How the Valkyries were driven to a title by veteran Tiffany Hayes

Golden State Valkyries guard Tiffany Hayes, who scored 11 points in her team's win, drives past Atlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard during Game 7 of the WNBA Finals on Saturday. (Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle) Her gait slowed, gradually, to a limp, a grimace spreading across Tiffany Hayes' face as she tried to make it back down the floor. She hobbled her way. Her pinky and ring fingers on her left hand - her shooting hand - were already splinted together by black tape, and here she was in the third quarter, now, exiting after a timeout and heading straight for the tunnel. Hours later, elated and ragged with the pain and joy of a title she'd chased for 14 seasons, she bent over and let the pain loose."Let me tell you something," Hayes told reporters after the Golden State Valkyries beat the Atlanta Dream 68-63 on Saturday at Chase Center for the NBA title. "It hurts. I'm 37. My body hurts right now. I ain't even get to celebrate how I wanted to. I had to go sit down, because my legs are burning. My body hurt. "My heart feel good," she continued, "but my body hurt."It hurt bad enough, three years ago, that she decided to hang it up, at 34. Hayes left 11 seasons and an All-Star nod behind, and a goal sitting on the table. No ring. No title. That mattered less, at the time, than what she'd lost, by the time the Atlanta Dream shipped her off to Connecticut back in 2023."At the point when she left Atlanta - she wasn't loving the game anymore," father Renard Hayes told the Chronicle on Saturday night, nursing a celebratory blue solo cup of an unidentified brown liquor.She didn't walk away, though, on her own terms. At the mercy of her body. At the mercy of her mind. A call from Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon and an invite to join the Aces - with then-assistant Natalie Nakase - gave her an opportunity to write her own story, as Hayes reflected. A potential final chapter beckoned, on Saturday night. And in the tunnel, in the third quarter, the Valkyries' 37-year-old stabilizer walked off the pain and returned to the hardwood, delivering a handful of fourth-quarter buckets that did just enough behind Gabby Williams' brilliance to bring an unforgettable elation to Ballhalla. "Just has carried us, and just carried, especially, me personally, all season," Williams said of Hayes, after the Valkyries' Game 7 win over the Dream. "And again tonight, in this game. I've even spoken about it, before the game, how I wanted just to get this for her."Williams was the hero, letting fly a barrage of second-half arrows in a performance that will live forever in Bay Area lore. But the Valkyries, trying to outlast a Dream squad long on ballhandling and shot-creation, needed any kind of secondary valve beyond repeated pick-and-rolls and iso-ball for Williams. There was Hayes, knifing in and flipping in a layup early in the fourth quarter, pointing in glee to fans courtside. There was Hayes, two minutes later, driving and gathering and fading for a jumper over two defenders. And there was Hayes, ambling to the free-throw line with 29 seconds left, knocking in a pair of daggers to give the Valkyries a comfortable six-point cushion. "Sometimes, we get a little bit emotional at times, where we can look at her to keep her composure and keep us calm through those situations," assistant coach Kasib Powell told the Chronicle postgame. "Whenever we're stagnant, we don't have answers - a lot of the time, she's the one we go to."Hayes flashed a heart sign to thousands of raucous cheers at center court postgame, an acknowledgement of the joy she'd rediscovered in the Bay Area. After Hammon persuaded Hayes to come out of retirement in 2024, she won the WNBA's Sixth Player of the Year Award in Las Vegas. She was comfortable. But Nakase went to Golden State to build an expansion franchise from the ground up, and asked Hayes if she'd come with her, with a simple question. Do you want to take this leap of faith with me? Hayes heard Nakase's words, and felt, somewhere inside, that this was meant to be. Two years of trust in the 46-year-old Nakase, in turn, have fostered a non-insubstantial part of the head coach's why."I wanted to do it for Tip," Nakase said postgame. "Like, I didn't want to let her down, right? Like, she moved her life for me. And so, when people make that type of commitment and that type of sacrifice, like, it made me work even harder. Go deeper in the film sessions. Make sure we meet even longer. "This was all because of Tip's love."Love became passion this series, in a full-circle matchup with Atlanta, a franchise that went to the WNBA Finals in Hayes' second season in 2013 and had been swept. After 10 years with the Dream and a first-team All-WNBA nod in 2018, Atlanta sent Hayes to Connecticut in 2023 for a first-round pick. This Finals matchup, Hayes' father Renard made clear, was a "revenge story.""I'm going to let her tell that story," Renard said, asked why this was indeed revenge. "Because of Atlanta - some things went down in Atlanta. She didn't want to say. But I think you understand what happened when she left Atlanta. "And now, and we beat them in the Finals, it's a revenge story. Put two and two together. You'll figure it out."After coming off the bench for much of the season, Nakase's injection of Hayes into the Valkyries' starting lineup for Game 4 - with a 2-1 deficit - helped swing the series. Hayes averaged 12.8 points a game over her next four starts, including 11 on Saturday night. And she skipped down the tunnel, postgame, to cries from friends and family and teammates: Tip! Tip!Was she heading off into a confetti-littered sunset, here, after finally landing a title?Perhaps not yet. The body prevails."We done started a dynasty," Hayes said. "So if God willing, I'll be here again."SubscribeThere’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at How the Valkyries were driven to a title by veteran Tiffany Hayes.