The Striking Similarities between Regular Season Juggernauts

I was going through my notes last night, which were full of unimportant thoughts about leg-sleeve coordination and trade ideas for the Mystics. There was one important thing I thought deserved its own article: the similarities between the Golden State Valkyries and the Boston Celtics. For this conversation, let's put aside the Celtics' 2024 championship because I view that as a sneaky contender for one of the best rosters ever constructed. Since then, they have lost in the playoffs in weird, head-scratching ways.

In the following playoff run, Boston was already down 3-1 to New York when Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles late in Game 4. By no means did it seem guaranteed that they would wind back up in the Finals even before the injury. The big discussion was why they were shooting so many threes, especially late in games. Their shot quality on paper was really good, but considering they had two all-time great scoring wings, they had no business being such a perimeter-oriented team.

Going into 2025-26 without Tatum for most of the season, they undoubtedly overachieved. They won 56 games and finished second in the East with a roster that relied on the bench playing balls to the wall, winning the analytics battle and maintaining great cohesion. I think we all realized Joe Mazzulla had created a regular-season juggernaut system that could sleepwalk into winning 50 games even without its best player. Tatum returned late in the season, but the playoff style stayed relatively the same: a team that was not as deep as the regular-season version but had more top-end talent. Boston took a 3-1 first-round lead over Philadelphia, lost three straight, and then Tatum missed Game 7 with knee stiffness. Mazzulla responded with the very weird starting lineup of Derrick White, Baylor Scheierman, Jaylen Brown, Ron Harper Jr. and Luka Garza. That was where you saw the limitations of a bench-dependent team.

For the past few years, I was really big on having a deep bench and believing it could translate into deep playoff runs. I was high on that 60-win Cavs team the year prior too, but after seeing the ceiling on both of these teams, I've begun to see the limitations of having ultra-deep benches and shooting a lot of threes.

And I think this is exactly where the Valkyries are now. By no means do they have comparable talent to Tatum and Brown, although Veronica Burton and Elizabeth Williams are very good (Veronica Burton baggage handler in the making). I watched them against the Lynx, who truly just bitched them around. You had Olivia Miles chirping and taunting them the whole game. Lynx players were joking around while Valkyries players begged for fouls and for their team to challenge. The whole game felt like two different classes of teams playing. The Valkyries' record would tell you otherwise, but none of their pedigree or unique roster construction mattered against elite shot creation and coaching.

The Valkyries were in jail the whole night. They couldn't get the volume of threes they usually get off, and from there the rest of their offense stalled. They've been praised for having a team that can play nine or ten deep, but it felt like they had only six players who could reach the level necessary to compete with Minnesota. Similar to the Celtics, all of that cute analytic ball and those hockey-style lineups were not viable. It's too far to say the Valkyries are gimmicky, but it's fair to say their ceiling was exposed.

When we get to the playoffs, Kaitlyn Chen, Tiffany Hayes and even Cecilia Zandalasini are just not going to be as effective. If Janelle Salaün can't get a three-point shot off, add her to the list. In my view, their spray-and-pray attack mixed with playing really hard becomes far less viable against the league's top tier, which is now who they're competing against.

So what is your point here, Aids? It's not that the Valkyries need more top-end talent. If anything, they realized that last year by bringing in Williams, who is truly one of the top players our league has. This is more a comment on the play style than the stars of the Valkyries. It might actually be more about Natalie Nakase, who I think is one of the most badass people on the planet. My point is that all the stuff Golden State relies on to win regular-season games could be the same reason we scrutinize them and come away underwhelmed in the postseason.

Going into this year, I never viewed the Valkyries as a team with a lot of three-point specialists. I viewed them (but wtf do I know) as almost the exact opposite: a tenacious defensive roster with a lot of great mid-range shooting and downhill talent. Then Janelle Salaün started making literally everything, Zandalasini began finding her stroke, and ever since those two things happened it seems like all they do is shoot threes. Winning answers every question, but I never understood how this roster became the one that decided to shoot more threes than anybody.

Obviously it works against these braindead bottom-half teams, but I don't think that's who the Valkyries are based on their roster. They seem to have decided to live and die by the three, which usually ends in death. On nights against coaches who have brains, opponents are going to make them put the ball on the ground and drive. I think that really messes up the Valkyries' flow.

So, with Golden State roughly 80 percent through year two, I think I'm starting to understand its team profile. You can compare the Valkyries to NFL teams like the Ravens or even the Cowboys, who can have great regular-season offenses and get labeled as frontrunners. Then, come postseason, they face slightly superior talent or even equal talent and get totally bullied. The Valks are a very smart, well-run team with players who play psychotically hard, but they will have a hard time getting over the hump, which is now what they're striving for. Their expectations are a testament to how far and absurdly successful they've been in a year and a half, and that deserves credit. But for the No. 2 team in the league at the moment, I would urge everyone to slow their roll on the Valkyries winning the chip.