Valkyries (9-7) vs. Storm (10-7) Postgame Notes and Quotes

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WNBA Golden State Valkyries

Valkyries (9-7) vs. Storm (10-7) Postgame Notes and Quotes

June 30, 2025 - Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)
Golden State Valkyries News Release


Golden State 84, Seattle 57

By the Numbers

For the 10th consecutive game, Golden State drew a sell-out crowd of 18,064 fans. The Valkyries currently lead the WNBA in attendance.

The 27-point win ties the largest margin of victory for the Valkyries this season (also vs. Las Vegas on 6/7).

Tiffany Hayes went 8-13 (61.5 percent) from the field for a season-high 21 points. Hayes also had four assists and three rebounds.

Veronica Burton had 15 points, five assists and two blocks. It's her ninth double-digit scoring performance of the season. Burton was a perfect 3-3 from the free throw line, the seventh time this season she's been perfect from the line.

Laeticia Amihere went 6-8 (75.0 percent) from the field for a career-high 15 points, eight rebounds and one block, which came against 6'6" Dominique Malonga.

Kate Martin posted her third-straight double-digit scoring performance with 11 points and three rebounds. Martin was +22 off the bench for Golden State.

Kaitlyn Chen had a career-high six rebounds in 23 minutes of action.

Seattle, who had won four of its last five games heading into Ballhalla tonight, was held to a season-low 57 points. The Storm were also limited to season lows in points in the paint (18), field goal percentage (27.0 - 20-74), and assists (13).

The Valkyries shot a season-best 48.4 percent (31-64) from the field and tied a season high with 46 points in the paint.

Golden State is now 6-1 on the year in games following one day of rest.

Golden State scored 31 points in the third quarter on 58.8 percent (10-17) shooting to take a 21-point lead into the fourth.

Golden State held Seattle to just 27 points in the first half, the fewest points allowed by the Valkyries in any half this season.

Quotes

HEAD COACH NATALIE NAKASE

ON TIFFANY HAYES' PERFORMANCE:

"Yeah, I think Tip (Tiffany Hayes) has this skill set of being ready anytime, anywhere...That's what I love about Tip is she'll always make the right play no matter what the situation is. So they go under, she's going to shoot it, if they go over she's going to go downhill. If the low-man pulls over, she makes the right read. That's what's so fun with Tip, is she's really tough to guard in any situation. So yeah, she understood when KT (Kayla Thornton) went out that she had to step up and that's what you saw. So I love Tip on my team."

ON THE DEFENSIVE INTENSITY TONIGHT:

"I think they're really, I wouldn't say the word so much of buy-in, but they're really coming into their own. I think we are naturally from one to 12, we are naturally defenders, and like I said our killer mentality as an identity is really showing out. So again, as long as we had that effort, we recovered. I thought we did a hell of a job on the off days of recovering, just to make sure that when we come out in game time, we are bringing that energy, we are bringing that fight; and so again, we want to be a number one defense, so I'm hoping this pushes us a little closer."

ON BEING 9-7 ON THE YEAR AND EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS:

"I want to come off as humble as possible, but at the same time, I know what these players have done for three months, and that's work their tails off. They work extremely hard. So, it's so funny, I was talking to my coaches after today, like, 'man, we're lucky.' Because every time we go through a walkthrough or we go through a practice, they are loud. They're screaming, they're communicating. Like, rarely am I saying, 'hey, we need more effort in practice.' That's them. So we're lucky as coaches that we have players that are coachable, have players that go hard every shootaround and every practice. Even film session, they are locked in, they ask questions...I'm grateful just to be their head coach because I have all coachable players."

GOLDEN STATE GUARDS VERONICA BURTON AND TIFFANY HAYES:

ON LIMITING SEATTLE IN THE PAINT:

Burton: "We definitely executed our game plan. We have a defense that is reliant on trusting one another, and I think we really (1:06) did that to a T tonight; and obviously we know people's tendencies, so we try and execute against those as well. But at the end of the day, we rely on each other and talk and communication. So we really tried to crowd the paint, and I think we executed that pretty well."

ON TONIGHT'S DEFENSE IN HOLDING SEATTLE TO A SEASON LOW FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE:

Burton: "I didn't even know that, but that's an impressive stat for us and something that we take pride in. We are a team that is reliant on our defense, and when we execute on that end we get to turn it into our offense. Each and every player on our team takes a pride in that, and so that's impressive and something that we want to build on, and that's a standard that we want to continue to enforce throughout the rest of the season."

ON THE 10TH CONSECUTIVE SELLOUT:

Hayes: "Love the fans, man. Every time, we can't say it enough. They're like our sixth man off the bench, they give us so much energy. When we're down, when we're up, they're picking us up. So shout-out to them for coming every single night. That's just 10 in a row, love that for us, so keep coming back every night. We love it."

Up Next

The Valkyries hit the road on Saturday, July 5 to take on Minnesota at 5 p.m. PT on KPIX, KMAX, and The Audacy App.

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