Atlanta’s dream fell just short in Game 7 of the WNBA Finals on Saturday night, losing 68-63 to the Golden State Valkyries in an epic conclusion to the 2026 season.
After the competition, a disappointed Angel Reese spoke about the loss.
“It’s difficult. Especially with a good group, a great group, that I honestly had the honor of fighting with all year long,” she told reporters. “They changed my life and I’m very grateful to them. And I’m very grateful to them. It’s hard in the moment, but we’ll be back. And I always say, ‘Delayed, not denied.’ It’s only the third year – (my teammates still have a lot of years left) – but I’m really, really grateful that I got to go to war with this group. I would do it again, again.”
Reese, 24, had another strong performance in Game 7, finishing with eight points, 12 rebounds, two blocks, a steal and an assist. Its success in the WNBA Finals was a pretty good barometer of how the Dream played in general: the team was 3-1 in games where it achieved a double-double and 0-3 in contests where it did not accomplish the feat.
Game 7 was perhaps less about the Dream than Golden State’s Gabby Williams, who scored 30 points and won the Finals MVP award for her efforts.
For Williams and the Valkyries – who won a title in their second WNBA season – the message after the game was understandably more jubilant.
“Man, all it took was good people,” Williams said after the game. “That’s it. All we heard last year was, ‘We don’t have stars, we don’t have talent.’ Yeah, that’s true. We have good people. We have winners. We have people who are willing to put their bodies on the ground to win a game. They don’t care about scoring, they just want to play defense, rebound and do whatever it takes. We’ve just built a great culture here. »
Reese and the Dream will also feel pretty good about the culture they’ve built despite their failure on Saturday. Atlanta had identical 30-14 records over the past two seasons, but in 2025 failed to advance past the first round.
But the addition of Reese in a trade with the Chicago Sky for a pair of first-round picks ahead of the 2026 campaign took the dream to a new level. The third-year star was named second-team Defensive Player of the Year, All-Star and All-WNBA. Its impact was undeniable.
It didn’t exactly result in a title, but Reese and the Dream established this season that they are a force to be reckoned with going forward.
Gn sports
