As the postseason has gone on, Natalie Nakase has gotten more and more comfortable in the pressers. Tonight might have been an all-timer with these quotes (also from on the court):

I asked Nakase, Stokes and Williams if winning the championship felt the way they expected it would. They all gave a similar answer.

Stokes: Hell yeah.
Nakase: F—- yeah
Williams: Hell f—-yeah

I was trying to ask as many people as possible what the moment of winning truly felt like. I loved Kayla Thornton’s answer. “I was just like, dang, this is it. You know, I mean, I don't think it's hit yet. We're still kind of just excited. But I was just telling (Veronica Burton), like, man, we just we just won. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, we won a WNBA championship. You know how hard that is? Harder now than ever, right? So, man, I'm just I'm just proud of our team. I'm proud of our effort. It's been a long season. But you know, it's a very cliche saying, but defense does win you championships.”

Kate Martin walked by while we were interviewing Kaitlyn Chen, and the Valkyries guard was very excited. Twice she stopped mid-answer to jump up and down and yell “hi Kate!” and gave a heart hand symbol.

Veronica Burton was in tears on the court after the win, and said that surprised even her: “I actually am not typically a very emotional person, so I didn't expect to cry. But just all of it, I think, just soaking it all in. Like, I don't know. I don't know if I necessarily knew when this would happen, if it would happen. But just trusting the process and to do it with the people I love the most, do it with my family here. Again, just gratitude. It's a blessing.”

Tiffany Hayes won her first WNBA title ever and she really wanted to get the message across that she is 37 and she feels it. When asked any question around how she felt, she gave some version of “my body hurts.”

“My body hurt, but it feels good to be a winner,” she said. “It feels good to be able to say that you can say anything you want about me as long as you call me a champion after you say it…. I'm 37. My body hurts right now. I ain't even getting to celebrate how I wanted to. I had to go sit down because my legs are burning.”

Hayes also said she was fine and just had to walk it off after she went down hard in the fourth quarter for a few moments before returning to the game.

Joe Lacob said that, technically, he said the Valkyries would win WITHIN five years.

“I mean, two years. It's insane. It's just a lot of good decisions, a lot of good execution, a great coach.”

One of the happiest players was Cecilia Zandalasini, who sprinted off the court while all the reporters were in the tunnel and later gave high-fives to some of the reporters.

Nakase shook hands with every single reporter in the press conference room after. She did that when they lost to Minnesota in the first round last year too, but this time it was a lot of people there from national and local outlets. At one point she had a mini-scrum outside the locker room and a PR person said it was the last question but Nakase said she wanted to keep going.

Nakase’s beer of choice, apparently:

Stokes was drinking white wine straight from the bottle and twice during the presser Nakase said “can we get Gabby some alcohol.”

Liked this quote from Kaila Charles: “If you asked me last year if I would be in this position, I wouldn't know because I was at home. But for me to be be here on a home and then be able to win this and make history with this group of women, it's just amazing. I feel really blessed, and that is amazing.”

I had one of the nine votes for Finals MVP. I had been leaning Stokes but told people before the game I thought Williams could overtake her “if she scores like 40.” She scored 30 but single-handedly won that game in the second half, which seems good enough.