The 2-1 Golden State Goddesses Valkyries are visiting the 3-0 New York Liberty for what is sure to be a nail-biter…or at least one hopes. New York is coming off a very controversial win over Indiana, which was partly due to questionable officiating calls at the end. However, as any good little league coach would say, “if you want to complain about officiating at the end of the game, you should have done more earlier so that it wouldn’t come down to that.” Center Jonquel Jones led the Liberty with a double-double (26 pts/12 rebounds) and even went 2-5 from beyond the arc. The Valkyries are coming off an impressive win against the LA Sparks. Led by rookies Carla Leite (19 pts) and Janelle Salaun (18 pts), the Valkyries spread the ball around like butter on a hot bagel. Most impressive was the 26-1 run the Vs went on to close out the first half.

Now, tonight’s forecasted 3 keys for the V’s:

1. Chin up and be confident:
   1. You’re playing against big names: Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Natasha Cloud…We get it. The Libs run deep. Just because we’re the new kid at school doesn’t mean we can’t go toe-to-toe with the cool kids.
   1. Side note: Can someone tell VanLoo to score some points? She’s shooting an abysmal 26% from the field, averaging 5pts and 20mins of work. She needs to score.
2. Play tough perimeter ball
   1. Cloud can hit some 3’s if she’s open, Sab is a well-known sniper, and Jonquell is shooting 50% from 3-point range this year… as a CENTER! Call out your coverage, move your feet, and for the love of all things holy, don’t foul from 3-point range. Speaking of fouls…
3. Get physical—make NY get into foul trouble.
   1. In the Indiana game, NY had 17 fouls. We need to keep them in foul trouble. Drive the ball deep and take tough, contested shots against their bigs (Stewie, Jones, etc.). Don’t be afraid to take charges, but be careful—we don’t want to be like Indiana and have 25 fouls against us. We’re not that kind of team that can come back from that.

*ope got fouled* Here’s the And One bonus tip:

• If Looks could kill…
  • We know what we gotta do here. We can’t show up to the game looking drab like some 1800s statue with a star-pointed hat and toga. This is 2025. We need to cook not only on the court, but also in the tunnel. Win the tunnel, win the game.

The Governor’s Commissioner’s Cup is coming up next week. A nice win here would be a HUGE boost going into the in season tourney.

Vs way up,

Trav