Taking a Bite of the Big Apple

Five things the Valkyries can do to rebound from a 95-67 loss at the New York Liberty

The Golden State Valkyries got their welcome-to-the-WNBA moment on Monday night, falling behind 22-3 early to the reigning champion New York Liberty and ultimately losing 95-67 in the first game of a back-to-back affair in the Big Apple. With the second game scheduled for Thursday night at 7 p.m., what can the Valkyries adjust to fare better in game two?

I have a lot of clips from this game, so let’s dive right into it.

Limit the Turnovers

Turnovers were the easiest talking point of the game. Golden State, holding the highest turnover rate in the league at 20.2%, relinquished the ball 23 times, which the Liberty turned into 32 points. Some of them were just bad:

Yeah, that was in a coach’s edit from the game. Others were procedural—the Liberty’s length and athleticism means that a lot of skip passes available in the first three games were swallowed up in this one:

But mostly the turnovers were all over the place, from missed inbounds to shot clock violations to times when the ball handler was just overwhelmed by pressure.

Match Better in Transition

So, you’ve just committed a turnover. It happens! What do you do next? Certainly not compound the mistake (not all turnovers are mistakes) by playing bad defense, getting out-hustled by the offense, or matching up improperly in transition.

Here, the Liberty get five between ball and basket in transition, Talbot takes a tough layup and then gets outrun by Gardner going the other way, forcing Burton to rotate, which gives her a tough angle, which gives Gardner two easy points on the fastbreak. Then, Leite compounds her turnover by trying to steal it back, Thornton runs toward the ball when Talbot is already back, and Martin eases up juuuuust enough to get outrun by Gardner going the other way, which gives Gardner two easy points on the fastbreak (déjà vu). Golden State didn’t always match up well even after a make: that can’t happen against the Liberty.

A Strong Janelle Salaün Game

Salaün has been one of the brightest spots of the Valkyries’ early-season success. This was not her best game. Picking right up from the transition question:

With nine points on 3/12 shooting and four turnovers, Salaün’s 0.563 points per possession was not what the doctor ordered in a game that Tiffany Hayes missed due to injury. She did, however, shoot 3/5 from beyond the arc, and her 8/17 three-point mark this season ranks in the 91st percentile league-wide, according to HerHoopStats.

(Veronica Burton, by the way, was incredible this game on both sides of the ball; go read Marissa Ingemi’s piece on her in the San Francisco Chronicle or MSN and come back.)

Salaün’s 4/17 inside the arc this season, however, is not so great (regression to the mean, please). For such a three-heavy team, and for such a three-capable shooter, I’m honestly surprised at how many midrange shots Salaün took against New York.

Only one was really late in the shot clock, and several came against players—Jonquel Jones, Kennedy Burke—against whom Salaün notionally has at least a finesse advantage. She’s only taken one shot in the restricted area in three games.

Against a great New York Liberty defense, the talented rookie simply didn’t look comfortable (who could blame her?) and having a more confident and efficient Salaün is the best adjustment the Valkyries could ask for in the second game.

Finding the Right Rotation

It really matters if Salaün has a good game, because the Valkyries are already at a disadvantage without Hayes and without Monique Billings (who is questionable for Thursday with the lingering foot injury). The latter’s absence was particularly noticeable in this game as Golden State tried (unsuccessfully) to get Kyara Linskens some early minutes and later went to a small-ball lineup (slightly more successfully).

I think Billings would have played heavy minutes in this game (Burton, Leite/Hayes, Salaün, Billings, Fágbénlé) to match up defensively against Breanna Stewart, who was a problem all night for the Valkyries. Steph Talbot got the initial assignment, nominally, but I think the Valkyries knew they would have issues (Talbot struggled, as does most everyone against Stewart) and that’s why they went to the zone defense so early in the game.

The Liberty, however, picked apart the zone, and continued to do so once Linskens came in where Billings would have played.

So eventually Golden State moved toward a small-ball lineup. That’s where Salaün’s impact on offense and defense become so important. In a lineup with any three guards of Burton, Vanloo, Leite, and Martin, plus Fágbénlé at the 5, Salaün is the 4 tasked with guarding Stewart.

In those small-ball lineups, conceding a switch for Stewart onto a guard will result in very good things for the Liberty:

That’s why Salaün’s two-way impact not only affects her performance but the team’s entire rotation for the game. If she can hang with Stewie, the Valkyries can use some of the three-guard lineups they tried late in the game to compensate for the lack of Billings.

Side note: logical from the staff to give Kate Martin more minutes than the last two games in this one. She had some nice moments on both sides of the ball:

Of course, Martin giveth and Martin taketh away.

Take Even More Threes

I feel like Oliver Twist asking Mr. Bumble for more food—no way, right? The Valkyries already lead the league in three-point rate, as I’ve discussed ad nauseam, so more than their 50% three-point rate against the Liberty would be overkill, surely.

As I said on BlueSky (in response to Eric Apricot, who is doing some great Valkyries stuff over at ValkyrieNation), I think they’ll take the opposite approach. With such a talent disadvantage, it’s a good move to play a high-variance game, and threes are high-variance (you might make a lot; you might miss a lot; if you make a lot you have a good chance to win). The Valkyries will still need to not lose the possession battle quite so badly—you can’t get out-possessed and out-efficencied, per se, by better teams—but ramping up the chaos gives a team with a good bit of chaos an interesting path to victory.

Their 35.5% efficiency from deep against New York was also their most efficient game of the young year. That doesn’t mean anything predictively, but if the one-game trend continues, they’d be happy. I said Salaün was the biggest adjustment, but hitting more shots—especially more valuable shots—would be the best game two adjustment the coaching staff could manage.

So that’s my prediction: the Valkyries take threes at their highest rate all year (55.5%, game 1 vs. LAS) or take more in this game than any before (37, game 2 vs. WAS).

Or, they’ll take 25 and win on the strength of Salaün shooting 9/9 from midrange. We’ll find out tonight at 7 p.m. in New York.