Gabe Fernandez

Good morning from an undisclosed public transit station on the way to Chase Center. I would greatly appreciate it if you gave my Kaitlyn Chen story a read as you prepare for Game 1 of the WNBA Finals.

One of the first people to greet Natalie Nakase after her postgame presser: Chris Paul. He asked her “How’d it go?” to which she said “I think it went alright”

Karl might be want to prepare for a call from the league after going after the officials in Game 5 for missed calls. Says Valkyries got away with more physicality on Angel Reese and the Dream should’ve gotten to the line as many as 8 more times.

They pressed the Zendaya button

Kiah Stokes: sharpshooter

might not quite be first-to-50 but....

wow lots of Atlanta complaints about the call there, might've been good to have a challenge there

when I covered the 2019 Stanley Cup in St. Louis Jon Hamm randomly had a press conference just because he is a Blues fan and I think that Zendaya should do that here

Gabby Williams,,,has scored

over a full quarter and a half remaining and the Dream have no challenges which I'm sure won't come back to haunt them

the reviews will continue until morale improves

Allisha Gray collision with Tip remains a common foul

more and more people are saying this

not an original thought but it does feel like the ops team at Chase is waiting for the Valks to go on an insane run, or have an insane moment, before showing Zendaya on the screen

8th block of Angel Reese these Finals by Kiah Stokes! herhoopstats.com/stats/wnba/p...

I mean aesthetically that's pretty much what you want from a half if you're Golden State. few shots they would've liked to have back but this brutal pace is their game. Biggest stat so far: just 1 steal for Atlanta, which came on that second-to-last possession.

somehow, Rhyne Howard has only just now gotten her first foul with 1:43 left in the half

VB got in the face of an official for a non-call on the rebound before Nakase called timeout. Guessing Burton didn't feel satisfied with her initial conversation so she walked up to the scorer's table to say a few more words to the officiating crew.

No turnover differential to speak of through one, as both teams have 2. As for the actual score, it's 14-13 Dream.

Offensive foul on Reese has KT down but she's up now and seems fine

A Valkyries fan’s sign: “Move the Hawks game. Women = Prime Time”

I can say on good authority (I talked to them!) that BOTH of Natalie Nakase's sisters - Nicola & Norie - are in Ballhalla tonight to cheer her on.

reporting live from Game 5 where there was no one to take note of who did and did not stand for the anthem in the media section.

Called it

hey good news:

Isobel Borlase was a +21 lol

The Dream’s 26-point win was the eighth-largest in WNBA Finals history. Six of the previous seven teams who won a Finals game by more than 25 points were WNBA champions (only exception is the 2022 Sun).

man...

well the good news is that it's hard to imagine the Valks following up with a much worse outing

I don't think Nakase can exactly "we missed shots we usually make" her way out of this one

it just doesn't look like anyone on the floor knows what to do on offense

uh oh

tried to get a free luxury suite by contacting federal, state and local authorities, the nba, the new york knicks and msg officials to express concerns about my personal safety at a knicks game and james dolan personally responded with a photo of him loading a bullet with my name on it into a gun

from my interview with a Valks fan who confronted anti-trans protestors at Game 1...I guess we have our answer of where Atlanta stands.

better late than never

you know how you can sometimes tell when a college coach is more a recruiter than a strategist? anyways, the Valks haven't scored yet.

I wrote about the efforts of Valkyries fans to shut down anti-trans protestors at games, with the most recent notable example happening at Game 1 www.sfgate.com/valkyries/ar...

“They never committed medical malpractice!” Source: guy who committed medical malpractice

reposting this important post for the west coast morning crowd: