The Golden State Valkyries WNBA championship is official: the second-year expansion team beat the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in a winner-take-all Game 7 on Saturday 31 October 2026 at Chase Center in San Francisco, clinching the franchise's first title. Gabby Williams, named Finals MVP, scored 30 points — 28 of them after half-time — to complete the fastest title win by an expansion team in the history of North America's major leagues. The win, trending per news coverage, capped a 4-3 series victory in the first seven-game WNBA Finals in the league's 30-year history.

Golden State Valkyries WNBA Championship: How Game 7 Was Won

The Valkyries had to come from behind to win it. They trailed 30-24 at half-time, after Williams had scored just two points in the first half, and the game was still tied at 53 in the closing minutes. Then Williams took over. She scored nine straight points for Golden State, including a deep three-pointer with 2:18 left that made it 60-57, and the Valkyries never trailed again. Kiah Stokes put back a Williams miss for a 64-57 lead, and free throws from Tiffany Hayes and Veronica Burton sealed the 68-63 win in front of a sellout crowd of more than 18,000 at Chase Center.

The stakes could hardly have been higher. Both teams were chasing a first championship, and the series was already historic before Game 7 tipped off: it was the first WNBA Finals in the league's 30-year history to be decided in seven games, and the first to end in a winner-take-all finale. Atlanta had lost three previous Finals and had never won a title in the franchise's 18-year history, while Golden State were playing only their second season. The Golden State Valkyries WNBA championship was therefore decided on the biggest stage the league has ever staged, in front of a home crowd that roared them on from the opening tip.

Golden State outscored Atlanta 44-33 in the second half, turning a six-point half-time deficit into a five-point win. For the Dream, Jordin Canada scored 18 points and Allisha Gray added 16, while Angel Reese finished with eight points and 12 rebounds. For the champions, Hayes scored 11 points, Burton added 10, and Stokes led all players with 13 rebounds. The series had gone the distance after the Valkyries won Game 1 by 68-64, and Game 7 was the first winner-take-all Finals game in WNBA history.

Gabby Williams' 30 Points: A Finals MVP Performance for the Ages

Williams scored two points in the first half, then 15 in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth — 28 points in the second half, the most points in a half in a WNBA Finals game. She finished 10-of-23 from the field, 4-of-8 from three-point range and a perfect 6-of-6 from the free-throw line, adding four blocks and two steals in a performance that earned her the Finals MVP award.

The records did not stop at one game. Williams averaged 19.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists across the seven games, and her 137 points in the series set the all-time WNBA Finals scoring record, passing A'ja Wilson's 114 from 2025. Her 217 points and 23 steals are the most total points and steals in a single WNBA postseason. It was the 30-year-old French forward's first WNBA title after spells with Chicago and Seattle, having joined Golden State in the offseason as the franchise's first marquee signing. She had finished as runner-up for the league's Defensive Player of the Year award, and had twice fallen just short with France — losing the Olympic gold-medal game to the United States by a point at Paris 2024 and the FIBA World Cup final in September 2026.

Williams, whose favourite holiday is Halloween and who is nicknamed “Spooky G”, joked afterwards: “I wasn't going to lose on Halloween.” She also had a message for the doubters: “Man, all it took was good people. That's it. All we heard last year: We don't have no stars, we don't have no talent. Yeah, right!”

How the Valkyries Built a Champion in Two Years

Golden State joined the WNBA in 2025 as an expansion franchise. In their first season they won 23 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs. In 2026 they won 32 games and finished as the No. 2 seed — and then beat Atlanta in seven games for the title. They did it without a single All-WNBA player on the roster, the first team in the league's 30-year history to win a championship that way.

Head coach Natalie Nakase led a roster built around Williams, Hayes, Burton, Stokes and Kaila Charles, and owner Joe Lacob's bold prediction held up: in 2023, before the team had played a game, he promised a title within five years. The Valkyries delivered in two. Oddsmakers had given them +3500 odds — 45-1, about a 4% preseason chance — to win the championship. Like the Milwaukee Brewers' first World Series title earlier in October 2026, it was a first championship won far sooner than anyone expected.

What the Golden State Valkyries WNBA Championship Means for the League

The title is the fastest by an expansion team in the history of North America's major leagues, beating the Vegas Golden Knights' Stanley Cup win in their fourth season. It also closed the first seven-game Finals series in the WNBA's 30-year history — only the second season the Finals have used a best-of-seven format — and it left Atlanta still searching for a first title after losing the Finals for the fourth time in the franchise's 18-year history.

The Golden State Valkyries WNBA championship also underlines how open the WNBA has become — a team that began the season as a 45-1 outsider finished it as champion, and a player who had never won a WNBA title produced one of the great Finals performances to get there.

What Happens Next: Parade and the 2027 Season

A victory parade is planned for Wednesday 4 November 2026 in San Francisco, where the Valkyries will celebrate with the fans who packed Chase Center for Game 7. Golden State will return in 2027 as defending champions, with Williams under contract as the face of a franchise that has gone from expansion newcomers to champions in two seasons. Atlanta, meanwhile, must regroup after a fourth Finals defeat and try again to win the first title in franchise history.

Sources: CNN; USA Today; ESPN; NBC Sports; Sky Sports; Sports Illustrated.