Angel Reese owned the first half. Then the third quarter started, and Natalie Nakase’s Valkyries took it away from her. Reese blamed herself for not being aggressive enough after halftime. But the numbers from Golden State’s 17-8 fourth-quarter run tell a different story, and one former ESPN reporter has weighed in on where the credit should actually go.

“Golden State didn’t do anything? Angel Reese is a fantastic player. To shut her out in the second half, they had to do something different. How about giving the opponent just a little credit? Natalie Nakase and her coaching staff absolutely made adjustments on Angel Reese,” Linda Cohn said on her YouTube channel. “They used Laeticia Amihere more in the second half. They also emphasized limiting Reese’s touches. They made it harder for Angel to get comfortable around the basket.”

Reese finished the night as Atlanta’s second-highest scorer with 14 points behind Allisha Gray, who scored 19 points.

“You could believe Angel needed to be more aggressive and recognize that the Valkyries made life more difficult for her because both things can be true. And I believe both things occurred,” she added.

Reese recorded all 14 of her points in the first half and added 12 rebounds, two steals, and a block. In the second half, she had no success. The reigning DPOY looked inward when probed for an explanation of what Golden State did to slow her down.

“I don’t think they really did anything. Maybe that was just on me. I wasn’t aggressive enough with the ball, trying to get the ball and get to my spot. So I’m definitely going to do a better job of that next game,” Reese said.

While Reese had no intention of crediting the opposition, Cohn believes that such a drastic change in her performance compared to the first half obviously means the Valkyries did something right. She named-dropped Amihere, who had been on the floor for just 2.4% of the Valkyries’ 290 postseason minutes.

With her 14-minute spell, the former Atlanta Dream forward more than doubled her postseason floor time. She registered five points, five rebounds, a steal, and a block, but her impact was visible beyond the stat sheet.

Amihere challenged the Defensive Player of the Year, keeping up with her pace and making her life difficult in the paint. One specific moment came in the fourth quarter, when Amihere made her 6’3 frame known to the Bayou Barbie.

With 7:59 remaining and the Dream leading by three points, Reese tried to increase the gap to five. She went for a layup while driving from the perimeter. However, when she tried to drift to her right, Amihere was standing in her way. Reese then proceeded to dribble to the left but was met with a two-way deadlock of Amihere and Tiffany Hayes.

While Reese tried to bamboozle her way out into the paint, Amihere followed her right through the moment she released the ball for the layup, defending with her arms flailing and blocking the net.

With this, Amihere was successful in denying Reese her first bucket of the second half, and her efforts were commended.

“I thought [Amihere] did a fantastic job with that matchup [on Angel]. LA had great energy; again, she was kind of our insight with this game plan, and so you could tell there was a lot of confidence in her matchup. [Amihere] was really key tonight for our success,” Nakase said.

And while Dream head coach Karl Smesko did not explicitly mention Amihere as the reason for the Dream and Reese’s second-half collapse, he did state how the 24-year-old did not see enough of the ball compared to the first half.

“In the second half, in particular, we didn’t move the ball well enough,” Smesko said. “We did a little bit too much one-on-one instead of getting into actions. Angel had a great first half. We didn’t get her the ball enough.”

With Reese more or less neutralized, the Valkyries went on a 7-0 run in the final 2:15 minutes of Game 1, all from the charity stripe. It was a dream so close yet so far for Reese, who made her WNBA Finals debut after a fantastic playoff run.

After her comments in the postgame press conference, the onus will be on Reese to back her strong words with an improved showing tonight at the Chase Center. She would want Game 2 to be more like the first quarter, rather than the second.