “So you try to take away one thing, and they have multiple things that can hurt you.”
The Valkyries went 17-5 at Chase Center during the regular season, and Game 1 was their first playoff game in the building. Golden State shot 48.6% from the field to Dallas’ 46.7%.
“I think they have one of the best home courts in the league. Their fan base is very supportive. There’s not a silent voice in the crowd,” Bueckers said. “So it’s tough to play here, but as a competitor, you kind of love that and you want to embrace that environment. But two, it just makes it tough in runs. It’s definitely their sixth man, so it’s a tough crowd to play in for sure.”
Paige Bueckers Scores 21 In First WNBA Playoff Game
Bueckers went into halftime with 17 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 assist on 7-of-8 shooting. The 17 points set a franchise record for points in a half in a postseason debut. The rest of the Wings shot 5-of-23 in the first half.
She finished 9-of-10 from the field, 2-of-2 from three, and 1-of-1 at the free-throw line, with a team-high 6 rebounds and 2 assists. According to the Wings, her 90% shooting was the third-best field-goal percentage in a WNBA postseason game among players with at least 9 made field goals.
In the three regular-season meetings, Bueckers averaged 17.7 points on 44.2% shooting. She has been around Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase enough to know how Golden State prepares for her.
“All my buckets were tough. They make it extremely hard. They show shrinks. They have people in gaps. They showed multiple bodies. They blitz. They make every shot tough,” Bueckers said. “So nothing about tonight was easy.”
“And their defense, like I said, has always been their calling card, and I know every single time, and as a team, they’re really well connected,” Bueckers noted. “And Coach Nat, I’ve been around her enough to know that her team is always going to be prepared and give your best shot defensively. So I know she’s not pleased, even that they gave up 80 points. So I know every single night against them is going to be tough.”
Siegrist scored 11 points on 4-of-9 shooting with 3 rebounds in her first career postseason start, a playoff career high. Ogunbowale added 10 points and 4 assists and went 6-of-6 at the free-throw line, one make shy of the franchise postseason record for free throws without a miss. She shot 2-of-7 from the field.
Shepard went 0-of-7 and finished with 0 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 assists, along with 3 turnovers. Kuier had 2 points and 4 rebounds. Dallas committed 10 turnovers in the game, and Golden State scored 15 points off them.
A Bueckers jumper opened the second half, and Golden State answered with 8 straight points to go up 66-33 with 7:35 left in the third quarter. Dallas shot 8-of-15 in the third, with Siegrist and Aziaha James scoring 5 points apiece. The Valkyries still won the quarter 27-25 and led 85-56 going into the fourth.
Fernandez opened the fourth quarter with Odyssey Sims, James, Kitija Laksa, Alysha Clark, and Li Yueru. Golden State scored the first 7 points of the period, and a Williams three-pointer with 7:38 left made it 92-56, the Valkyries’ largest lead.
Laksa scored all 11 of her points in the fourth quarter, going 4-of-4 from the field and 3-of-3 from three in the period. The 11 points were a personal postseason best. Sims finished with 7 points, 3 rebounds, and a game-high 7 assists, and Li added 7 points and 3 rebounds as Dallas won the fourth quarter 24-19.
Dallas’ reserves did not score in the first half, and all 36 of their points came after halftime. Fernandez 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?” Fernandez 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,” Fernandez 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.”
Dallas held a 36-30 edge in points in the paint. Golden State won the second-chance battle 10-3 and the fast-break battle 8-5.
“Obviously, they’re an extremely physical team, but I think the last few weeks we’ve seen the physicality pick up, and we’ve got to do a better job of matching that and raising that early on in the game,” Siegrist said.
Dallas has to win Wednesday to force a Game 3 back at Chase Center on Friday. The series follows a 1-1-1 format.
“I think we’ve got to play a lot harder, and we’ve got to match or raise the intensity of the game. I think just communication,” Siegrist explained. “A lot of things that we can fix, which makes you feel optimistic going into Wednesday.”
The Wings played without forward Alanna Smith, who was inactive with a lower left leg injury. Guard Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 overall pick in April’s draft, has been out since the team announced on Aug. 19 that she would undergo season-ending arthroscopic surgery on her right knee.
“We’ll be off tomorrow, and then we’ll come back, regroup, watch film, and get ready for Wednesday,” Fernandez said.
Game 2 is set for Wednesday at College Park Center in Arlington, with tip-off at 8 p.m. CT on ESPN. If Dallas wins, Game 3 would be played Friday, Oct. 2, at Chase Center.
