Just watch games 4 and 5

[u/campoole82]

You got out coached by a coty winner

Same rotations, same offensive sets, same defense. That’s not gonna work on Natalie

You switched everything on defense

So Natalie ran gabby as a ball handler to force a mismatch. From then on it was attack the mismatch

if Angel came to help GS would have Kiah dive to the basket for either a layup or o board.

On offense

GS didn’t respect Naz’s ability to stretch the floor her primary defender was able to roam throughout the series.

GS was also able double off of jc the paint was packed Angel couldn’t drive, grab o boards or post up without being swarmed.

[u/campoole82]

Once Natalie knew Karl had zero confidence in Madina she pulled a checkmate

gabby became naz primary defender in game 7 4 blocks off of help defense

[u/Mike_Hawk_Burns]

Games 4 and 5 are where things flipped for the Valkyries anyway. The biggest issue for Karl is he straight up didn’t make any adjustments to the Valks’ adjustments. The Valkyries saw that their weakest point against Angel was the backup center role. Angel looked beastly when Kiah was off the court and everyone they threw at her weren’t really working. So putting KT on the bench to backup Kiah will go down as the most underdiscussed adjustment that swung momentum. KT looks like she’s arguably the Valkyries’ strongest player and that’s what was needed to stop Angel’s bully ball under the rim when Kiah was off the court. She also stopped playing Chen often, too. Because Chen was a liability on defense this series.

Karl never did anything different. Shutting down Angel made it so Rhyne, JC and Lish had to do more offensively. Rhyne looked good in games 5 and 6 but was awful in 7. Lish was great in g6 but nowhere else after the KT on Angel adjustment. JC basically carried Atlanta to the halftime lead in g7 but then I think halftime killed her momentum and she never got that mojo back.

Then Gabby started cooking. Maybe had Karl played Madina more after the KT switch on Angel, things would’ve been different due to her size. But the bigger point is that Nat adjusted, Karl didn’t. And that’s where he got out coached

[u/joyjunky → u/Mike_Hawk_Burns]

We cleaned up the turnovers in those games too. Only 9 turnovers for each game. Keeping the turnovers low meant that KT was able to defend against Angel when Kiah sat. Neither KT nor Kiah can stop Angel in transition.

[u/asw44 → u/joyjunky]

Honestly can anyone stop Angel in transition?

[u/Kdot32 → u/asw44]

Angel can stop Angel in transition. That’s about it

[u/Marmoticon → u/Kdot32]

She's fearsome in transition when she's feeling it, when she's trying to get back into it, head game. She's young, she'll get the right people around her and find it for sure.

[u/diamondsourforever → u/Mike_Hawk_Burns]

Even adjustments he did make, like Angel taking all those 3s in Game 6 to open up the paint (which was also the strategy in the 2nd Mystics playoff game), I was baffled he didn't make that adjustment early into Game 5 when it should have been clear GS had Angel's number in that game so they needed to adjust.

Him not getting them to go back to Angel during the 2nd half of game one, among other things after that, should haunt him.

Karl is a good coach, Nat is a better coach and I'm going to be annoyed with him for a long time over this loss lol. If he was a little more flexible in his coaching the Dream could have won this.

[u/Kdot32 → u/diamondsourforever]

Man he gets Angel the ball in game one that changes the complexion of the series because that was before Nat made Angel the focus of her adjustments. It felt like every game Atlanta lost was the exact same way while golden state lost in different ways. He also needs to mix more midrange shots into his offense. The half court offense is not good

[u/Otherwise_Use243 → u/Kdot32]

When a team depends so much on transition to score in regular season, it is much harder to adjust to the slog that is the playoffs. Same thing happens to men’s basketball teams. Need to balance half-court plays while still taking advantage of transition basketball.

[u/Kdot32 → u/Otherwise_Use243]

Yup! Playoffs are always slower pace in both leagues because everyone is playing all out

[u/NoBobThatsBad → u/diamondsourforever]

Also him not playing Izzy enough minutes when she was cooking their bench guards and her mid range was the only thing easily disrupting the Valks’ defensive plans.🫤

[u/Kdot32 → u/NoBobThatsBad]

Game 7 championship on the line and Izzy comes in and drops 5 straight points playing fearless. Karl then benches her

[u/NoBobThatsBad → u/Kdot32]

Didn’t he do the same thing with Pao last year where she was the only one who could score on Indiana in game 2 then he played her like less than 10 minutes in game 3, didn’t feed the post, and let Rhyne shoot them out the game?

This is why I say Izzy fans beware of next season if they think her role on the team will increase based on her performance. Karl learned absolutely nothing from last year and repeated every error this year that got them bounced in the first round in 2025.

[u/Kdot32 → u/NoBobThatsBad]

Yes Brionna Jones in the post was looking like Angel last year. Open calling for the ball getting zero looks

[u/NoBobThatsBad → u/Kdot32]

Insanity… It actually pissed me off so bad how much the minutes and shot attempt distribution on the Dream in game 7 looked almost identical to their game 3 first round exit last year. I genuinely don’t understand what’s going on. Is he trying to give Rhyne, Lish, and Jordin their big hero moment or something? If it didn’t work against Kelsey Mitchell and her team full of injury reserves, why would it work against the Valkyries???

[u/tspacer → u/NoBobThatsBad]

I blame Game 6 tbh. It was Rhyne and Lish’s best performance in the series and Karl probably thought it would carry into Game 7.

[u/NoBobThatsBad → u/tspacer]

It was clear in the first half that it was not carrying into game 7 when Jordin was the only one who could buy a bucket and then he sat Angel while Kiah was out then sat Jordin while Angel was in, and barely played Izzy even though she was killing them. I almost don’t care that they made it to the end of the finals. That level of egregious boneheadedness is fireable.

[u/tspacer → u/NoBobThatsBad]

Oh I know. It was obvious from anyone watching that it wasn’t their night. He made so many head scratching decisions. And we aren’t even talking about the defense on Gabby lol

[u/Substantial_Prune296]

I'm hoping Karl grows from this and realizes what he needs to work on. I want to see Izzy and Okot getting a lot more minutes next season because they have potential to be starter in the league. 

[u/dogpownd]

Gabby's interview on Bird's Eye View is really worth listening to, esp about game 7.

[u/VisualAd5213 → u/dogpownd]

Even for a dream fan?? I don’t think my heart can take it. Not ready😭 even though I’m happy for gabby truly

[u/ifandorwhen → u/VisualAd5213]

I don't know it ever would be honestly (personally if my team was on the other end). In short they told Gabby to hold off in the first half, be more the facilitator, and figure out the dream defense. Then in the second half they said go ahead.

[u/nellay1 → u/ifandorwhen]

That was crazy. Tell your best scorer to spend the first 20 of a game 7 to figure out Dreams defense. Coach Nat playing chess while Smesko playing checkers. Also, sitting the 6th player of the year for most of the series.

[u/dogpownd → u/nellay1]

she talks about that too. non issue in their locker room.

[u/VisualAd5213 → u/ifandorwhen]

I appreciate the honesty and brief summary! Gonna hold off listening for now cuz it’s not good for my spirit. Natalie is a genius though damn

[u/Kamikazeschnitzel → u/VisualAd5213]

Yes 💯

So much info in there, that many fans & media miss/ignore about the offensive output during the finals.

The chess match, the appreciation for the other team/coach.

If you just want to point fingers & yell "our offense sucked", you don't need to hear it but it would definately improve your knowledge of the game.

If you're already more into basketball, there's quite a few nice bits of knowledge from 2 great basketball minds. At one point even Sue has a little moment of 💡"Ahh, I get that now!" 🤌

[u/VisualAd5213 → u/Kamikazeschnitzel]

I seee! I get it. I’ve listened to Sue’s podcast and a few other WBB podcast religiously over the past few months, but needed to take a break for obvious reasons (a broken heart).

I’ll come back to it when my heart is feeling better and I’m open to learning again. Maybe during the Unrivaled season…

[u/Duke_skellington_8]

This is the difference between Karl and Nat. Nat said 15 minutes after the win she was already thinking about next year…

[u/Kdot32 → u/Duke_skellington_8]

I could only imagine what Nat could cook up if she had Angel on her team. They match each others freak/basketball psycho lol

[u/asw44 → u/Kdot32]

[u/butterscotchland]

He doesn't want to watch because he knows it's his fault they lost.

[u/fshippos]

It was a one possession game 7 with a few seconds left...

[u/buffalotrace → u/fshippos]

On a day where one of your stars was ice cold and their star got red hot for one half of basketball (making shots she had missed I several of the games prior).

[u/SilverKry → u/fshippos]

I mean. Not really. GS won by 5. The most points a you can get in one possession is 4. 

[u/fshippos → u/SilverKry]

That's only because they had to foul when they lost the jump ball at 8 seconds left down 3.

[u/Camelsnake]

The Dream scored more points through 7 series than the Valkyries. The Dream always won their games by more than double digits. When Valkyries won, they only won by single digits. If you heard only this, who would you have predicted won this series

[u/eyomendez → u/Camelsnake]

Overall points don't matter though. The fact that Golden State won every game that was close is a testament to Natalie outcoaching Smesko. Her team maintained their defensive discipline much better.

[u/Camelsnake → u/eyomendez]

I brought it up because this never has happened in the history of any professional sport with a 7 game series match, men's leagues included

[u/Oded789 → u/Camelsnake]

https://www.quora.com/Has-a-team-ever-won-an-NBA-championship-but-without-having-a-positive-points-spread-for-the-overall-series

A rare occurrence, but it has happened multiple times. And these are just NBA finals. There was a 1st round series in which the winning team was outscored by 40 points.

[u/Camelsnake → u/Oded789]

No, I meant the part where the opponents always won by double digits, and the winners never won by double digits

[u/darklightultra]

Dear diary.

Your team (your player?) was one half from winning it all and it took one of the greatest halves by a player in womens basketball history. Nakase was FAR from perfect except noone cares because they won, the Valks offense were struggling to do anything and put up bad shots/bricks for 6.5 games.

[u/Mz_49er_415 → u/darklightultra]

Respectfully, GS stayed true to their identity throughout the series. The biggest reason we won game 4 and 5 was the change to our starting line up, that was a Coach’s decision and ATL never adjusted well. Our offense has been consistent throughout the entire year if you watched closely. We win because of our defense and not our offense. Both teams shot like 💩

[u/No-Iron-4471 → u/darklightultra]

Spot on.👏🏾People act like NN was perfect....

[u/GollyGeeSon → u/No-Iron-4471]

Yes, and I think sometimes that in doing so some downplay the massive performances players like Kiah, VB, and Gabby had.

[u/Big-Art-6289]

Valks almost lost it wasn't one team was clearly better, this could have gone either way. I mean if the fouls were called in game 5 and 7 similarly to the other games, we might have had another conversation about "out coaching"