The Golden State Valkyries came to Atlanta needing one more win to be WNBA champions. Instead, they were down 17 after the first quarter, and Game 6 slipped away on a Thursday afternoon. The Atlanta Dream won 80-69, and the Finals now head to a winner-take-all Game 7. Afterward, the Valkyries had plenty of questions to answer, and one of them tested a player’s patience.

“I’m sorry this is like the third time we’ve answered this question. They played at the same time as us,” Valkyries forward Gabby Williams said when a reporter asked, “Did the 12:30 start time have any impact on your performance today?”

It was not the first time she had been asked. Moments earlier, she had given nearly the same answer to a similar question.

“They played at the same time as us, right? So it’s not an excuse. We have to be better,” Williams said.

Williams backed her words with her play. She scored a game-high 26 points, 21 of them in the second half, but the damage came early. The Dream led 32-15 after the first quarter, making 11 of their 15 shots, including six threes in eight tries, and the lead grew to 25 points.

Golden State was outscored 46-26 in the first half, one point away from its lowest-scoring half of the season.

The Dream’s stars got going. Allisha Gray scored 23 points, and Rhyne Howard added 21, each with four threes, while Angel Reese had 15 points and 14 rebounds. Atlanta shot 43.5 percent, only the second time in the series it topped 40 percent, and finished with 13 threes.

Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase also said no when a reporter asked if the early tip-off was a factor. She put the blame on herself, saying she needs to find what message did not get through, and she called her own message “foggy,” since the team knew the Dream would play desperately and still did not match it.

Veronica Burton said the team cleaned things up after a terrible first quarter, and the numbers back it up: Golden State outscored Atlanta 43-34 in the second half and cut the lead to 8 in the fourth. She did not hide from the loss, though.

“Yes, we lost. Yes, it was a bad game for us. We had a terrible first quarter,” Burton said.

Ann Killion of the San Francisco Chronicle saw the start time differently. She wrote that body-clock time on a quick turnaround is often a factor in sports, and that the Valkyries, set to Pacific time, played what felt like an early-morning game about 2,200 miles and three time zones from home.

The early start came from a scheduling jam. On Monday, hours before Game 5, the WNBA moved Game 6 from 8 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET so the Dream could host at 17,000-seat State Farm Arena instead of their 3,500-seat home. The Atlanta Hawks had a game there Thursday night, and a Friday Game 6 would have pushed Game 7 to the next week.

Back on the court, Tiffany Hayes, who played her first 10 seasons with the Dream, reached double figures for the fifth time in six Finals games. On Saturday, she can win her first championship against her former team. Whoever wins, it will be a first title in franchise history.

For the Valkyries, defense is the clearest path to that title. Atlanta scored 64, 62 and 55 points in the three games Golden State won. In the three games the Dream won, Atlanta scored 79, 97 and 80. If the Valkyries hold the Dream below 65 again on Saturday, the pattern points their way.

Game 7 tips off Saturday at 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET) at Chase Center on Halloween night, the first Game 7 in Finals history, so nobody will have to ask about the clock again.