This is Evie. Her favorite Valkyrie is Kaila Charles and she loves to cuddle!
— Valerie W
General offer to Valkyrie Nation: if you send me a tasteful picture of your loved animal, I will add it to the rotation of Game Wrap animal pictures. Please include a couple of sentences about them and how you want your name to appear.
Extra points if they are wearing Valkyries gear, but even without is okay.
No AI please.
Email to apricotan@gmail.com
#1 holds off #2 again, rematch on Monday
It’s okay if you don’t know what all these stats are. My high-strung computer calculates some rough advanced statistics for the game.
Teal = better, blood orange = worse.
And here is a home-grown graph of the game win probability tonight:
It looks right to me, but if you use this for anything important or anything bad like gambling, then you get what you get.
MIN Coach Reeve pregame
On an anti-trans protest outside.
I don’t want to give them any more oxygen that they deserve. I’ve said this before, transgender kids belong. Politically in this country they found a talking point that people are buying into. And the only thing I ask is that people educate themselves further on these issues and what we’re capable of doing when we work on something together and that something is not used as you know simply rhetoric to marginalize a community that does not deserve marginalization.
Coach Nakase pregame
Ball pressure has to be there vs Olivia Miles pick and roll.
Since last game Jun 19, spacing has gotten better, timing is better.
Every game is different. And that’s what I love about the game. It’s crazy. It’s insane. It’s chaotic. And so I love solution-based decision.
Nat: Like, I literally love spending time with them on the road that last 14-day trip. This one’s only 11. I’m a little bit bummed. It’s a little shorter.
On the MIN system.
Well, they kind of have a system. Like, they really make sure they cover the nail. They’re heavy nail shifted team. Especially also if it goes to the box, they trap the box. So they have, like, more of a system. It’s not so much individual. And I think that’s the biggest thing, is that they cover for each other. They know where in terms of where they are in the shifts or on the ball. Like, what that next rotation is. Cheryl’s been kind of doing this for a couple years now.
Eric: Okay. This was actually pretty helpful for me to hear from Coach N because I’ve been wondering exactly what she means by “shift,” and I think this locks it down.
A quick glossary of what she said is:
The nail is the dot in the middle of the free throw circle.
Shift means that off-ball help comes early.
The box is the lower part of the paint.
Trapping the box means that if someone drives towards the low post (just to the left and right of the basket), then the defender across the paint comes across to help.
For instance, in my last video, I was talking about the part of the adjustment where, instead of swiping at the ball, Kaitlyn Chen would wall up as the help. I think Natalie would call that a shift.
Q1
7:33. Tracking Olivia Miles PNR coverages. Trail-over-and-drop.
6:52. VERONICA BURGLAR.
5:27. Guarding Williams-Howard PNR with trail-over-and-drop.
5:05. Kiah out. Going small.
3:28. Tiffany Hayes is still heat-checking since last game, and heat is not confirmed.
3:21. Has anyone noticed that it’s a little bit loud in here? Can you all settle down? We’re trying to watch a basketball game here. Seriously, Ballhalla was super unimpressed with the blocking foul call on Hayes. Natalie called the timeout. I would be a little bit surprised that they challenged us because, to be honest, it did look like Tip was not in a set legal defending position, but you never know.
3:21. I talked briefly to Ari Waller (hype host) and Jamie Coffee (PA announcer) in the press room before the game, just light banter. I was admiring Ari’s super fuzzy violet hat, and Jamie had also a less fuzzy but still fuzzy hat. I was suggesting that there should be an Ari fuzzy hat giveaway at Ballhalla, or maybe a bobblehead of the two of them, and they preferred the bobblehead idea.
3:18. No challenge, right? I didn’t think they would be.
3:13. MIN runs something like the 45 Twirl play I cover on the MNBA Warriors side of things. Back screen on the right, screener gets a side screen at the wing. But MIN turns it into an elegant post-up by Collier. So annoying that the Lynx can hand the ball to Napheesa Collier and just let her generate a basket with a post-up.
HERE COMES THE CHEN-ERAL.
2:32. Was MIN running the old Warriors Head Tap play? Which comes from Spurs Motion Weak? Ball swings on top, cross screen in the paint.
The Valkyries thrive on offenses that are uni-dimensional, so when Collier was injured, Minnesota had to rely on Olivia Miles to generate all the offense. The Valkyries in game two figured out how to counter that by switching coverages every play and just generally confusing and harassing her. Unfortunately, now the Minnesota Death Star is fully online. But the Valks are hanging in there. GSV shooting a putrid 4-17 and 1-6 on threes. Part of that is the Minnesota defense, but part of that is just missing bunnies and open shots, so the Valkyries should be able to improve on that. After that miserable shooting quarter, they’re only seven points behind.
Q2
The Minnesota Lynx are the team the Valkyries want to be when they grow up.
9:45. Kaila Charles got an awful lot of ball on that blocked shot for a foul. By the way, I’m sorry to tell you, but there’s probably no ref conspiracy against the Valkyries. While it’s possible that the Valkyries will get an unlucky distribution of bad calls, it won’t be on purpose by anybody.
9:30. Right on cue, that drive by KT looks an awful lot like a foul, and I think the Valkyries are getting very unsettled by frustration about the calls.
9:19. There’s also a pretty healthy, spontaneous “Ref U Suck” happening right now. Oh, it’s now taking over the whole stadium.
I think that the “Ref U Suck” chant would have probably continued for the entire timeout if it hadn’t been for a video playing of Natalie talking about breast cancer awareness, where it finally made people, out of respect, pause the chant.
8:45. The Valkyrie defense is designed to give up Courtney Williams’s favorite shot, the mid-range jump shot. It’s analytically an inefficient shot, but it’s a pretty great option when you’ve got absolutely nothing going on with a shot clock running down.
8:25. So when do we start believing in Veronica Burton’s new three-point shot form?
7:30. I’m very upset with Napheesa Collier for being so good at basketball.
7:03. Dorka Juhász has not scored yet, but she was the EuroLeague MVP, and she has been pretty intimidating for anyone driving at the basket.
Valks 5-22, so 1-5 this quarter.
6:14. Olivia Miles pick-and-roll being guarded there with trail-over-and-drop. Olivia hasn’t been running too much pick-and-roll this game, possibly because in game two the Valkyries threw so many different coverages at her and really did knock her out of her game. This game has been carried a lot more by other people getting screens from Natasha Howard and Napheesa Collier being so annoyingly good.
Welp, 5-27. 1-10 this quarter.
4:15. I would like to officially protest Napheesa Collier for being so damn good at basketball. The Lynx have a good system, and then when you stop it, Phee just gives you a good bailout option anytime.
3:01. This Lynx lineup is running a brutal defensive lineup. Howard, Miles, McBride, Collier (four good defenders with size) plus Dorka, who’s big. Not easy for GSV to deal with since it’s hard to drive at them, so MIN doesn’t have to send help to leave an open shooter on the perimeter. That means you have to shoot well over the defense or struggle for your life for hustle putbacks. This is where the lack of a GSV post offense really hurts.
If GSV can string together a couple of stops, they can get run-outs for better looks. Half-court offense is tough times in the basket mines.
Golden State has been playing trail-over-and-drop defense on every pick-and-roll by every combination, but the Lynx just haven’t run that much pick-and-roll. There, Olivia Miles ISO’d Cecilia and unfortunately smelled barbecue Italian sausage and bombed the three over her.
This might be a case where the Valkyries just need to get into the locker room and have a reset. Is it too late to call in a colonics expert for halftime?
0:30. I think what Olivia Miles just did there was illegal under the Geneva Convention.
0:10. To make things worse, it looked like Veronica Burton had a very ginger left shoulder after a collision with Courtney Williams under the basket. She seemed to be holding it in pain.
9-37, which makes it 5-20 in Q2.
MIN did cough up 8 turnovers to GSV’s 4. If GSV has any hope of coming back, they’ll need more of that.
Q3
In case you were wondering, the Valkyries’ worst shooting game of this year was 29.3% against Chicago. Maybe more relevantly, the offensive rating for that game was 84.2 points per 100 possessions.
Okay, the Valkyries’ worst shooting game last year was an offensive rating of 72.9... against MIN, of course, on 9/11.
9:45. Minnesota goes right at the Valkyries’ drop defense and gets a very bouncy floater to go. That’s the kind of inefficient shot that that defense is meant to generate. But it looks bad when MIN is hitting those.
8:43. Minnesota has this team seriously scouted. When Cecilia started her isolation, the second defender came over to swipe, stunt at the ball, and it threw Ceci off.
8:28. Olivia Miles has developed a rhythm at that elbow (supposedly inefficient) jumper. Now she knows that she can get to it against this drop defense. I wonder if the Valkyries are going to switch that up. I mean, they have to change the coverage, right?
8:01. Some scattered, spontaneous “Let’s Go Valkyries” chants. Ballhalla desperately trying to get the Valkyries going.
7:51. I told you that the Valkyries were giving Minnesota these awkward mid-range shots. Veronica seemed to lean into that. Symmetrically, Minnesota will give the Valkyries that shot, and this time Veronica seemed to lean into it by dribbling into a mid-range shot, which she made.
6:50. That was such a beautiful pocket pass from Olivia Miles to the rolling Natasha Howard. Valkyries don’t give up and force a miss.
6:19. Okay, Olivia is now violating the Berne Convention as well as the Geneva Convention, and also probably the Ten Commandments on that play.
5:53. That was interesting. Janelle got Howard guarding her, I assume, on a switch, and Howard came way out to prevent Ja from shooting a three, so Ja drove by her to the basket. That was very nice.
5:08. Ouch. Janelle gets Courtney Williams to switch to her, and Veronica Burton tries to feed her in the post, but Courtney does a fantastic job contesting the entry pass.
4:56. OK, you know how I told you pregame that Natalie Nakase said that Minnesota likes to “trap the box”? This was the perfect example. Tiffany Hayes blows by her initial defender, but help rotates from the opposite-side low defender and gets a block.
There is a challenge going, so we are not sure if this call will stand.
Hey, Ari Waller is actually helping to get the wave going. Has she ever done this before?
Sorry everybody, the wave wasn’t good enough, and we lost the mandate of heaven. Minnesota wins their challenge.
4:16. When do we start believing in Veronica Burton’s new three-point shot form? That teeny-tiny hop is unstoppable.
4:03. Tip ends up on the ground somehow.
3:21. You can hear Ballhalla is just dying to explode, but the Valkyries haven’t been able to string together three scores yet. This might be the first time I can remember.
On the good side. I think that pre-free-throw chant of “V’s up” is starting to sound better and better.
3:05. That’s the kind of play where you start to wonder if the basketball gods are against you. Olivia Miles with an extremely lucky bounce. Oh well, time to take on the gods too.
2:28. I know it’s an 18-point deficit, but it really could be so much worse. This game is still winnable, but the Valkyries would have to start shooting a lot better, and Minnesota would have to start coughing up more turnovers.
2:14. Janelle Salaün three, officially sponsored by her new sneaker “non, non, oui.”
1:51. Ballhalla is very upset at that wrong call on the out-of-bounds. I expect people are feeling very put upon in Ballhalla right now.
Okay, four non-blondes didn’t get it done on the last review, so we’ll see if Backstreet Boys have curried more favor with the deities.
Despite everything, it’s only a 15-point game. Very winnable.
1:34. Gabby Williams with a couple of sweet hesitation moves on Olivia Miles, and she got to the basket, but as soon as she hit the paint, Minnesota trapped the box with Dorka coming across the lane and preventing the score.
By the way, I hope you don’t feel like the Valkyries are a bunch of chumps on offense. The Minnesota Lynx are the number-two defense in the league and were number one by a long shot for most of the year.
0:24. This micro push is getting Ballhalla amped up, and very serious boos for Olivia Miles. Now she’s made the full transition to local villain.
You may not believe this, but the Valkyries won that quarter by two points.
Q4
9:43. Minnesota has been so good all game guarding Janelle Salaün on the pick-and-pop. The pop is where, instead of rolling to the basket, she flares out to another spot on the three-point line. This time they messed that up, and Janelle had an open shot that’s a miss, but then, when she gets a second chance and a more difficult shot, she does cash it in.
9:19. Ten points down, and the ball, nine minutes to go. You can’t really ask for better than that after the brickfest.
9:05. They tried the pick-and-pop with Salaün again, and this time Miles ends up having to switch. Janelle tries to take her into the post to score on her, and she gets fouled about three times along the way. One of them results in shots.
9:00. The deficit was wide enough up till now that it didn’t matter, but if the Valkyries lose this now, it’s going to be because of the five point-blank layups they miss.
8:19. It is so funny how fast the “everybody clap your hands” chant immediately cursed the Minnesota Lynx’s offensive possession. I mean, that was probably milliseconds of activation time.
8:18. Seven points down. I think this game now officially goes into the “always close enough to hurt” territory.
I don’t know if the Valkyries are going to win this or not, but I do know for sure that Natalie’s going to need a new pair of earplugs.
8:00. I’m really glad that Natasha Howard missed that lay-up because Cecilia worked so hard to try to guard her in the post there, despite being battered by Howard’s shoulder.
7:53. I’d like to officially lodge a complaint that a team that already has Olivia Miles and Napheesa Collier can ho-hum pull out Kayla McBride, one of the great shooters in WNBA history, as a fourth option, literally.
6:52. It’s so important for Tiffany Hayes to score like that because the Lynx did not help on the five-out offensive drive. Courtney Williams did not come across and trap the box. I don’t know whether that’s by design because she’s small or she just missed her assignment.
5:50. That time you could see McBride FLYING across the paint to trap the box.
5:32. Hey, they brought Golden State Warrior Moses Moody out to help with the T-shirt toss.
5:24. Gabby Williams with a sweet fake handoff keeper play.
It’s funny. When Gabby stepped up to shoot the and-one, there was a little pause in the audience as they wondered whether they should say “V’s Up,” and a small number did. I personally think that we should yell these up whenever any number of free throws commences. That’s the beautiful flexibility about the phrase, as opposed to the deprecated “two shots.” It has more generality. It works even for three-shot fouls, or perhaps in the future four-, five-, and six-shot fouls. That’s called future-proofing a chant.
4:41. Wow. The Lynx really hustled on that contest of Janelle’s corner three because she actually gave up the ball to Cecilia, who hits a mammoth three-pointer to keep the game painful.
4:27. That was an unpleasantly beautiful backdoor cut from Collier.
4:00. I admire Kayla McBride a lot, but I don’t think we should be afraid of her as a pick-and-roll ball-handler.
3:40. Courtney Williams spitting in the eye of probability again.
We’re going to need some help from the variance gods to come back. Just like that, the Lynx also know that the variance gods are the only thing that can lose them the game, so they give it to the lowest-variance play, which is the Phee post-up. Again, I’ll point out that’s a weapon that the Valkyries simply don’t have, which is why the games feel a little extra emotionally rollercoastery, because all of the offensive options are three-pointers or defensive breakdowns leading to layups, which are all pretty high-variance.
3:01. I also like that they got Gabby Williams going at Courtney Williams. If they’re going to leave Courtney Williams on the court in crunch time and not bring out their maximum defense, then you have to punish.
2:40. That was pretty cool how Gabby Williams started to go for a dive on the floor and then realized she could get the ball off the feet.
2:24. I’m not going to say that that was at all the loudest that Ballhalla has ever been, but if Tip had hit that three-point shot, I think that would have been the loudest Ballhalla ever got. The out-breath of unyelled lung capacity itself was loudly audible.
1:58. And on that unyelled note, Kayla McBride slams the door shut. May I remind you that Kayla McBride, the woman who holds the record for most three-pointers in a WNBA game, is the fourth option on the team.
Okay, Discord tells me on the telecast you all could see McBride flashing a Night Night at Lacob and Moody, but I mercifully couldn’t see it from up here.
1:43. Veronica fouled the heck out of Collier, and there did seem to be some dagger-y stares back and forth at the end of that play. It’s not really a rivalry since the Lynx always beat the Valkyries, but it’s getting more and more bitter on the Violet side, I think.
0:54. Ballhalla defiantly chants “D-Fense” as one.
0:00 Ballhalla rises to a standing ovation for their Valkyries, not quite as poignant and emotional as after Game 2 of the playoffs, but a certain respect that the Valkyries absolutely played their butts off but just were outgunned tonight.
Cheryl Reeve postgame
Not surprised at anything that happened. The comeback, the Lynx response.
Physical and mental calmness needed for a place like Ballhalla.
Tonight played we bigger. (EA: I noted the big lineups in the notes)
See them in GSV? For sure, they’re the 2nd best team in the league, best defense.
Ashmere: MIN D?
Have been one of the better D team. MIN defense rivaled GSVs. Defended the paint and the 3. The quality of the 3s (even 37 of them) wasn’t that high. Stayed in plays better than before, not leaving feet. Solid 1-on-1 and great switches.
Amazing how different the game will look on Monday. We’ll make a few adjustments. I like going into every game random. (Similar to what Coach Nat said.) But we both are who we are.
John: who is on the stage with you? My son Oliver is starting 6th grade. He’s our good luck charm.
Kayla McBride and Napheesa Collier postgame
Phee echoes that 37 threes, but the quality was not good.
On Kayla’s night night. Just competing. I’d say my favorite player was every single game probably that I’ve played. I’ve been to Oracle, I’ve been to all this. So I just, I have a lot of respect for the game and then also just playing here. Fans are amazing. It just means a competitor and enjoying the moment, you know, just trying to win a basketball game. That’s it.
On Ballhalla.
Um, yeah. I mean, this is my favorite team to play. I think it’s just the crowd is so fun. Um, so the environment has been like that every single time.You can’t tell if you’re up by 20 or down by 20. The crowd stays so engaged. And so it’s really fun to play. Um, especially when like Mac’s hitting night night celebration, you know, like those crowds are also fun to silence.
So um, I can see like just the culture that’s already been built here. So it’s been fun to play against them. Yeah. And usually our second year playing here and our favorite games to play in, uh, the crowd’s into it. You really love basketball. So I mean, it’s a hooper’s dream.
EA: so in short, Phee to the Valks in 2027.
At this point, Olivia Miles snuck into the press conference.
Players: OH NO! Security! go ahead.
Mac, what made you do the night night celebration after that last three?
Well, if you were here for the entire, um, I already said that. We said Curry is my favorite player. Um, you know, obviously in this house I’ve been to Oracle. I’ve watched the Warriors. Uh, over the years, uh, and you know, it’s just a competitive moment taking advantage of it. I thought it was a moment that really broke the game. Two minutes left. I think they put us up 11. It’s just embracing that moment. I also knew that I moved up and I passed Becky. I was just kind of just a hooper moment. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Just kind of came off.
Sorry folks, I missed the Valkyries side because the Lynx were slow to get going. But check out Valkyries United for the video of that.
Followup: In case you were wondering, the Valkyries’ worst shooting game of this year was 29.3% against Chicago. Maybe more relevantly, the offensive rating for that game was 84.2 points per 100 possessions.
FYI. GSV offensive rating was 84.8, which is ALMOST the worst of the year.
If I didn’t include your favorite player, sorry! There are only 5 slots available. Write a tribute comment at Valkyrie Nation instead.
If you don’t know what Discord is, you can ignore this. If you like how the site is now, then don’t worry. This site will still work the same and I’ll still post game previews and wraps over email and the web, etc.
However, if you are wondering where everyone is during game day, it’s the Discord server. For instance, for the IND live game chat, there were 880 messages (that’s a lot, even if 150 of them were Kaitlyn Chen puns).
Basically Discord is a group chat where you can engage with me and other readers. It’s good for conversation that’s a bit more casual than leaving a web site comment. You can also respond with emojis and multimedia.
I have been posting my live game notes in the Discord chat as I write them. I even live-commented the media-coaches game over Discord and answered questions. Questions and comments sometimes turn into things I write about for the newsletter.
For now, I’ll keep it open to everyone, but I reserve the right in the future to restrict it to paying subscribers.
Many thanks to Marisa Emi and Tac0maAr0ma for volunteering to moderate the Discord and generally reorganizing it intelligently.
The invitation link for August: https://discord.gg/3P5XTuwAd
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