WNBA Star Brittney Griner Sends Message After Golden State Valkyries Game

Brittney Griner and the Atlanta Dream continued to assert themselves as a legitimate championship contender with 79-63 win over the Golden State Valkyries on Sunday. The Dream currently hold the WNBA’s second-best record at 21-12, winning seven of their last eight games and eight of their last 10.

Griner came off the bench for the Dream in Sunday’s win, recording eight points on 4-of-7 shooting in 15 minutes of action. Griner typically starts for the Dream but has been on a minutes restriction in her four games since returning from a neck injury on August 10. Before that, Griner had never come off the bench in her 12-year WNBA career.

In the win over Golden State, Griner tallied eight points and six rebounds in 15 minutes of play. The 34-year-old 10-time WNBA All-Star made a statement on Instagram following her performance against the Valkyries on Sunday, accompanied by a picture of herself in action at the Chase Center.

“Get a whole lot of love, get a lil’ bit of hate 🥱,” Griner captioned the post.

The Valkyries were unable to immediately build upon a historic win over the Chicago Sky on Friday, where they became the most successful first-year expansion team in WNBA history with a dominant 90-59 win. Golden State and Atlanta were tied 25-25 at halftime on Sunday, but the Dream outscored the Valkyries by 11 points in the third and five points in the fourth en route to a 16-point win.

At 18-16, the Valkyries are now just a game and a half ahead of the Seattle Storm for the eighth and final spot in next month’s WNBA playoffs. Below the Valkyries lies a significant logjam in the standings, as the Storm, Sparks and Mystics all sit within a half-game of each other in pursuit of that ever so important final playoff berth.

Golden State is set to square off against Griner’s former team, the Phoenix Mercury, in an important tilt on Monday night at the Chase Center. The Valkyries are just a half game below the Indiana Fever for the sixth seed, so each game is bordering on must-win territory for the remainder of the season.

With Sunday’s result, the Dream officially took the regular season series from the Valkyries 2-1. Atlanta won the first meeting 90-81 on July 7 before the Valkyries got the better of them with a 77-75 win in their second meeting on July 27. If the playoffs were to begin today, the Valkyries and Dream would meet in the first round in the No. 2 vs No. 7 seed matchup