While the Golden State Valkyries‘ 84-67 loss to the Los Angeles Sparks dampened the vibe of the team's historic WNBA debut, head coach Natalie Nakase believes it wasn't as negative as the 17-point margin of defeat indicates.

The Valkyries were neck and neck with the Sparks for most of the night. Tiffany Hayes muscled her way to 19 hard-fought points. Temi Fagbenle collected 15 points, notching the second and third 3-pointers of her career. The momentum felt in the Valkyries' favor until Kelsey Plum took over the game. Plum finished with 37 points, notching 24 of them in the second half alone.

Despite Plum's own historic Sparks debut, Nakase wasn't too disturbed by the team's first loss. After the game, Nakase talked about some of the lineup combinations she tried during this game and cited the team's zone defense looks as a success.

“We started out small. Then we decided to go double-bigs, just to give them a different look,” Nakase said. “[We] mixed in some zone. I actually didn't even practice zone that much, so that's why that was a positive we took away. We barely worked on zone and it actually was our best defense. It's still early, it's game one. [Sometimes] I like to see a group when the ball is moving. That's usually the group that I like to stick with.”

The zone defense was a testament to the Valkyries' adaptability. With only two weeks of training camp together, the team still has a lot of on-court chemistry kinks to figure out. But the fact that the Valkyries were in sync with each other in a defensive scheme that relies on communication is an encouraging green flag for the team.

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But even with that positive, the rag-tag Valkyries still made some costly mistakes throughout the game. Bad passes, offensive stagnation, and miscommunication all reared their ugly heads. In the same press conference, Nakase stated that a lot of the mistakes Golden State made were due to the team still figuring out how to play with each other, but she didn't fault her team for those errors.

“I have to give them a little bit of grace,” Nakase said. She acknowledged the hype of the historic moment, with the sold-out crowd adding another layer to this game before contextualizing the players' histories. “A lot of them, it's their first time starting. First time they've had heavy minutes. The first time I'm drawing ATOs for them. I'm getting used to what direction they want with the timing and everything.”

Golden State Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase talks to media members before the game against the Los Angeles Sparks at Chase Center.
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The Valkyries' offense stalled because it stagnated. They had trouble reading each other's body language, which led to a ball handler picking up their dribble or wings not cutting at the right time. The lack of wavelength factored into the Valkyries' collective 22 turnovers. But for Nakase, the turnovers are something she can live with right now.

“I'm good with the turnovers because I know, intentionally, they aren't trying to turn the ball over. No one's trying to throw [the ball] to LA. We'll clean it up, we'll take a look at it, but I know there's a lot of room for improvement.”