Allisha Gray had spent most of the WNBA Finals playing around a damaged left hand, looking for ways to help that did not depend on her jumper. With Atlanta one loss from the end of its season, the jumper came back. When her last corner three dropped in the closing minute, she turned to the stands and roared, and the people she roared at had rearranged a working day to be there.

The Atlanta Dream beat the Golden State Valkyries to level the series and push the WNBA Finals to a deciding game for the first time in league history. The shooting will lead every recap, and it should. The other half of the story is the crowd: a weekday lunchtime tip-off, an NBA arena the Dream do not yet call home, and every seat sold anyway.

A crowd that did not exist three years ago

The final was 80-69 on Thursday at State Farm Arena. Gray scored 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting, five of seven from deep. Rhyne Howard added 21 and Angel Reese posted another double-double. Atlanta made six of eight threes in the first quarter, led 32-15 after it and 46-26 at halftime, and stretched the margin to 25 before Golden State’s late push. Gabby Williams scored 26 for the Valkyries.

The Associated Press noted that the Dream barely averaged 3,000 fans a night for the 2023 season and sat near the bottom of the league in home attendance after that. Their usual home, Gateway Center Arena in suburban College Park, seats about 3,500. For the Finals the league moved Atlanta’s home games downtown to the Hawks’ building, which holds more than 17,000, and fans sold out Games 3, 4 and 6. When Game 6 tickets went on sale, more than 10,000 went in the first 90 minutes, a Dream spokesperson told the AP.

The catch was the clock. The Hawks had a home game against Cleveland that night that could not be moved, so Game 6 tipped at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on a Thursday. Coach Karl Smesko said before the game that he felt bad for the people shut out by it: “I hope everybody gets to see it somehow and I know that for some people it’s not realistic, they have jobs and won’t be able to make it.” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens asked the city’s educators and employers to “extend grace” to anyone watching during work hours, Atlanta News First reported. The building filled.

The players had already noticed. After the Game 3 sellout, Reese thanked fans who came out “on a school night, they have to work tomorrow.” Howard went further: “The city of Atlanta, I’m sure if the stadium was bigger it would still be a sellout crowd. Because that’s how much we mean to the city.” On Thursday the Dream kept waving their arms at the stands to raise the noise, and when Reese hit a three midway through the fourth quarter, Swish Appeal wrote, the arena erupted.

The player who would not go home

Gray hurt several fingers on her left hand in the first game of the semifinals and needed what ESPN described as a minor procedure, and her shot suffered. “I am just locked in. It’s Game 6 — win or go home,” she told ESPN. “I didn’t want to go home.” On defense she held the Valkyries to 2-of-17 shooting as the primary defender and added three blocks.

Reese had talked to her on the flight home after the Game 5 loss. “She might be hurting, but you can’t tell,” Reese said, with Gray beside her holding an ice bag on that left hand. Smesko said the first thing the staff told the locker room was how proud they were of her.

A first champion either way

Whoever wins on Saturday, the WNBA crowns a first-time champion. The Valkyries are in only their second season. The Dream reached the Finals in 2010, 2011 and 2013 and lost all three, as ClutchPoints recalled. On the Golden State bench sits Tiffany Hayes, who played for Atlanta from 2012 to 2022; after the Game 3 sellout she said she was “happy everyone came and showed love to women’s basketball.”

Game 7 tips off Saturday, Oct. 31, at 8 p.m. ET at Chase Center in San Francisco, the arena the Valkyries call Ballhalla. Golden State is 2-1 at home in this series. ESPN points to the line that has decided it so far: Atlanta has won all three games in which it scored more than 70 points.

The Dream have already signed for next season: on Oct. 6 the franchise announced it will play every home game at State Farm Arena starting in 2027. The lunchtime crowd has made its case for the bigger room. Saturday decides whether the Dream bring a championship banner into it.

Tags: Angel Reese, Atlanta Dream, Golden State Valkyries, WNBA Finals, Allisha Gray