Shotmaking-less in Seattle
The Valkyries posted their worse offensive performance of the season in a loss to the Storm, heading into a much-needed All-Star break at 10-12.
Keep an eye out for a league-wide check-in, with graphs of varying degrees of niche-ness, coming to your inbox probably tomorrow. Then, I’ll leave you be for a few days to embrace the “break” part of the All-Star break, but we’ll be back before the Valkyries return. They next play Friday, July 25 at home against the Dallas Wings.
The Valkyries fell to the Storm for the first time this season, 67-58, in a camp day slugfest in Seattle. Golden State won the first two matchups between the teams, both played at Chase Center, and the aphorism that it’s tough to beat a team three times certainly applies here. I followed the game live once again on Bluesky, so there’s plenty more to unpack, but the noticeable difference in this game was Golden State’s offensive woes.
Golden State’s finally tally of 58 points was its lowest of the season and the team’s first game scoring fewer than 67 points. The Valkyries posted an offensive rating of 79.5 (points per 100 possessions), also their lowest mark of the season. Their true shooting percentage of 43.3% was—you guessed it—a season low.
“We just didn’t make shots,” head coach Natalie Nakase said after the game, according to Marisa Ingemi of the San Francisco Chronicle. “We had good looks, but the ball just didn’t bounce our way. That’s going to happen sometimes.”1
I’m in agreement: given the defense that the Storm played, this game came down to shotmaking, and the Valkyries just didn’t make shots.
The stats
It’s instructive to look at the shooting stretch Golden State has been on within the larger context of the season. Since the Valkyries’ last win over the Storm, on June 29, the Valkyries hadn’t had a game making fewer than 34.4% of their three-pointers. They went 1-4 in those five performances. Before that stretch, however, when the Valks were 10-7, they’d hit the 34.4% mark just four times in 17 games! So this poor shooting performance reflects more of their season-long trend than aberration, even as fans may have gotten used to the new hot-shooting life.
How much three-pointers mattered to the offense in this game also provides important context. For the first time since June 1, more than 50% of the Valkyries’ field goal attempts were from beyond the arc. With Golden State’s poor overall three-point shooting (30.7%, second-last in the WNBA), the team has slightly decelerated on its three-point bombing since early in the season, much to its benefit. This game shows why.
Finally, it’s also a testament to the Storm. Seattle came into the game allowing the third-fewest threes per game in the league. For the first time this season, they conceded a higher rate of threes than twos (3PAr > 50%), at a three-point rate almost 10% higher than their previous season high… the last game against Golden State. That’s a big adjustment defensively, and it’s one that obviously worked.
Seattle’s willingness to concede the three enabled them to take away pretty much everything else, directly or indirectly. The Valkyries scored 20 points in the paint, their third-lowest total of the season. Golden State had its third-worst offensive rebound rate of the season at 23.3% and scored zero (0!) second-chance points for the first time all season. Second-chance points are pretty important for inefficient teams. Indirectly, Seattle—always a good turnover-limiting team—allowed just five points off eight turnovers, tied for the Valks’ lowest all season (they are 0-3 in those games).
Let’s look at the film.
The film
Seattle planted the seeds for this game’s defense in the first half of the second matchup between the teams.
Against two empty pick-and-rolls, Seattle iced the ballscreen (point of attack defender directs the ballhandler away from the screen to the sideline, screen defender drops to corral drive) and tag the roll from the nail—you can see how demonstrative Noelle Quinn is when telling Gabby Williams to get closer to tag the action. The Valks emerged with two above-the-break threes, missing both, exactly the shots Seattle was willing to live with.
Here’s that very coverage, with even more paint help. Veronica Burton drives and kicks, Golden State touches it to Janelle Salaün, guarded by the initial nail helper, who hits a three (she went 1/4 in the game from deep).
It was Salaün’s first game against Seattle, and I was really intrigued by her matchup with Nneka Ogwumike at the 4: Seattle would obviously attack it on offense (they did, and another version of this recap was about how Nneka dominated on offense), but Golden State could get some good, well-spaced looks in return.
Salaün pops off the empty screen (the right move) and attacks the closeout for an easy layup. Love that.
It wasn’t all smooth, though. The Valkyries ran the empty Salaün-as-screener look early in the game, and she rolled into a long midrange jumper against early low help from Ogwumike, not looking to pass at all:
They ran it again early, with Thornton drawing the foul (Seattle also played a lot of “weak” coverage on the right side, pushing ballhandlers to their non-dominant hand). Then, the possession that probably took Salaün to the bench for the last 17 minutes: she pops off the iced screen, but settles for a long step-back two and misses. The final possession is another good Seattle coverage against empty. Salaün 45 cuts to try to disrupt the weakside coverage; the spacing is cramped (look at all the Seattle players in the paint), but she draws a foul.
Salaün’s nine shots, in just 14 minutes, were tied for second on the team. But a lot of these, as we’ve seen above in empty looks, were shots against the presented coverage.
First clip: nail tag against the roll from Ogwumike leaves Salaün as the outlet; she pulls the shot and misses. Second clip: low help from Ezi Magbegor against the roll leaves Salaün, correctly shaking up for the pass, as the outlet; she pulls the shot and misses. Finally, nail help vs. empty as we’ve seen, Salaün’s the outlet against it. This is the one where you’d like to see another pass—you can see Burton pointing for the touch pass to Hayes—but Salaün pulls it against the rotation of the smaller Erica Wheeler and misses it.
The takeaway should not be the similarity “she misses it.” The takeaway should be the consistency of help and rotation and paint denial of the Storm. Let’s look at a set of clips from after Salaün went to the bench:
Ogwumike low helps off Cecilia Zandalasini against empty (Leite torched the Storm in the paint off empty in the first matchup), Leite drives and kicks to her, miss. Then, Golden State goes to some thumb down empty action, both times turning into wide open Kate Martin threes, both misses. These are all the right shots against the rotation: they’re just misses.
By the way, here’s Seattle making an empty ice look of their own, though they weren’t much better from deep:
The post-Salaün second-half lineup with Zandalasini and Amihere had its pros and cons. Zandalasini, who led the Valkyries in scoring and was pretty much the only player who got anything going in the second half, was able to get some good looks on offense…
… but gave Seattle some opportunities to attack the paint with their bigs on the other end (Ceci held up well guarding Magbegor in pick-and-roll).
The Valkyries didn’t always maximize their few paint opportunities in the second half. When they found the mismatch in the post, good things happened, but they didn’t always find it:
They didn’t get those often, either, as Seattle showed its commitment to low helping even with smaller defenders early:
Ok, I’ve run long, so just a few more clips. First, dotting the rotation and hitting the shot is a sweet combo:
However, not hitting the shot that the defense gives you was more the story of the Valks’ game. Tiffany Hayes was pretty quiet in this one (three points, three shots) after being the engine in the previous win. Here, her first shot of the game, she pulls up for three against the ice drop coverage but misses.
She was great at catching and driving by the rotation in the previous game but didn’t have many such opportunities in this game. Kate Martin does it here, attacking behind the nail help, but Ogwumike rotates over and gets the block. I’d love to see Billings cut in behind Nneka for the dump-off here:
Finally, Golden State tries one of its classic horns flare looks. But Seattle plays through it up top (Skylar Diggins, I should have said earlier in this post, played a quietly sublime defensive game)… and look at how low Magbegor, a great rim protector even in the backend of the pick and roll, is sitting in the paint!2
That’s the game right there. Golden State took the threes it was given: it just didn’t hit them.
Go read that story and come back. The Valkyries, as of this writing, haven’t posted the post-game pressers as they usually do, and while I watched Nakase’s on another channel, I’d prefer to direct people elsewhere.
Yes, this should be a defensive three seconds call. She is not within guarding distance of anyone for at least five seconds and does not fully clear the paint.