The Golden State Valkyries beat the Los Angeles Sparks 76-75 on a 17-4 closing run, wrecking a farewell that had a sellout crowd, matching commemorative shirts, and a 17-point, 15-rebound, 5-assist line from Nneka Ogwumike to close out fifteen seasons.
That’s the most WNBA ending I’ve watched all year, and I mean that as a compliment.
Golden State came into Crypto.com Arena as the No. 2 seed with a 32-12 record, and for most of the night they played like they didn’t want to be the ones ruining the party. The Valkyries trailed by as many as 16 points in the second half and were still down 69-57 with 4:42 left on the clock. Then the Sparks’ offense just disappeared. Los Angeles didn’t make another field goal until the final second of the game.
Kaitlyn Chen scored 14 of her 18 points in that fourth quarter alone, which deserves more attention than it’s going to get. Gabby Williams then closed the door herself: a three-pointer with 1:30 left, a steal on the very next Sparks possession that turned into a fast-break layup, and a second three with 20.4 seconds on the clock that put Golden State up 73-72 for good. Kayla Thornton hit three straight free throws in the final ten seconds to put Golden State up 76-72, and the last-gasp Sparks answer that followed wasn’t enough.
The Valkyries’ own team site called it the largest comeback in franchise history. On a night built entirely around somebody else’s goodbye, that’s not exactly a footnote.
Ogwumike still finished with 17 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists, good for her 134th career double-double, sixth-most in WNBA history. Fifteen seasons, every one of them in a Los Angeles Sparks jersey, spent piling up a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP, a championship and eleven All-Star selections.
The Sparks threw her the retirement ceremony anyway. Every fan in the building got a commemorative shirt, “On Her Terms” signs hung everywhere you looked, and team president Stacy Johns announced that the players’ sanctuary in the franchise’s new practice facility will carry Ogwumike’s name for good.
Fair enough.
She summed up her own night better than I could: “This is goodbye, not forever, but I’m always gonna be your L.A. Spark, so I love you guys.” Then she added the line that actually stuck with me: “I should’ve made that free throw.”
The league’s own tribute post went up the next morning, and it reads like the final four minutes never happened:
https://x.com/WNBA/status/2103342493333070015
That tweet is about fifteen years of Ogwumike being one of one. It has nothing to do with the ninety seconds that decided how her last game actually ended, and that gap is basically the whole story here.
None of this is on Golden State. Chen and Williams didn’t back into that finish; they closed it on purpose, and it’s the same Valkyries team we already called the best nobody’s talking about, a run the rest of our WNBA coverage has been tracking all season. They open the playoffs Sunday against Dallas. The Sparks just went cold at the worst four minutes of their year.
My sister texted the group chat mid-collapse: “wait they’re doing this to her at her LAST GAME???” Yeah. They did. Even the perfect goodbyes aren’t safe from a good closing lineup.
