Angel Reese Ends Atlanta’s 0-10 Finals Drought on the Road

Angel Reese had 30 points and 16 rebounds on Monday as Atlanta beat Golden State 79-65, the Dream’s first WNBA Finals win. The best-of-seven series is tied 1-1 and moves to State Farm Arena on Wednesday, October 21.

Reese had gone scoreless in the second half of Saturday’s 68-64 Game 1 loss at Chase Center. Two nights later she spent the evening yelling for the ball in a building that has sold out every Valkyries home game at 18,064, and Atlanta left San Francisco with the franchise’s first championship-round victory after sitting 0-10.

Three Sweeps Had Left the Dream 0-9

Atlanta reached the Finals in 2010, 2011 and 2013 and never took a game. Those were best-of-five series, and each one ended 0-3. The club, born in 2008, still has no title. Golden State, in its second season, does not have one either.

THE DREAM IN THE FINALS

1. 2010: Falls 0-3 to the Seattle Storm, with Lauren Jackson named Finals MVP.
2. 2011: Falls 0-3 to the Minnesota Lynx, with Seimone Augustus named Finals MVP. Angel McCoughtry scores 38 points on October 5 in a game Atlanta still loses.
3. 2013: Falls 0-3 to the Minnesota Lynx again, with Maya Moore named Finals MVP.
4. October 17, 2026: Drops Game 1 in San Francisco, 68-64, and sits 0-10 in Finals games.
5. October 19, 2026: Beats the Valkyries 79-65 for the first Finals win in franchise history.

Atlanta’s three prior Finals losses sit on the same ledger as those sweeps, and McCoughtry’s 38 remains the scoring high for a Dream player in this round. She did it in a series the club still lost. Reese’s 30 came with the win the franchise had never posted, 13 years after its last Finals trip and 16 years after the first.

Coach Karl Smesko’s 2026 team was the No. 4 seed at 30-14. Golden State was the No. 2 seed at 32-12, behind only the Minnesota Lynx at 33-11, and held home court in a 2-2-1-1-1 setup. The Valkyries had also beaten Atlanta in all three regular-season meetings and in Game 1. The pattern on paper still favored the new club from the Bay. Monday night did not follow it.

Reese Took the Ball and Finished With 30 and 16

Reese is in her first season with the Dream after a trade from Chicago, and she is the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. In Game 1 she had 14 points on 5-for-11 shooting and 12 rebounds, 11 of those points in the first quarter, then nothing after halftime. She went 0-for-3 with three turnovers in 18 second-half minutes, picked up 5 fouls, and watched Atlanta score 8 points in the fourth on 2-for-19 shooting.

Smesko said he caught her eye in the locker room before Game 2 and thought, “Oh, I like this look.” Reese later put the same thing in plainer words.

I was hungry. I think we let one slip away. You can’t do that. We all came together and were pissed. I walked off the court not feeling like myself, and I wanted to make sure that this game, I did everything I could do to walk off the court and feel like who I am.

Angel Reese, Dream forward, after Game 2

She scored 8 in the first quarter and 7 in the second, 15 points on 6-for-9 shooting by the break, already one more than her full Game 1 line. She added 9 in the third, matching Golden State’s entire quarter, then 6 in the fourth, including a 24-foot 3-pointer that made it 74-55 with 4:15 left. She entered the second half with 3 fouls. Golden State never made her sit.

THE REESE LINE

• Scoring: 30 points on 10-for-16 shooting, 1-for-1 from 3, 9-for-11 from the line, a playoff career high.
• Glass: 16 rebounds, with 3 assists, 2 blocks and 1 steal in 34 minutes.
• Company: Third player with at least 30 points and 15 rebounds in a Finals game, after Jonquel Jones for Connecticut in 2019 and Breanna Stewart for Seattle in 2020.
• Age: At 24 years and 166 days, the youngest player with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds in the Finals.

Clips of her stomping for the ball were already being recast as a tantrum before the box score cooled off. The same demand produced 10 made shots, 9 made free throws, and that 24-foot 3. A 30-point night built in the paint and at the line is exactly the diet a 34-percent shooting series asks for, and Atlanta was plus-13 with her on the floor.

Jordin Canada, who had 13 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds, said the bench and the starters both fed off that heat.

Angel is such a generational talent, just to see her thrive in the Finals has been really special to watch. You can just see that she wants it really bad. We feed off her energy.

Jordin Canada, Dream guard, after Game 2

Allisha Gray added 18 points with 3 threes after missing most of the semifinals with a hand injury. The league account posted the first-win graphic before the building had emptied.

THAT'S A GAME 2 WIN FOR THE @ATLANTADREAM 🅰️

They defeat the Valkyries, 79-65 to tie the series at 1-1! This is the Dream's first Finals win in franchise history!

Angel Reese: 30 PTS | 16 REB | 3 AST | 2 BLK
Allisha Gray: 18 PTS | 5 REB | 3 3PM
Jordin Canada: 13 PTS | 10 AST |… pic.twitter.com/R1yGn7x3cL

— WNBA (@WNBA) October 20, 2026

How 19 Turnovers Became a 14-Point Night

Golden State and Atlanta ranked first and second in defensive rating in the regular season, and both have shot 34 percent or worse in each Finals game. Monday’s margin did not come from a shooting outburst. It came from the ball and the foul line.

Atlanta scored 24 points off 19 Valkyries turnovers after getting only 8 points off turnovers in Game 1. The Dream went 30-of-35 from the line; Golden State went 16-of-19. After a 39-37 halftime lead, Atlanta outscored the Valkyries 21-9 in the third, made 12-of-12 free throws in that quarter, and took a 60-46 lead into the fourth. The second half finished 40-28. The lead reached 21.

GAME 1 AND GAME 2

Four of Golden State’s five starters had at least 2 turnovers. Kayla Thornton was the starter without one. Point guard Veronica Burton finished with 11 points and 3 turnovers and took the blame anyway. “We were just a little too loose with the ball,” Burton said. “It starts with me. I think we had a lot of times where we were hesitant or we weren’t on that same page, and that’s where it led to turnovers.”

The loss was Golden State’s first in regulation since a 73-70 defeat at Chicago on August 21. An overtime loss at Portland in September (90-82) and a 108-100 overtime loss at Dallas on September 30 had been the only dents after that Chicago night. Atlanta just handed them a regulation loss on their own floor, in a building that had not seen one from this team in two months.

A Steals Record on Five Points

Rhyne Howard scored 5 points on 2-for-7 shooting and 1-for-5 from 3. She also had 6 steals, a WNBA Finals record, in 27 minutes 28 seconds, with 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 block. WNBA Communications posted the record as it fell.

Howard picked up 4 fouls before halftime, the kind of night that usually ends with a star watching from the bench. She stayed in the game long enough to keep tipping passes into the open floor. DeWanna Bonner added 4 steals of her own, all after halftime. League game notes say they are the second pair of teammates in Finals history with at least 4 steals each in the same game, after Taj McWilliams-Franklin and Nykesha Sales of the 2004 Connecticut Sun.

Kiah Stokes, the Valkyries center, did not dress it up. “She was definitely way more aggressive, she had a great game,” Stokes said of Reese, then widened the lens. “We let everyone kind of have their way.” On the turnovers, Stokes added, “You could tell that they ramped up their defense, so we’ve just got to stay focused, stay locked in.”

Reese had said after Game 1 that Golden State “didn’t do anything to mess us up, it was literally just us.” Game 2 looked like the film session she described. “We just got back to our identity about who we are and kept our foot on the pedal,” she said. “That’s just Atlanta basketball.”

Gabby Williams Could Not Repeat Game 1

Williams had been the only Golden State player in double figures in the opener, with 26 points. On Monday she led the Valkyries again, with 14, and she got there on 3-for-15 shooting. Tiffany Hayes also scored 14 off the bench. No one else solved Atlanta’s second-half pressure.

The Valkyries shot 34.4 percent from the field and 7-for-24 from 3. Burton’s summary was blunt: “We shot terribly. We missed shots that we make all the time.” Coach Natalie Nakase pointed at the foul sheet as the next tape session. “We’re going to see how close these fouls were,” Nakase said. “They do lunge forward at times. We have to play harder, No. 1, but we have to play smarter as well.”

Atlanta drew 23 fouls and turned them into those 30 free throws. In a series where neither side is making jumpers at a normal clip, that is the whole math problem. Golden State still has Games 5 and 7 at Chase Center if the series goes that far. It no longer has a 2-0 cushion, and it no longer has a regulation floor it has owned since August.

When Game 3 Tips at State Farm Arena

The Dream’s regular home, Gateway Center Arena in College Park, holds 3,500. The WNBA and the Hawks spent the week of October 13 moving the next two games downtown so the club would not host a Finals crowd in the smallest gym in the league. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called the shift the way to stage the first WNBA Finals game in Atlanta since 2013.

The change of venue dramatically expands the seating capacity and ensures that the Dream will be able to provide an extraordinary atmosphere for the first WNBA Finals game to be played in the Atlanta market since 2013. We are pleased that thousands more fans across the Southeast region will have the opportunity to experience the ultimate WNBA action, the WNBA Finals, in person.

Cathy Engelbert, WNBA commissioner, October 13 statement

Majority owner Larry Gottesdiener said, “This is what the players and the fans deserve.” Valkyries owner Joe Lacob had already said the optics of 18,000 at Chase Center and 3,500 in College Park would not look right for the league. A Sombr concert had State Farm Arena on October 22, the original Game 3 date, and the Hawks had a home opener on October 24. Game 3 moved up a day. Game 4 moved up to 1 p.m. so the Hawks can play Houston at 8:30 that night.

THE ATLANTA DATES

• Game 3: Wednesday, October 21, 8 p.m. ET on USA Network, CNBC and Peacock.
• Game 4: Saturday, October 24, 1 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock, then the Hawks and Rockets at 8:30 p.m.
• The building: State Farm Arena, more than 17,000 seats, with the Dream due to move in full-time in 2027.
• If needed: Game 5 on October 26 back at Chase Center; Game 6 on October 29 in Atlanta; Game 7 on October 31 in San Francisco.

The Dream and Hawks spelled out Games 3 and 4 at State Farm Arena in a joint note on October 13, including the doubleheader on the 24th. Tickets went on sale October 16. Reese, on the floor in San Francisco, had already issued the local invitation. “Atlanta, y’all better pull up and pop out, I’m looking forward to it,” she said.

She also called the win “just the next step of who Atlanta is.” For a club that had been swept three times and had never won a Finals game, the next step is a tied series in a building more than 17,000 strong, two nights after the drought finally broke on the road.