Getting to the WNBA finals was easy for the Atlanta Dream. Five straight wins over two series, and it looked like Atlanta was the best team in the postseason. However, winning the finals is a different matter entirely, and as the Game 1 loss against the Golden State Valkyries showed, all it takes is the wrong matchup for things to slip. Now, following a late offensive collapse, head coach Karl Smesko has his own takeaway from the first of the best-of-seven matchup.

“We’re gonna look at everything we’re gonna watch and try to get better, but, I mean, we were right there, right there,” Smesko said in the postgame conference.

“So that’s why it hurts a little bit, but it also motivates us. We know what we’re capable of doing. We’ll have one day to get ourselves as ready as possible, and then I think we’ll play even better.”

The Dream, who lost 68-64, went down by the thinnest of margins. The Dream, who led the game for almost 34 minutes, failed to score in the final 2:53 of the fourth quarter, going 0-7 as the Valkyries iced the contest from the free-throw line with 4.1 seconds left. Golden State’s leading scorer, Gabby Williams, went 6-for-6 from the line in this period. No other Valkyries player scored in double-digits.

For the Dream, Angel Reese started the game strong. She logged 11 points in the first quarter, going 5-for-6 from the field, but failed to hit a field goal in any of the other quarters, adding just three points over that period. Allisha Gray, who returned from a hand injury, led the team in scoring with 19 points, but shot just 5-19 from the field and went scoreless in the fourth.

What made the loss hurt even more is that Atlanta actually had a chance to win the game. They trailed by just two with 23.8 seconds left, which gave them a final chance to win the game or send it to overtime. After their final timeout, they instead fired a long three courtesy of Gray, and Golden State secured the rebound to shoot free throws.

The Dream shot just 2-20 in the fourth, something that Smesko highlighted in the postgame conference.

“Unfortunately, we had one bad defensive quarter where we had a few breakdowns and then one bad offensive quarter in the fourth where we turned it over and didn’t have the kind of shot quality that we wanted, but I’m really proud of our team’s effort,” he said.

The defeat also ended a five-game playoff winning streak for the Dream, who swept both the Washington Mystics and the New York Liberty to reach their first Finals since 2013. Their loss in Game 1 extended their Finals losing streak to 10, since they never won a game in any of their appearances in the early 2010s.

The game was defined by a defensive battle between the two sides. Neither team shot above 33% from the field, and they combined for 27 personal fouls. Rebounding ended up being the main factor, with Atlanta grabbing 35 boards, six less than the Valkyries. Smesko seemed to be aware of the small mistakes that added up.

“Well, some of them were good,” Smesko said about the late-game shot attempts. “Some of them, they had us well-defended when we were getting late on the clock. But we had a couple what I would call good looks just didn’t go down for us. Naz [Hillmon] had a good look at 3. [Rhyne Howard] had a good look at 3. We knock down either of those; we’re not talking about whatever mistakes we made.

Regardless of whatever happened, Smesko’s comments show just how confident he is in his team’s ability to bounce back in Game 2. Regardless, the team will need to regroup and figure out a way past Golden State’s league-best defense.