That’s all from me. Here’s Bryan Armen Graham’s game report. Hope you all enjoyed your breakfast/lunch/dinner. The Valkyries certainly won’t want to see a 12.30pm tip-off time any time soon, but maybe the Dream will?

Onward to Game 7! Thanks for following along.

“Championship mentality,” says Angel Reese in the post-game interview. “We needed the opportunity, and we maximized it today. I’m just really proud of this group. The job is not done.”

Reese finished this game with 15 points, 14 rebounds and six assists. Her 78 (and counting) boards are the most by any player in a WNBA finals, and the Dream are now 16-0 (!) when she hits at least one three-pointer.

Final: Valkyries 69-80 Dream

Allisha Gray hits a huge three with 56 seconds left in the fourth quarter to seal it, and the series is headed to a Game 7 for the first time in WNBA finals history.

Valkyries 69-77 Dream, 55.9sec, fourth quarter

The Valkyries have cut the lead down to single digits! Gabby Williams gets the ball on a breakaway and is fouled by Rhyne Howard while going up for a layup. Williams hits the layup and the ensuing free throw. The Golden State star had four points at half-time; she has 26 now.

Valkyries 66-77 Dream, 1.57, fourth quarter

Angel Reese is whistled for her fifth foul after hooking Laeticia Amihere on a layup. (A player has to exit after their sixth.) The Dream challenge the call, but the officials uphold the initial decision. Amihere hits both free throws, and the Dream lead is 11.

Valkyries 64-77 Dream, 2.18, fourth quarter

The Valkyries are still in this game, but they’ve missed a few free throws that could have helped them whittle the lead down to single digits. Rhyne Howard hits a pair from the line for Atlanta to reach 20 points on the day.

Valkyries 61-74 Dream, 3.32, fourth quarter

Golden State aren’t out of this yet. Gabby Williams hits her third three of the game to cut the deficit to 14. She’s doing a little bit of everything in this second half: after hitting that three, she grabbed a defensive rebound on the next possession, drew a foul and then hit a pair of free throws. She has the Valkyries’ last 10 points.

Valkyries 55-74 Dream, 5.42, fourth quarter

Angel Reese hits her second three of the game, and it seems we are headed to a Game 7. The Valkyries were chipping away at Atlanta’s lead, earning back-to-back trips to the free-throw line and getting as close as within 13 points. While the Dream have faded a bit this second half after their incredible first-quarter performance from deep, a pair of threes from Allisha Gray and Reese give them a burst again. Reese has had the green light to shoot today, with a game-high seven attempts from three-point range.

Valkyries 49–66 Dream, 7.42, fourth quarter

Tiffany Hayes continues to be a bright spot for the Valkyries in an otherwise dreary game. She’s up to 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting. But her teammates are still struggling to hit their layups.

Valkyries 39-58 Dream, 1.43, third quarter

Veronica Burton gives the Valkyries a burst of energy with a made layup and then a quick steal on the ensuing inbounds play. She kicks it out to Gabby Williams for a three-point attempt that falls short. Golden State finally cut the deficit to below 20 points at one point, but they’re still missing their layups and leaving the door open for the Dream to build the advantage back up again.

Valkyries 33-53 Dream, 4.19, third quarter

Gabby Williams hits a three after a Dream turnover, but Allisha Gray picks her pocket on the next Golden State possession. If the Valkyries are going to climb back into this game, they’ll need Williams to keep finding her shot.

Valkyries 30-53 Dream, 5.30, third quarter

Gabby Williams gets her first points since the 3.49 mark of the first quarter, forcing a turnover and then delivering a layup at the other end. That’s the kind of defense-into-offense that has made Williams such a standout this postseason. But she can’t hit a layup shortly after (the Valkyries’ sixth layup miss of the afternoon), and Atlanta’s lead holds at 23.

Valkyries 28-51 Dream, 7.19, third quarter

Rhyne Howard goes down after taking a hard hit to the face on a foul by Veronica Burton. Howard gets back up, but the officiating crew gives a lengthy review to the play and decides to upgrade it to a Flagrant-1 foul. Howard gets two free throws and Atlanta will have the ball.

Valkyries 28-51 Dream, 7.55, third quarter

Rhyne Howard starts the second half off with her fourth three-pointer of the game. Tiffany Hayes, the Valkyries’ lone offensive bright spot so far, gets a layup on the other end to push her point total to 13. She is 5 for 7 from the floor; the rest of her team is 5 for 31.

Rapper T-Pain did the half-time show at State Farm Arena. A few of the other celebrities in attendance:

“We know if we don’t keep it up, we go home,” Dream guard Allisha Gray says in the half-time interview. “I’m not ready for my season to be over yet.”

Valkyries 21-46 Dream, 2.31, second quarter

The Valkyries missed three layups in a span of two minutes, which just about sums up their first half. Meanwhile, this sums up Atlanta’s first half: the Dream are 15-0 (!) this season when Angel Reese hits at least one three-pointer. The record for a half-time lead in the WNBA finals is 22 points.

Valkyries 21-44 Dream, 4.00, second quarter

Angel Reese hits her first three of the game, meaning that all five of Atlanta’s starters have hit at least one from deep so far. The Valkyries are looking uncharacteristically sleepy. Allisha Gray put the Dream up 22 points with a coast-to-coast layup – the kind of play Golden State and their league-leading defense don’t usually allow. Gabby Williams and Veronica Burton are a combined 2-for-15 from the field. Is the early tip-off time affecting them?

Valkyries 17-37 Dream, 5.52, second quarter

Natalie Nakase calls a time out as Atlanta stretch their lead to 22 points. The Dream’s ball movement has been excellent in this first half, with Angel Reese and her five assists leading the way.

Valkyries 17-37 Dream, 6.30, second quarter

Rhyne Howard is up to three three-pointers, and the Valkyries cannot buy a basket. The Dream have now hit more threes than they made in all of Game 4 (four) and Game 5 (six). Karl Smesko, mic’d up for USA Network during the break, tells his Atlanta team he wants them to keep playing at a “100-point pace”.

Valkyries 15-32 Dream, end of first quarter

It looks like it’s 9.30am for the Valkyries. Their defense is out of sorts. The Dream, on the other hand, may have just played their best quarter of the entire series. They scored more points there than in the entire first half (22) of Game 5.

Valkyries 10-27 Dream, 2.00, first quarter

The Dream couldn’t have scripted a better start. They opened the game on a 13-0 start and have made six of their first eight three-pointers. Four of their five starters have hit a three so far, including two each from Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray. Atlanta are dictating the pace of play. DeWanna Bonner is their first player off the bench.

Valkyries 5-11 Dream, 5.04, first quarter

Angel Reese scores her first points of the afternoon on a drive that draws a foul from Kiah Stokes. She hits the free throw to put the Dream up 11-5. The Reese-Stokes matchup has been the standout matchup of the past two games. Golden State are off to a cold start, with seven straight misses.

Valkyries 5-8 Dream, 6.41, first quarter

Valkyries point guard Veronica Burton scored the game’s first points with a floater jumper, but Allisha Gray and Naz Hillmon punched back quickly with a pair of threes for Atlanta. The Dream needed to start this game on a fast note, and they have. The home crowd is loving it in Atlanta.

“The word of the day is mimosa,” play-by-play announcer Kate Scott jokes on the USA Network broadcast. She’s kidding – the real word of the day is turnovers because of how defense-minded these teams are – but I have enjoyed seeing how WNBA fans are making the best of the matinee circumstances. Bars in the Bay Area are doing breakfast pop-ups for the early start. Another women’s sports bar in Chicago built out reserved work station areas so fans can work while watching the game. Other bars around the country put in rush orders for coffee, milk and matcha to match their normal offerings.

Noted women’s sports supporter Flavor Flav even wrote up an official sick-day note for fans.

As someone who covered Veronica Burton during her college career at Northwestern, I would be remiss not to bring up how she has stepped up for the Valkyries in the past two games. In Game 5, she scored 13 points and blocked four shots, tying the record set by Diana Taurasi in 2009 for the most blocks by a guard in a game.

Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase called her the “best point guard in the league”.

A refresh on the action in Game 5 as we get closer to Game 6’s tip-off:

And a plug for our WNBA 30 newsletter, helmed by the fantastic Jordan Robinson, who is one of the best out there at covering the league. If you’re not already subscribed, make sure you sign up so you can read her thoughts once this series wraps up:

The Dream have said that even with the matinee tip-off, this game will be a sellout. More than 10,000 tickets were sold in the first 90 minutes they were put on sale.

The Hawks-Cavaliers game tonight was pushed from 7pm ET to 8pm ET, so there will be enough time to switch the court from Dream to Hawks branding.

It’s still probably going to be a bit of a tight turnaround, especially if accounting for a title celebration.

“I still believe in our team. I still believe that we can win this and one game at a time,” Angel Reese said after the Dream’s Game 5 loss. “We’re just going to take it one game at a time and just get back to who we are.”

Reese has been incredible at points of this series – specifically in Games 2 and 3, when she had 30 and 21 points respectively as the Dream won both games. But she’s been kept quiet in the past two. She had eight points and nine rebounds in Game 4, followed by seven points and 15 boards in Game 5. It was the first time this entire season that she’d scored in single digits in back-to-back-games.

“It doesn’t matter what time [Game 6] is. At the end of the day, we just need 94 feet, two hoops in each other,” Valkyries center Kiah Stokes said. “It’s a close-out game. Atlanta is a great team and we don’t want to give them basically any life. So as much as we love ‘Ballhalla,’ we don’t want to come back here. So we need to go in with the mentality that we have to win. It’s do or die.”

When the Guardian staff made our predictions for the finals, Stokes was a near-unanimous pick for the player most likely to break out in this series. That was a smart call: she has been a defensive force, with three or more blocks in all five games. She also added 13 points in Game 5, tying Veronica Burton for Golden State’s team high. Chants of “MVP” broke out for Stokes at Chase Center on Monday.

Ella will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s the latest on what led to today’s surprise matinee.