ATLANTA — Down 2-1 in the WNBA Finals, the Valkyries want you to know they’re not panicking. In the past two days Veronica Burton has said they’re not overreacting or freaking out.

They do, though, have a stronger sense of urgency, and they have to. A loss on Saturday would put them down 3-1 heading back home and needing to win three games in a row to take the title.

Friday at Gateway Center in College Park was like a mini-media day kind of availability, so I spent some time speaking with players about what we might see in Game 4. Here are some of the more interesting conversations from the day.

- Gabby Williams said some interesting things about her leadership style today. One of my colleagues, Ashmere Prasard, posted a video after Game 3 of Williams being pretty animated in the postgame huddle.

“I think I’ve been a little bit too loose as a leader,” Williams said. “That’s where (Natalie Nakase) has been pushing me…. I just wanted to show my team something different because we need something different. I mean, these are two games that just haven’t been us, so I had to get out of my comfort zone and re-motivate the troops…. I wanted to show my teammates a different kind of fire.”

A lot has been made of that since, but the Valkyries have seemed to embrace that from their All-Star forward. Williams herself spoke a lot about what she said and what she wants to relay, too.

“That was our message in the locker room after the game, we have to show more fight,” she said. “We have to get the fire back in our bellies… I think we did a lot of self-reflecting, a lot of talking. I want to see the Golden State that I’ve seen all year.”

- I talked to Kayla Thornton a bit about how she is relying on her experience in the 2024 WNBA Finals with New York to help the Valkyries bounce back.

“I think it’s about staying composed,” she said. “It’s a series for a reason, and at times it can feel like you lose one (game), you fall back. But we’re blessed to see another game, it’s only 2-1. (I’m) just letting them know like we have one game to take care of, and that's that's tomorrow, and and let everything else come into play.”

- My Courtside Report co-host Kenzo Fukuda asked Kaila Charles about the trash talking that has gone on this series. A lot of that has been caught between Angel Reese and Aminata Gueye, but a long series is obviously going to have more tension than a couple of regular season games.

“Being more physical, making sure we're imposing our will, dictating more,” Charles said. “I think because like they feel (good) after that, and a lot of teams shrink… It's just really trying to figure out what's going on, why we're not necessarily playing like ourselves and just doing some deep dive, understanding that this is the finals. Like, there's no other chance to this, so there's no point of holding back or shut off or leaving everything out. And I think just understanding, not the weight of the moment, but the opportunity that we have.”

- Atlanta guard Allisha Gray, who had been questionable before Game 1 due to a left hand injury, told reporters today that she is “not 100%” but “feeling fine.” Gray is averaging 15 points on 28.9% from the field, including 22.2% from the 3-point line in the first three games of the series.

- I wrote about the Valkyries offense for the Mercury News, so I asked Atlanta’s Rhyne Howard about what she’s seen from Golden State’s offense, and I thought she was pretty candid about how they’ve been able to contain them.

“They have made a couple adjustments, like stampeding,” Howard said, referencing a play where the offense will take the ball from the perimeter off a pass and try to drive to the net. “There were a few things we didn’t guard as well… We want to play fast. That's not something that they're particularly used to. So we can feel when they get tired, and we also just have to take advantage of them.”