The Golden State Valkyries beat the Atlanta Dream 68-63 in Game 7 of the WNBA Finals on Saturday night in San Francisco, capturing their first championship in just the franchise's second season.

Finals MVP Gabby Williams scored 30 points, with 28 of them coming in the second half — a WNBA Finals record for points in a half. Trailing by six at the break after scoring only two first-half points, Williams erupted for 15 in the third quarter to give Golden State a 45-44 lead.

With the game tied at 53, she scored nine straight points, including a deep 3-pointer that put the Valkyries up 60-57 with 2:18 left, a lead they never surrendered. She also added four blocks on defense.

The shock is the timeline. Owner Joe Lacob told coach Natalie Nakase at her October 2024 job interview that his goal was a championship in five years — a proclamation that drew gawks and even laughter around the league.

The Valkyries did it in two.

Nakase, hired before the team had a roster, and general manager Ohemaa Nyanin built a scrappy, defensive-minded, ego-free squad that became the first expansion franchise in WNBA history to make the playoffs in its inaugural season, then was swept by Minnesota in the first round.

That foundation made Golden State a free-agent destination, and the roster assembled the following offseason turned belief into a title.

Golden State's top-ranked regular-season defense held opponents to a league-low 75.1 points per game, and Kiah Stokes finished the postseason with 31 blocks, tied with Lisa Leslie for the most in WNBA playoff history, according to ESPN.

After falling behind 2-1 in the Finals, Nakase gave herself an F-minus on her coaching, then inserted Tiffany Hayes and Kaila Charles into the starting lineup for Game 4 — Charles posted a plus-14 and Hayes scored 13 points as the Valkyries took the next two games.

Williams, signed after Seattle cored her the previous offseason, averaged a career-best 14.4 points and earned All-Defensive First Team honors, per ESPN.

For Gabby Williams, the title closes a frustrating gap in a decorated career.

She won championships in college and overseas but had come agonizingly short with France, losing the 2024 Paris Olympics gold-medal game to the United States by a single point and falling to the U.S. again in September's FIBA World Cup, per the AP report carried by Bastille Post.

After years in Chicago and Seattle, she said she was convinced she would not win a championship anywhere else and called the season 'really healing.' The win also validates Lacob's dynasty ambition — he told Williams during recruitment, 'I want to build dynasties here.'

Perhaps the most striking detail about the new champions: Golden State accomplished this without a single All-WNBA player selection, leaning instead on culture and collective composure.

Kayla Thornton's huddle of teammates during a win-or-go-home Game 3 against Dallas, which fueled a comeback, became the symbol Nyanin pointed to as proof the pieces fit. Nakase's players say the group is fully selfless — 'no one cares who starts,' she said after the lineup shakeup paid off.