Date, Time, and Location: Wednesday, September 30th, 6:00pm, College Park Center (Arlington)
Broadcast Information: ESPN (full national) and ESPN Deportes (Spanish-language)
The Golden State Valkyries continue their playoff series on Wednesday on the road, looking to complete a sweep and advance to the semifinals. The Dallas Wings will be trying to send the series back to San Francisco on Friday after not ultimately being competitive in the opening game. This game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN and ESPN Deportes and will follow the preceding broadcast from Washington. It is possible that the other game will run long and the start of the game will be moved to alternate channels or online options.
The Valkyries
The initial injury report for the Valkyries is clean as they figure to take the same first half approach with the same high utilization of the bench. Smallball lineups were also utilized at times and they continue to make sense in most of the matchups that they are likely to face against Dallas. The offense was clicking for pretty much the entire game so the goal there will be to continue to generate good open shots from distance. The defense ended up greatly disrupting what the Wings were trying to do so the matchups and approach will likely stay the same early.
The Opposition
Dallas is in the same player availability situation right now, meaning that Alanna Smith remains out with her injury. They will certainly be hoping for a better performance at home, but they could also make some tweaks to try and find a way through on offense. They played their starters for almost the entire first half and some of their bench players struggled once they entered the game. As a result, the team could lean more on their veteran bench players like Alysha Clark and Odyssey Sims, who was strictly used in a platoon with Paige Bueckers in the last game. Dallas also found some success with a taller lineup late in the season so Li Yueru, who did not play in the first half could be brought in to make a double-post lineup more of an option to make the Valkyries choose when to deploy smallball groups.
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