The WNBA Finals tip off tonight at Chase Center, and the league has never looked like this
The Golden State Valkyries host the Atlanta Dream in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals Saturday, a series guaranteed to produce the league's first first-time champion. Neither franchise has ever won a title.
In brief
Two franchises, zero titles, one game to start it all
San Francisco gets the WNBA Finals tonight. Game 1 between the Golden State Valkyries and the Atlanta Dream tips off at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC from Chase Center, and for the first time in the league's 30-year history, neither team in the championship round has ever won a title.
Neither the Dream nor the Valkyries has ever won a WNBA championship. It's Atlanta's first Finals appearance since 2013, and it's the first for the Valkyries, who are in just their second season as a franchise after debuting as an expansion team in 2025. That's the whole stakes in two sentences. Somebody is going home with the trophy for the first time. Somebody else goes home empty.
The Valkyries' arc is genuinely strange for professional sports. They became the only expansion team in WNBA history to make the Finals in just their second year, after being the first and only team to make the playoffs in their inaugural season in 2025. One year they were the plucky newcomers scraping into the postseason. Now they have home court in the championship.
In Year 2, the Valkyries took a significant leap, going from a good playoff-caliber team to one of the league's top teams. Golden State won nine more games in its second season, earning the second seed in the WNBA playoffs.
Atlanta's path here is different. The Dream didn't sneak in. They are on a franchise-best 10-game winning streak, and they don't look to be slowing down. Atlanta has not lost a game in these playoffs, sweeping the Washington Mystics 2-0 in the first round and defeating the New York Liberty 3-0 in the semifinals. Coach Karl Smesko, who made the jump from Florida Gulf Coast University, built a team that suffocates opponents on defense and turns chaos into fast-break points.
Atlanta forced 38 turnovers in the first two games against the Liberty and turned them into 60 points. New York's big three of Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Sabrina Ionescu had to work for everything they got. When you do that to that roster, it tells you something real about how Atlanta guards.
That defensive success shouldn't be surprising from a team that ranked third in defensive rating, fourth in scoring defense and led the league in steals throughout the regular season.
Golden State got here a different way. The Valkyries lost just once in the playoffs, in overtime to the Dallas Wings in Game 2 of the first round, but advanced to sweep the defending champion Las Vegas Aces 3-0 in the semifinals. Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Gabby Williams and Cecilia Zandalasini each had three steals in the overtime win over Las Vegas, and five-time WNBA MVP A'ja Wilson shot just 6-of-19. That's how Golden State plays. Active hands. Take away your best player's rhythm. Make you earn every possession.
The Valkyries will enjoy home-court advantage in this championship series, a boost for a team that went 21-5 in San Francisco this year, including playoffs. Chase Center is not a quiet building. The Warriors' fanbase has adopted the Valkyries, and tonight that place will be loud.
The question hanging over the whole series
There is concern about guard Allisha Gray's availability, but the Dream have good defensive matchups against the Valkyries. Golden State appears to have more depth, which has been one of the Valkyries' biggest strengths.
Depth is the right word. Eight Valkyries players scored six or more points in their overtime win over Las Vegas in the semifinal clincher, led by Kayla Thornton's 18. That's not a one-woman team. That's a system, and Atlanta has to figure out how to slow it down when the threats keep rotating.
On the Dream's side, the weapons are concentrated but sharp. Angel Reese led Atlanta in scoring in the Liberty clincher with 22 points and nine rebounds, Jordin Canada paced the team in assists with 13 dimes alongside 19 points, and DeWanna Bonner posted a 13-point, 13-rebound double-double. Rhyne Howard added 21 points, while Isobel Borlase scored 10 off the bench. Four players in double figures in a closeout road win. Atlanta has options.
The Valkyries swept their regular-season series with the Dream 3-0, but they last met on July 4. Regular season means almost nothing now. Both teams are different animals than they were in July, and the Dream know it.
The ALCS is still sorting itself out too
While the WNBA Finals open in San Francisco, the other major piece of Saturday's sports landscape is in Cleveland. Friday's ALCS Game 4 between the Cleveland Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays was rained out in Cleveland. The series will resume Saturday. The Guardians lead 2-1, and whoever wins the series moves on to face the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2026 World Series. The Brewers are headed to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1982 after completing an NLCS sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night.
The 122nd Fall Classic will begin with the National League champion Milwaukee Brewers hosting the American League champions, either the Cleveland Guardians or the Tampa Bay Rays, in Game 1 at American Family Field on Friday, Oct. 23.
The Rays finished 98-64 in the regular season, first in the AL East. The Guardians went 85-77. Tampa Bay is the better team on paper. Cleveland has the lead and home field. Nick Martinez starts Game 4 for the Rays. He went 15-6 with a 3.10 ERA in the 2026 regular season and allowed just seven hits and no runs against Cleveland in two regular-season starts spanning 13 innings. That is a deeply inconvenient fact for Guardians fans.
But back to tonight. The WNBA Finals are the story. Two franchises that have never tasted a championship. One of them tips off at Chase Center at 3:30 p.m. ET with a chance to change that. Golden State won all four regular-season matchups against Atlanta. The Dream swept into the Finals anyway. That tells you this series is far from decided.
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CAN I KICK IT? screens New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument, on Aug. 22. (Courtesy SHAOLIN JAZZ)
The live-cinema series CAN I KICK IT? returns to the National Mall this month with what its producers are calling the "Gangsters on the Mall" chapter of their free outdoor summer run. On Saturday, August 22, the SHAOLIN JAZZ production brings the 1991 crime classic New Jack City to the Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument for a night of film, music, and community under the DC summer sky.
What sets the event apart is the sound. As the film plays, DJ 2-Tone Jones builds an original score in real time, reimagining one of the most iconic crime movies of the ’90s through hip-hop, soul, funk, and more. It is less a movie screening than a live performance built around the film.
The details:
Film: New Jack City (1991), with a live soundtrack by DJ 2-Tone Jones
When: Saturday, August 22 — seating opens at 7:30 p.m. (bring lawn chairs and blankets); film begins at 8:30 p.m.
Where: Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument, Independence Ave SW & 15th St NW
A parking note from the organizers: expect road closures and restricted parking east of 14th Street NW due to a separate race event in the District. Roads west of 14th Street NW will be accessible and available for parking.
New Jack City is the second of three screenings in this year’s free CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series, which opened with Black Panther at Skyland Town Center and concludes with Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial on September 5. Produced by the Washington, DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, the series has presented more than 150 live cinematic experiences at venues across the country, from Lincoln Center to SXSW.
"I wanted to be able to tell good stories with substance and remove the ‘ego’ out of the art," said Andrew Huang during a recent interview. Now, he’s building his career at the intersection of discipline, creativity and innovation.
Andrew Huang, founder of New Place Studios. (Courtesy photo)
As a Chinese American, Huang was reared with a deep respect for hard work, consistency and excellence. He describes his childhood as "not so affluent" and later attended college to hone his passion for videography. "In college I tried to do something I loved, which was video, but along the way I knew that I had to find a job. And so I thought, ‘what was the low hanging fruit to get to that stable 9 to 5 job?,’" he stated.
Later in life, Huang found himself working for corporations where his creativity was often limited, eventually leading to burnout. "I worked in a corporation for a long time and there were a lot of missing pieces. I wanted to fill in gaps missing in corporate video production," said Huang.
He later described how his upbringing and a mindset of "survival" led him toward a corporate career. However, his desire for balance and authentic storytelling ultimately pushed him to take the entrepreneurial leap.
"I founded a new place where you can create video and film with ‘substance and style,’" said Huang. His desire for work-life balance and passion for storytelling naturally evolved into a small business based in Virginia. With the launch of New Place Studios, the entrepreneur quickly found himself reconnecting with the values that would become the foundation of everything he creates behind the camera.
Huang said being a business owner has allowed him to first embrace himself. While others may see video as simply capturing moments, he sees it as a way to preserve stories that inspire, connect and leave a lasting imprint.
By combining cinematic visuals with cutting-edge production techniques and a keen understanding of branding, Huang helps organizations and individuals communicate their vision with purpose. He said understanding a client’s "why" serves as the compass for delivering the services they need.
One benefit of working with a small business, he said, is that clients get to see the production process unfold through a micro lens while working with the same faces throughout the entire project. "The work feels personal," said Huang.
Huang does not regret leaving behind the flash-over-substance mentality and corporate hustle culture. That does not mean the Asian American entrepreneur has been without challenges in the industry. "It’s relatively hard to find other Asian American creatives or people who would want to work with me in the DMV," said Huang.
He identifies the industry culture in which everyone is trying to blend in, creatives may fear displaying their Asian identity and some feel pressure to adopt an American corporate persona. He also points to what he describes as a level of gatekeeping within the industry. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2024 statistics, Asian American and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs own more than 3 million businesses and employ 5.2 million people in the United States.
After tapping into organizations such as SCORE, which offers free small business mentorship, New Place Studios has become a trusted creative partner throughout the DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia). The company produces a range of creative services, including commercials, corporate branding, documentaries, film, 2D animation, motion graphics and photography.
For Huang, entrepreneurship has become more than a departure from corporate life. It has given him the freedom to create with intention, build meaningful connections and tell stories that go beyond the surface.
The 2026 CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
For three Saturdays this summer, some of Washington’s most familiar public spaces will do something they rarely do after dark: fill up with blankets, lawn chairs, and the sound of a movie being scored live, in real time. CAN I KICK IT?, the traveling “live cinema” series produced by the DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, is bringing a free outdoor run to the city — pairing three era-defining films with an original soundtrack performed on the spot by DJ 2-Tone Jones.
The premise is what sets it apart from a normal screening in the park. Rather than simply pressing play, 2-Tone Jones builds a score as the film unfolds, pulling from hip-hop, soul, funk, jazz, rock, electronic music, and sounds from around the world. The result, the organizers say, is less a movie night than a one-time performance — the same film you know, wired to a soundtrack you have never heard and will not hear again. Guest DJs warm up the crowd starting at 7:30 PM before each 8:30 PM screening.
The 2026 outdoor schedule
All three events are free and open to the public.
Saturday, August 8 — Black Panther at Skyland Town Center. A pop-up marketplace and community activities kick off the evening; guest DJs at 7:30 PM, film at 8:30 PM. Marvel’s superhero epic gets a one-night-only live score in Southeast DC.
Saturday, August 22 — New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument. Seating begins at 7:30 PM; the film starts at 8:30 PM. The 1991 crime drama plays out at the foot of one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks.
Saturday, September 5 — Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial. Seating at 7:30 PM; film at 8:30 PM. The series closes with Brian De Palma’s crime saga against the backdrop of the Memorial, scored live from start to finish.
First up: Black Panther at Skyland Town Center on August 8. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
A DC company with a national footprint
SHAOLIN JAZZ describes itself as a Washington-based arts company working at the intersection of music, film, art, and culture, and CAN I KICK IT? is its signature production. According to the organizers, the series has staged more than 150 live cinematic experiences around the country — at performing arts centers, museums, festivals, and cultural institutions including Lincoln Center in New York, SXSW, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Republic Square in Austin, the Tacoma Armory, and The Cary Theater.
“CAN I KICK IT? has always been about creating a shared experience,” said Gerald Watson, co-founder of SHAOLIN JAZZ. “When you combine iconic films with live music in public spaces, something special happens. People aren’t just watching a movie — they’re experiencing it together. That’s what makes these nights so memorable.”
Cinema as a community event
The DC run lands as cities across the country look for new ways to activate public space through arts and culture — and this series is a straightforward pitch for how to do it: take a landmark everyone already knows, add a film everyone has an opinion about, and let a live soundtrack turn the evening into something neighbors experience shoulder to shoulder. Families, film buffs, and music fans are all invited, and admission won’t cost a thing.
The CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series runs August 8, August 22, and September 5. All events are free; check SHAOLIN JAZZ (shaolinjazz.com) for the latest details and any weather updates before heading out.
