'Unbelievable stuff': How Gabby Williams powered the Valkyries to championship glory

SAN FRANCISCO — It was everywhere Gabby Williams looked when she drove to Chase Center as a bundle of stress and nerves. A Waymo in a Valkyries wrap. A billboard for the WNBA Finals. Valkyries dribbling on the digital top of the Salesforce Tower. There's no escaping violet and gold in the Bay.

"All I keep thinking is, 'I can't lose,'" Williams said. "I can't lose. I'm on the drive and I'm like, this is the moment. This is my time to give my everything for this community."

She didn't lose. The goggles, Champagne-soaked champion T-shirt and Finals MVP trophy give it away.

Find Williams the rest of the night, and find the Finals trophy . She grasped it tightly in her hands, attached to her in a way no Atlanta Dream defender could. The pair snaked through the player side of velvet violet ropes, into the black-curtained square for championship photos, onto the dais where she wanted to focus not on the naysayers of her career, but those who believed.

She scored 28 of her 30 points in the second half to lift the Valkyries to their first WNBA championship in only their second year as a franchise. She tied Penny Taylor for most points in a winner-take-all Finals game in WNBA history and cemented her status as one of the league's best, a claim those around her have been leaning on all year.

"Gabby is our closer," head coach Natalie Nakase said. "She stayed patient, she stayed with it. Closing with 30? That is f***ing incredible."

The whole things is, to borrow from an expletive-filled night by Nakase, bleeping incredible. To believe the roster of underdogs would stand under Valkyries-colored confetti was in some ways borderline delusion. They have zero all-WNBA selections in an era dominated by big threes and MVP-level free agents. No professional team had ever won it all this fast.

Valkyries team owner Joe Lacob targeted five years, the amount of time it took the Seattle Storm to win after entering in 2000. The NHL's Las Vegas Golden Knights took six seasons as the most recent expansion team to rise that far.

When Lacob interviewed Nakase, she essentially said, "Bet." More relaxed than she's looked in weeks, Nakase leaned back at the table with a beer and said it's a result of her impatience.

It's the exact opposite of what she asked of Williams, trailing 30-24 at halftime. The Valkyries' defense started the game in attack mode with a steal, two blocks and a defensive rebound in the first 56 seconds. They kept Atlanta without a field goal until 4:41, after head coach Karl Smesko was forced to take a timeout down 8-0.

That single bucket opened up their dangerous offense, and the Dream went on a 11-2 run for their first lead. They rattled off another 9-0 run to start the second quarter, ultimately holding a six-point halftime lead that felt more like 12 when it's the Valkyries on the other side.

Williams, the Game 1 heroine whose offense quelled the rest of the series, had one field goal. Nakase didn't stress about it. She told Williams to be patient; the game will open up for her.

"And it did," Williams said. "That's what we've done all year. We just trust each other."

Trust and love are not trackable stats, as much as the Valkyries want to tout them. Yet neither are most of the ways the league's best defense finds ways to win games. There are things that can't always be fully explained.

It's like how Lacob can't describe why he and Williams clicked when they spoke for more than an hour during free agency. She was playing in Turkey and he was chasing an offensive asset. All he knew was it was good.

"Her second half tonight, and all the time in second halves, but tonight in particular, legendary," Lacob said. "That was unbelievable stuff."

As Lacob tells it, Barry Bonds sat next to him amazed. Warriors Draymond Green and Yaxel Lendeborg were similarly impressed. Lacob said earlier in the postseason Williams was the best player in the world.

It doesn't mean he wasn't nervous at halftime. Then again, this is how the Valkyries have won all year. Eke it out in the final minutes. Let the defense do the talking. They live in the mud, scoring above 70 points in this series just once — and taking the loss when they gave up 97. It's why they needed an offensive outburst in a situation that requires a delicate equilibrium of wanting it too much and not enough.

Williams drained three consecutive 3-pointers late in the third to give the Valkyries their first lead of the half. She was only heat-checked on a corner 3 that rimmed out. In Williams' 13-point fourth quarter to hold off Atlanta's late run, the Golden State crowd missed its mark for the only time.

It couldn't decide if it wanted to chant "MVP" or "Gabby."

It is a fanbase that didn't exist two years ago. Now it's surpassed longer-lived ones, the Dream included. Atlanta is 0-4 in Finals appearances. The fans stayed in place throughout the postgame honors, cheering off their players the way they do in pregame warmups. Nothing turned them into "Boohalla" more than the idea their team was a bunch of role players.

As each escaped down the tunnel, players high-fived arena employees and let loose on their way to the locker room. Lacob spoke with reporters, uttering "unbelievable" as an opening statement of sorts. Williams posed for photos with her trophy on the other side of the corner.

Her name echoed around the halls later in the night from teammates in the official photo hut. Family and friends asked for selfies. Williams disappeared down the velvet-roped halls, trophy still in hand. The billboards on her way to Oakland will still be there. Soon they'll say, "Champions."