SAN FRANCISCO — Angel Reese scored 30 points and grabbed 16 rebounds on Monday night as the Atlanta Dream beat the Golden State Valkyries 79-65 in Game 2 of the WNBA Finals at Chase Center in San Francisco. The win evened the best-of-seven series at one game apiece.
Atlanta closed the third quarter on a 15-2 run and led 60-46 going into the fourth.
Game 3 is Wednesday night in Atlanta. Until then, the series is tied, and a tied series has a plain meaning. Each team has won one game, and neither has won more. Nobody is ahead.
The league’s Finals summary does not agree. It lists both the Dream and the Valkyries under “series lead,” a heading that has appeared since Game 1 and has not been changed. Asked how a tied series can have a lead, a league spokesperson said the summary was “a shared space” and that the league did not have a plan to make it smaller.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center’s model of the series projects one team ahead in roughly half of tied series and both teams ahead in the other half. The model, she said, has never been asked to explain which half this is.
Carol Ostrander, 67, of Pell Creek, Ga., has sat in the same seat at Dream games for 17 seasons. She said she followed the summary’s logic without difficulty. “If we are both in front, then nobody has to be behind,” Ostrander said. “I have been in this seat since the team was young and it has never once been behind anything. I think the league has finally caught up to where I have been sitting.”
Ostrander said she plans to attend Game 3 and has already told the usher where she will be standing. She said the seat is hers under either team’s lead.
The league said the summary would be updated after Wednesday’s game. If one team wins Game 3, the league expects the summary to list that team as the only leader, which would make the summary the one thing in the series that is still not tied.