Five games left, and not one winning record among them
Four straight wins. Three of them on the road, at Minnesota, at Connecticut, at Brooklyn. Golden State head to Portland on Sunday afternoon with the kind of momentum that makes a team wish the calendar would not stop, and the calendar is about to stop: this is the last game before the league shuts down for the World Cup, and the WNBA does not come back until 17 September.
The Valkyries sit at 28-11, second in the standings. Minnesota are three wins clear at the top. Las Vegas trail by a game and a half. Of the five games Golden State have left, none come against a team with a winning record.
Natalie Nakase would rather talk about her bench than her schedule. “It can be Ceci Zandalasini’s night, it can go back to Gabby Williams, Veronica Burton or Janelle Salaun,” the head coach said after Thursday’s 79-60 win over the Liberty in Brooklyn.
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Leite arrives at 26 points and a losing run finally broken
Carla Leite spent last season in Golden State colours. On Sunday she lines up against them.
The French guard put up 26 points on Friday as Portland won 101-83 in Atlanta, ending a three-game slide. Emily Engstler chipped in 25 of her own. “There was a lot of leadership, from the youngest to the oldest out there,” Engstler said. “That is the difference between a team that wins and everyone else.”
Portland are 16-23. For an expansion franchise, the back end of a first season is less about the standings than about working out who belongs here next year.
Three meetings in under a month
They have met once so far in 2026. Golden State took that one 95-77 at home in June, with Kayla Thornton scoring 19 on five threes and pulling down eight boards.
Sunday opens a stretch of three games between these two inside four weeks. San Francisco on 18 September, then Portland again on 22 September to close the regular season. Leite on one side, Salaun on the other, every time.
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