SAN FRANCISCO -- Natalie Nakase once blasted the sound of machine guns and bombs through her team's speakers during a September scrimmage. It wasn't theatre. It was a message. Eighteen months after entering the league as an expansion side stocked with castoffs nobody else wanted, the Golden State Valkyries now lead the WNBA Finals 1-0 over the Atlanta Dream, and much of that turnaround traces back to the uncompromising coach pacing their sideline.
An Expansion Team Rewrites Its Own Story
Golden State's rise defies the usual expansion-franchise script. There was no marquee superstar on the roster, no built-in expectation of contention, just players previous franchises had left unprotected. Yet the Valkyries finished the regular season with the league's top-ranked defense, its most productive bench and a home-court advantage that has proven difficult to crack. Saturday's gritty 68-64 win over Atlanta to open the Finals was a distillation of that identity -- unglamorous, physical, and built on discipline rather than star power.
A Coach Who Demands Everything
Nakase's methods are unconventional but deliberate. Borrowing an idea from Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, she piped in the sounds of warfare during practice to simulate hostile, chaotic environments and force her players to communicate louder under pressure. "We're here to win or die," she told ESPN, a line that captures the intensity she brings daily -- she has been known to text her coaching staff at 4 a.m. and is already thinking about the next opponent while still shaking hands after a win. Her assistants call her "fiery." Las Vegas Aces coach Becky Hammon, who worked alongside Nakase during the Aces' 2022 and 2023 championship runs, nicknamed her "mighty mouse."
From Video Coordinator to Finals Coach
Nakase's path to this moment was built gradually, not handed to her. She began as a video coordinator with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2012 before working her way into full-time assistant roles under Doc Rivers and Tyronn Lue, eventually joining Hammon's Las Vegas staff in 2022. When Golden State owner Joe Lacob -- who has publicly stated his belief the franchise would win a title within five years of its launch -- hired her to lead the Valkyries in 2024, Nakase treated it as validation and pressure in equal measure, pushing herself to match the experience of general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and team president Jess Smith.
That drive traces back further, to her late father Gary, who coached her with a tough-love approach, offering little verbal praise and instead challenging her to move up levels once she mastered one. "Basketball is our love language," Nakase said. She has carried a version of that same demanding standard into her locker room, though she has learned to pair it with flexibility -- letting players like Tiffany Hayes, Kayla Thornton and Kiah Stokes play to their individual strengths rather than forcing a single mold.
Finding Their Voice Under Pressure
Players describe a coach who has reshaped not just their defense but their mentality. Thornton points to a collective belief that outside doubt doesn't matter. "We're special," she said. "Everybody thinks we're the underdogs. But we don't think about the outside." For Nakase, that resilience echoes her own early coaching days with the Clippers, when she had to find the confidence to run her first drill as an assistant. Game 2 of the Finals on Monday at Chase Center will test whether that hard-won identity can now deliver Golden State's first championship.
