Valkyries head coach calls out officials following Game 1 loss

The Golden State Valkyries' debut season in the WNBA has been a massive success by pretty much every objective measure and saw them reach the league's playoffs. But their playoff debut did not go as planned on Sunday, losing Game 1 of their first-round series to the Minnesota Lynx by a 101-72 margin. 

They were pretty clearly outplayed by the top-seeded Lynx, but head coach Natalie Nakase had another issue she wanted to address after the game. The officiating.

Valkyries coach just wants a 'fair fight'

Even though the Lynx dominated most of the game following the first quarter, Nakase was pretty vocal after the game that the officiating was not giving her team a chance to sustain its first-quarter momentum that saw it build an early 28-21 lead.

Nakase's argument reached a boiling point in the second half when she was assessed a technical foul.

Her comments, via ESPN:

"When Iliana Rupert [three fouls] is trying to fight for the rebound and she's getting  called for a foul on a rebound, it takes our aggression away, and that's  where I'm not OK with it," she said. "I want a fair fight. I really do.  I want a clean fight, but I love the fact that both teams are playing  their hearts out. They're fighting. But I would like it to be fair.

"And for me, that's why I got a [technical foul] because at what point is it going to be fair?"

"We're playing the No. 1 team," she said. "We're playing the best team in the league. They don't need no help. This team is great. They're stacked. They play well. They play beautiful basketball. They're coached well. They don't need the help."

A lot of this is probably just frustration from an ugly game, because even if you want to quibble with the technical foul call or any number of individual foul calls, this was still a game decided by 29 points. It did not come down to officiating or some missed calls or an unfair level of officiating. 

As good as the Valkyries were this season, finishing with a 23-21 record to earn the eighth and final playoff spot, this series was always going to be a mismatch on paper. The Lynx finished with the best record in the WNBA and were in the league championship series a year ago. 

Game 2 of the series takes place Wednesday night.