Kiah Stokes made all three of her 3-point attempts in the second half Monday night, and the Golden State Valkyries beat the Atlanta Dream 64-55 at Chase Center in Game 5 of the WNBA Finals.
Golden State leads the best-of-seven series 3-2. The Valkyries trailed 2-1 after three games and can win the championship Thursday at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
Stokes and Veronica Burton each finished with 13 points and eight rebounds. Rhyne Howard scored 20 points for Atlanta, which shot 29.2 percent from the field in front of a sellout crowd of 18,064.
Kiah Stokes’ Three Second-Half 3-Pointers
Stokes missed her only 3-point attempt of the first half, a 23-footer with 5:11 left in the first quarter. After halftime, she went 3-of-3 from deep.
The first came 1:51 into the third quarter on a pass from Tiffany Hayes and put Golden State ahead 30-24.
With 2:45 left in the third, Atlanta had pulled within 38-36 on a Howard step-back 3. Stokes answered from 26 feet on a pass from Gabby Williams. That shot started a 14-6 run, and Stokes ended it with a 24-footer off a feed from Cecilia Zandalasini with 7:21 left in the game. At that point, rhe Valkyries led 52-42, their first double-digit lead of the night.
Three made 3-pointers were a playoff career high for Stokes, according to postgame notes. She finished 5-of-6 from the field.
Stokes said a teammate cussed her out for passing up an open shot, and she did not want to make her mad again.
“Whenever I do my shooting warm-up, I kind of, like, make more than I miss,” Stokes said. “Actually, I make a lot in a row, to be honest. But it doesn’t necessarily translate to the game because I don’t shoot a lot, so I’m just really trying to just lean into it.”
Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase said Stokes was shooting the 3-ball “like it’s a layup.”
Blocks From Stokes and Veronica Burton
Stokes blocked three shots, and Burton blocked four. Golden State finished with nine.
For six straight games, Stokes has blocked at least three shots. That ties Lisa Leslie’s 2003 run for the longest such streak in a single WNBA postseason, according to postgame notes. Stokes also moved to 16th on the league’s all-time playoff blocks list with 52.
Dream coach Karl Smesko gave Stokes credit for the shots she made Monday, which he said were big for Golden State.
“She has great length,” Smesko said. “She has great instincts. She’s really good at protecting the rim. We just got to get her moving a little bit more, make it a little bit harder for her to just pack it in the paint.”
Burton’s four blocks were a playoff career high. They tied the record for blocks by a guard in a Finals game, set by Diana Taurasi in 2009, according to postgame notes. She blocked Jordin Canada in the first quarter, Naz Hillmon in the second, and Allisha Gray in the third and fourth.
Golden State has 37 blocks in the series, the most by a team in a single Finals.
“I saw Kiah set a record, so I was just trying to channel that,” Burton said. “No, just trying to be aggressive on defense too. Look for opportunities to block shots. Some of them I probably got a little lucky with the timing, but that’s what it is for me. It’s timing. And so whenever I can time up the shot, that’s what I try and do.”
Veronica Burton’s 37 Minutes
Burton played 37 minutes and 10 seconds, the most on Golden State, and committed two turnovers. She made five of her 15 shots, went 1-of-6 from 3, and added three assists and a steal.
At this point in the series, Burton will play whatever minutes Golden State needs.
“I wouldn’t say I was that consistent in making my shots efficiency-wise, but I would say, like, my mindset was consistent,” Burton explained. “And that’s a goal of mine. I think the first three games were really up and down with that. And so that’s my goal, to just have that consistent mindset. And I thought tonight it was there for the most part.”
Stokes said Golden State is at its best when Burton is aggressive.
“I got confidence any time she’s going to go in, she’s going to make it or get fouled,” Stokes explained. “So I just try to tell her, like, we need those, stay aggressive, and I think that just gets the rest of our team going.”
Nakase said Burton’s eight rebounds and four blocks at 5-foot-9 came from her resilience.
“To me, I think V, I mean, hands down, I think she’s the best point guard right now in the league,” Nakase said. “I mean, that amount of minutes, like you just said, and just having two turnovers, right? And it may not look fancy and pretty, as maybe you guys have seen other finals, but this is her way. It’s her way of showing she is the best point guard in the league. It’s that grittiness. It’s that leadership. It’s that toughness. It’s diving on the floor, getting knocked down, getting back up.”
Veronica Burton’s 4 blocks in Game 5 tied Diana Taurasi for most by a guard in a WNBA Finals game
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— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) October 27, 2026
Turnovers, Rebounds, and Second-Chance Points
Atlanta committed 17 turnovers, and Golden State scored 21 points off them. Seven of those turnovers came in the fourth quarter. The Dream turned it over 18 times in Game 4, according to postgame notes.
Golden State committed nine turnovers and gave up six points off them.
On the glass, Atlanta outrebounded Golden State 44-33. The Dream had 12 offensive rebounds to the Valkyries’ five and outscored them 19-6 on second-chance points. Hillmon grabbed 11 rebounds, a playoff career high. Angel Reese had 15, one short of hers.
Each team scored two fast-break points.
Smesko said Atlanta gets worse shots when the ball sticks in one spot.
“I thought we came out with great intensity,” Smesko explained. “Defensively, we were really locked in. Rebounding, we did a really good job. We forced a lot of tough shots. We just didn’t get as many good looks, especially in transition, as we’d want. When we did work and get open shots, we shot a really poor percentage.”
“We got better shooters than that, and we just got to be ready to knock down these shots when they become available,” Smesko continued. “Give Golden State a lot of credit. They’re a great defensive team. But we’re going to have to execute offensively better and knock down shots when we get them.”
The Dream went 6-of-26 from 3. Howard scored 11 of her 20 points in the third quarter, and Canada scored eight of her 12 in the fourth.
Howard’s shots come easier when Atlanta sets good screens and moves the ball with pace.
“I just hit more shots tonight than I have in the past,” Howard said. “There’s not anybody on the team who hasn’t poured into me. Everybody’s been keeping each other confident.”
Karl Smesko and Angel Reese on the Officiating
Reese was called for three offensive fouls, two of them in the fourth quarter at 7:43 and 4:49. Gray was called for another in the third quarter, and the call was confirmed after Atlanta challenged it. Reese finished with seven points on 2-of-8 shooting, five assists, and four fouls.
Atlanta shot 14 free throws. Golden State shot 13.
Some of Monday is on Atlanta, Smesko said, starting with shots the Dream should make. He also said a two-handed push on a driver has to be a foul.
“I give them credit for playing good defense,” Smesko said. “They’re known for their defense, and they’ve been playing great defense throughout the series. But, I mean, I do want to have Angel’s back here. The contact they allow on Angel compared to everybody else is just ridiculous. Just ridiculous. And we should have gone to the foul line six to eight more times just on that.”
“And then to miss double dribbles and travels, multiple that always led to points,” Smesko continued. “I mean, you can’t be at this level and make that many mistakes.”
Reese said she gets pushed before the offensive fouls are called, and she has a strength mismatch when she switches onto a post.
“Honestly, I think for me, like… I’m still trying to figure out how to play through the physicality,” Reese said. “I mean, a lot of us are getting fouled, and they’re not calling you or we’re talking to the ref after, and they’re saying, oh, we’ll get you next time. So it is a little frustrating, especially in the moment of it.”
Natalie Nakase’s Starting Five
Nakase wanted a perfect game plan going into the Finals so Golden State could win it right away.
“I don’t think it worked. I gave myself an F- in game one, two, and three,” Nakase explained. “My communication was poor. You could see, what did my players say? We were undisciplined. We didn’t recognize who we were. We were not shifted, and that was because of me. And so sometimes maybe extremists doesn’t work well in a seven-game series.”
For a second straight game, Nakase started Kaila Charles and Hayes alongside Burton, Stokes, and Williams. Golden State went to that lineup for Game 4, a 67-62 win Saturday, according to The Associated Press.
Hayes scored 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting. She made all four of her free throws in the final 2:17. Charles had two points, four rebounds, and a team-high four assists.
Off the bench, Zandalasini scored 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting in 24 minutes.
Williams started 2-of-11. Her three-point play with 9:08 left put Golden State ahead 49-42, and she finished with nine points on 3-of-14 shooting, six rebounds, and three steals.
Nakase said her players told her after the two losses that they were confused by the game plan, not unwilling to run it.
“To me, it was their vulnerability and me listening to them rather than demanding something that was a little bit hazy,” Nakase said. “That makes sense. They wanted clarity, and I wasn’t giving that to them.”
Veronica Burton and Kiah Stokes chimed in on how fans can help support the Valkyries for Game 6 of the WNBA Finals
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— TSN (@TSN_Sports) October 27, 2026
Game 6 at State Farm Arena
Atlanta’s 55 points were the fewest by a Finals team since Phoenix in 2021, according to postgame notes. Its 29.2% shooting was the fourth-lowest by a team in Finals history.
The teams combined for 47 points in the first half, the lowest in WNBA Finals history, according to The Associated Press. They shot 5-of-29 from 3 before halftime.
Reese has at least 60 rebounds in the series. She is the second player to reach that mark in a single Finals, joining Sylvia Fowles, who had 75 for Minnesota against Los Angeles in 2017, according to postgame notes.
Atlanta is a great team, Stokes said, and Thursday is a closeout game.
“As much as we love Ballhalla, we don’t want to come back here,” Stokes said. “So we need to go in with the mentality that we have to win. It’s do or die.”
Game 6 tips off at 12:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, Oct. 29, at State Farm Arena. If Atlanta wins, Game 7 is Saturday at Chase Center.
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