Dream force first-ever Game 7 in WNBA Finals with win over Valkyries

The Atlanta Dream beat the Golden State Valkyries 80-69 on Wednesday to force the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history, sending the series back to San Francisco for a winner-take-all finale on Saturday.

Golden State had arrived in Atlanta holding a 3-2 series lead and the chance to clinch their first championship on the road, but the Dream seized control from the opening quarter, according to BBC Sport.

Atlanta led 32-15 after the first period and extended that advantage to 46-26 by half-time, a buffer the Valkyries never threatened to overturn despite a stronger finish.

Gabby Williams finished as the game's leading scorer with 26 points for Golden State even though, in the BBC's assessment, she was not at her sharpest.

Angel Reese topped the rebounding charts with 14 for Atlanta. The 24-year-old had already rewritten the record books in Game Two, becoming the youngest player — and only the third in WNBA history — to post 30-plus points alongside 15 rebounds in a Finals contest.

Valkyries centre Kiah Stokes had restricted Reese effectively in Game Five but could not repeat that containment this time, with the Dream forward again proving influential in attack and on the glass.

The result lifts Atlanta off the bottom of the Finals' historical ledger. The Dream had previously gone 0-10 in championship series, having been swept 3-0 in 2010, 2011 and 2013, per BBC Sport.

Head coach Karl Smesko's side had no margin for error after dropping Games Four and Five, and the BBC described the Game Six display as a superb response to keep the series alive.

Reese was in no mood to dwell on the achievement afterwards. "The job is not done, and I'm looking forward to it," she said, before adding simply: "One more."

She had earlier reflected on how the Dream dictated the tempo in Atlanta. "Every time we threw the first punch we won the game. We set the tone early," Reese said.

Both franchises are still chasing a first WNBA championship, which sharpens the stakes for Saturday's decider at Chase Center, according to Yahoo Sports.

It will be only the second season in which the Finals have been played as a best-of-seven series. The format's debut in 2025 produced a far less dramatic conclusion, with the Las Vegas Aces sweeping the Phoenix Mercury in four games.

The WNBA has used several Finals formats across its history, moving from a single championship game in the league's inaugural 1997 season to a best-of-three series from 1998, and then a best-of-five format that ran from 2005 until 2024.

Before Saturday, no WNBA Finals had ever reached a seventh game under any of those formats, according to Yahoo Sports.

Valkyries forward Kiah Stokes had stressed before Game Six that the circumstances around tip-off time were irrelevant to the Dream's challenge. "It doesn't matter what time [Game 6] is. At the end of the day, we just need 94 feet, two hoops in each other," she told reporters, as relayed by Guardian Sport.

Game 7 is scheduled for Saturday 31 October at Chase Center in San Francisco, with BBC Sport reporting a tip-off of 01:00 GMT on Sunday for UK audiences, as the Valkyries attempt to close out the title on home court after two successive defeats.