By the time the WNBA Finals ended, Angel Reese’s trash talk had become almost as big a story as the games. She chirped through Games 2, 3, and 6, the Golden State Valkyries won the title anyway, and then they gave it all back at their parade. Now one of the Valkyries’ stars has said how it looked from the other side.

Kiah Stokes, who won her fourth championship, said fans may be making too much of it. 

“I appreciate that we have a lot of fans. But sometimes I feel like y’all are taking things way too personal,” she said on Unsupervised. 

“This has literally nothing to do with you, and you’re making a whole think piece about it. ’Cause I know for us, Angel wanna talk s***, it is what it is. Like, it’s a game, and she was cooking. Like, nobody gonna fault her for that… I think it’s just fun. I don’t take anything personal..and our rookie was also talking s*** back. I’m like, ‘Who doesn’t love this,’ right? So I think, yeah, I think the fans be doing way too much,” Stokes added.

In Game 2, Reese had 30 points and 16 rebounds in a 79-65 Atlanta win. Late in the first quarter, a lip-read clip showed her trading words with Valkyries rookie Aminata Gueye before a free throw. Another clip had her saying, “You can’t guard me!”

Game 3 was the loudest. After a 97-71 Dream blowout, Angel Reese hit the Valkyries’ bench with a “You bum!” and a pinching “too small” gesture, and she waved at them as they left the floor. Before Game 4, she said she could “take their confidence and just try to do whatever to mess them up.”

Then came Game 6. Reese finished through contact against Stokes herself, turned to Golden State’s bench and was heard saying, “Sit down, you’re on the bench.” Atlanta won 80-69 to force a Game 7, and fans were split. One Dream fan wrote that the Valkyries should “aggravate and fuel” her again in the finale. 

The finale went the other way. Golden State won 68-63 behind Gabby Williams, who scored 28 of her 30 points in the second half. Reese scored 38 points on 12-of-45 shooting over the final four games. That is when the “too small” gesture came back around.

Gueye posted a photo of Reese’s hand mid-taunt on Instagram after the title, and Tiffany Hayes made the same gesture on Instagram live from the locker room. Then came the parade in San Francisco on Wednesday. 

Valkyries staff and Bay Area analyst Festus Ezeli rode the buses in black T-shirts with Reese’s face edited into the “Crying Jordan” meme next to her own “too small” gesture. Players flashed the sign at the crowds. Fans also passed around pink pacifiers with tags poking fun at the taunt, and one tag in a viral photo read “if found return to: ATL.”

Stokes was in on the fun herself. She stepped off the ferry in a shirt that copied ESPN’s July title-odds chart, which had left the Valkyries off the top five. So when she calls the trash talk “just fun,” she is not only talking about Reese.

Others have said much the same. Azzi Fudd named Reese as the league’s biggest trash-talker on her podcast, though she admitted she has never played against her. 

The Athletic’s Sabreena Merchant said “that’s part of her,” and she does not expect it to change her behavior. Merchant also said the Valkyries were fine to give it back, since “you won the title, you make the rules now.” She did call it “a little weird” that merchandise was handed out to troll one player.

Separately, Angel Reese announced on social media that she is pausing her podcast and plans to spend the next six months focused on herself. She said she will make Florida her home base and share occasional vlogs. Her post did not mention the parade or the trash talk, and she gave no reason tied to either. 

That is why Stokes’ message lands the way it does. In her view, the trash talk was part of the game, the parade was part of the celebration, and none of it was a personal fight. She said she doesn’t take anything personally, and she was only hoping Angel Reese was not aiming it at her.

The next meeting between these two teams should be fun, as long as everyone keeps it that way.