The short answer
The series is 3-3. Atlanta won Game 6 80-69 at State Farm Arena on Thursday, October 29, a 12:30 p.m. tip, Allisha Gray scoring 23 and the Dream going 13-of-30 from three against Golden State’s 7-of-27, per ESPN’s box score. Game 7 is Saturday, October 31 at Chase Center, 5 p.m. PT, 8 p.m. ET, on USA Network and Peacock. It is the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history, it cannot be cancelled by the bracket, and whoever wins it lifts the trophy in Mission Bay on Halloween night. Book San Francisco now, refundable if any refundable rate is left.
Atlanta is played, and San Francisco is the trophy night
Games 1 through 6 are spent. Game 6 went Thursday lunchtime in Atlanta, Dream 80, Valkyries 69, and a Wednesday room held for it has nothing left to cancel. The urgent date is now Saturday the 31st in San Francisco, and the arithmetic that used to run this page has flipped: the refund term no longer protects you from a game that dies, because this one cannot. Booked Thursday afternoon for a Saturday check-in, a 72-hour rate was already a commitment on Wednesday, a 48-hour rate is at its deadline as you read this, and a 24-hour rate cancels until Friday afternoon. Whatever you book, the flexibility is insuring your flight and your ticket, not the game.
Atlanta’s Thursday was a conditional night until the Saturday before, and Game 4 made it certain; Thursday’s result made Saturday certain. At 3-3 nobody has four wins and one game is left, so Game 7 is played and ends it. Take the cheapest rate in SoMa, Yerba Buena or Union Square that still cancels, and if nothing cancels, take the cheapest rate that exists. The night to hold is Saturday the 31st; Friday the 30th is worth adding if you can, because the Warriors host the Lakers in the same building that night and a Friday arrival is in house before any Saturday fence goes up. Thursday in Atlanta went the way this page said it would price: a lunchtime tip, the Hawks in the building that evening, an ordinary midweek downtown rate. The game itself did not go the way the Valkyries wanted.
And if you booked on this page’s advice for the first two games, here is the honest accounting. We said take a 24-hour rate for October 17, skip the day-of premium, and treat the ticket as the only risk, and we said the same for the 19th. That is how both played out. Both games got played, both rooms got used, and there is nothing left on the 17th or 19th to cancel. The live trap now runs the other way: if you held those two nights as one stay and want to extend to the 26th, extending is a modification, and some properties price the added night at whatever the rate is now. Compare it against a fresh one-night booking before you accept.
Both semifinals ended in sweeps on Friday, October 9, which is how the field got set this early and also why the refund language matters later in this series. Angel Reese put up 22 points, Rhyne Howard 21, and Jordin Canada 19 with 11 assists, and Atlanta won semifinal Game 3 by two in Brooklyn at Barclays Center to finish the sweep. Breanna Stewart had never been swept in a playoff series before. The Dream are in the Finals for the first time since 2013. Two hours later Golden State beat Las Vegas 87-77 in overtime at Michelob Ultra Arena for a sweep of its own, against a team that had won three of the last four titles.
Four scheduled games died in that one night: two on October 11, in Brooklyn and on the Strip, and two on October 14, in Atlanta and San Francisco. Anybody holding a room for the 11th on a 48-hour rate watched the window close Friday afternoon, hours before either game ended. That trap is disarmed for Finals Game 7, which is certain, but it is the lesson for every open series after this one: on a playoff night that can still die, the refund term matters more than the nightly rate.
Shape matters too. While a series is open, book each night as its own one-night reservation instead of rolling it into a longer stay, because shortening a multi-night stay counts as a modification and hotels price modifications under their own rules. Some will reprice the nights you keep at the prevailing rate. Finding that out after a sweep is a bad afternoon.
Six played, one left, and what 3-3 does to it
This is the part worth planning around, and it is unusual enough to say slowly.
The Finals are best-of-seven, 2-2-1-1-1. Higher seed hosts Games 1, 2, 5 and 7. Lower seed hosts 3, 4 and 6. Golden State is the No. 2 seed at 32-12 and Atlanta is No. 4 at 30-14, so Chase Center takes the four and State Farm Arena takes the three. Game 5 could not be cancelled, because a seven-game series does not end in four, and it was played. Game 6 could not be cancelled at 3-2, and Atlanta won it. At 3-3 there is exactly one game left and whoever wins it has four, so Game 7 is played and the series ends in it.
- Game 1: Saturday, October 17, 12:30 p.m. PT (3:30 p.m. ET), Chase Center. Played. Golden State 68, Atlanta 64.
- Game 2: Monday, October 19, 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET), Chase Center. Played. Atlanta 79, Golden State 65.
- Game 3: Wednesday, October 21, 8 p.m. ET, State Farm Arena. Played, a day earlier than first scheduled. Atlanta 97, Golden State 71.
- Game 4: Saturday, October 24, 1 p.m. ET, State Farm Arena. Played, tip moved up from 3:30 on October 13. Golden State 67, Atlanta 62.
- Game 5: Monday, October 26, 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET), Chase Center. Played. Golden State 64, Atlanta 55. Valkyries 3-2 in the series.
- Game 6: Thursday, October 29, 12:30 p.m. ET, State Farm Arena, Atlanta. Played. Atlanta 80, Golden State 69. Series 3-3.
- Game 7: Saturday, October 31, 5 p.m. PT (8 p.m. ET), Chase Center, on USA Network and Peacock. Certain, and it decides the title. The first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history.
One game left, in a known building, on a known night, for the trophy. Brackets hand you that almost never. Normally the whole problem with playoff travel is that you learn the city three days before tip and buy into a market that already repriced. This time the address came first and the certainty came last.
Now work out what 3-3 does, because the arithmetic is short and nobody else is going to spell it out. Game 5 was settled on October 19, when 1-1 meant whoever won both Atlanta games would be 3-1 at most. Game 6 was settled on October 24, when the Atlanta split meant whoever won Game 5 would leave San Francisco at 3-2. Game 7 was settled on Thursday the 29th, when Atlanta won Game 6 and nobody had four. There is nothing left to settle. Saturday the 31st is a game, the trophy is handed out at the end of it, and both teams can lift it. The WNBA Finals page carries the full seven-date calendar.
One number for the Atlanta side, because the seeding handed Georgia a discount nobody is talking about. In the hours after the two sweeps, USA TODAY pulled StubHub’s opening prices for all seven games: Chase Center Game 1 from $315 and Game 2 from $319, against Atlanta’s Game 3 from $257 and Game 4 from $259. The back-end games carried the highest floors of the lot, Game 5 from $420, Game 6 from $360, Game 7 from $624. That was a resale market putting a premium on games that might never be played, which tells you where the speculators were. All three got played. One caveat on the Atlanta pair: those floors were quoted on October 9, four days before the venue and the seat count changed. Read them as a record of where the market opened, not where it sits now.
Note the building, because this is the part that moved. The Dream’s regular home is Gateway Center Arena in College Park, which seats 3,500 and sits out by the airport, ten miles south. Games 3 and 4 are not there. The league and the team confirmed on October 13 that both go to State Farm Arena downtown, the Hawks’ building, and the stated reason is capacity: the move “dramatically expands the seating capacity” and puts a Finals game in the Atlanta market for the first time since 2013. A guide that sent you to College Park for Game 4 sent you to the wrong county. Game 6 went to State Farm Arena too, announced October 26 for a 12:30 p.m. tip, and Atlanta won it there; there is a section on the wait below.
Where to stay in downtown Atlanta, and who should pick what
The geography here is unusually simple, because the train station is inside the arena.
Centennial Olympic Park district. The blocks around the park, the aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. Tightest cluster to Gate 1, a walk of minutes rather than a ride. This was the cluster for the October 24 doubleheader and the Falcons game on the 25th, since Mercedes-Benz Stadium shares the same downtown campus and the same MARTA stops, and it was the one that priced hardest that Saturday. For the 29th it was the right pick: Game 6 landed downtown on October 26, and with a 12:30 p.m. tip the night to hold here was Wednesday the 28th. Atlanta’s Finals nights are all played.
Peachtree Center and the downtown core. The biggest block of rooms downtown, on the Red and Gold lines, a little over half a mile from the arena. The airport train runs here without a transfer, which the park district cannot say. Usually the price break against the park district, and the hedge pick while Game 6 had no building: those same Red and Gold trains keep running south past the airport to College Park, so the cluster works whichever building the Dream play in. Keep that in mind for next season.
Midtown. More places to eat and drink, a few stops up the Red and Gold. Normally the smart value trade for a downtown game. On October 24 it was the wrong call, because Georgia Tech Homecoming kicked off at 3:30 at Bobby Dodd and North Avenue is the campus stop. For Thursday’s Game 6 that problem was gone.
Old Fourth Ward, Grant Park, Castleberry Hill. Where the whole-house rental supply actually is. Short rides, not walks.
On transport, the honest advice is to skip the car entirely. The arena sits on top of SEC District Station on the Blue and Green lines, and the transfer at Five Points from a Red or Gold train is free. MARTA rail runs until roughly 1 a.m., so Game 3’s 8 p.m. tip ending near 10 was not close to the last train. If you do call a ride, the pickup zone is on Centennial Olympic Park Drive between State Farm Drive and Andrew Young International Boulevard, by Gates 2, 4 and 5; exit through Gate 5 or 7 to find the signs. Expect the usual post-game multiplier. On the 24th there were two separate ones instead of a single mess. Game 4 let out around 3 in the afternoon and the Hawks did not open doors for hours, so the arena decks, Ruby, Diamond, Sapphire and State Farm Drive, got time to clear in between. The 3:30 tip the league originally had there would have put both crowds in the same hour. What replaced the squeeze was a Midtown one: homecoming kicked off at 3:30 at Bobby Dodd and emptied onto the Red and Gold lines about when Hawks traffic was heading downtown.
The collision this page flagged, and the one still open
On October 10 we pointed at a problem sitting on State Farm Arena’s own event list: a SOMBR concert at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 22, the same building and nearly the same hour as Finals Game 3, with the Finals not appearing on the arena’s calendar at all. Two 7-and-8 p.m. starts in one arena do not happen. The advice was to book the room and leave the minute alone.
The league settled it on October 13. Game 3 moved up a day, to Wednesday, October 21 at 8 p.m. ET, and the Hawks pushed their home opener on the 24th from 8 p.m. to 8:30 so Game 4 could have the building that afternoon. SOMBR still plays the 22nd at 7. Checked October 15: the arena’s calendar now lists both Dream games, the 21st at 8 and the 24th at 1, which it did not five days ago.
That flipped the booking consequence. Games 3 and 4 both tipped on that clock.
Resolved on Monday, October 26, three days out: the league announced Game 6 at State Farm Arena at 12:30 p.m. ET, with the Hawks moving their Cleveland tip from 7 to 8 p.m. so both teams host in the building the same day, and the arena’s event list carried it. The downtown clusters above were the ones in play, the night to book was Wednesday the 28th, and the game went ahead on that clock, Atlanta winning 80-69. What follows is the record of the wait. October 29 did not get the same treatment, and for sixteen days nobody put a building on it. The game itself was certain from Saturday afternoon, at 2-2, so the building question was the only one left on it. ESPN’s Finals schedule listed the date as Golden State at Atlanta, 8 p.m. ET, and named no arena. The arena’s calendar for that night, read October 17, showed the Hawks hosting Cleveland at 7 and no Dream game. We looked again on October 18, the day after Game 1, and the answer had not moved. We looked again on October 24, after Game 4 made the night certain: ESPN’s schedule entry still names no arena, Gametime still sells the night under a Venue TBD header, and CBS Atlanta’s October 12 report, that the Hawks hold State Farm Arena that night and Gas South Arena in Duluth is a possible option, was the latest word we could find on where else it could go. The October 13 release said nothing about Game 6, Front Office Sports reported that day that the Dream had not decided where to play it, and TicketNews reported the same day that where Atlanta would host one remains an open question. Resale listings were still selling the night as Gateway Center Arena, ten miles south by the airport, several of them tagged venue TBD. That is a different hotel decision than downtown. The Red-or-Gold-line hedge we gave for that wait is retired; the Blue and Green lines at SEC District, under the arena, are the ones that matter now.
San Francisco handled its version of this early. Chase Center had a Doja Cat show booked for Monday, October 19 at 7:30 p.m., head to head with Finals Game 2. Front Office Sports reported the collision on October 6, the Valkyries said a contingency date was already in place, and within a day of the sweep the show had moved to Sunday, October 25.
Saturday, October 24 was the night that priced
A 17,000-seat arena does not move a metro’s room market by itself. We have said that on this page since July and it is still the right lens. What moves your rate is everything else in town on the same night, and October 24 in Atlanta had a lot.
Finals Game 4 at 1. Georgia Tech hosting Boston College for its 77th Homecoming at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Midtown at 3:30 on ACC Network, a kickoff time the school announced on October 12. The Hawks’ home opener against Houston at 8:30, same building as Game 4. Then the Falcons beat San Francisco 29-20 at 1 p.m. on Sunday, October 25 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which shares the downtown campus with State Farm Arena and feeds off the same MARTA stops.
That last one matters more than people expect, and the matchup made it worse. Kickoff is 10 a.m. Pacific, so every 49ers fan travelling to it is on a Saturday flight, three time zones east, with no realistic Sunday-morning arrival. The NFL road crowd and the Finals Game 4 crowd were bidding on the same Saturday night in the same downtown campus. So October 24 absorbed arena demand, campus homecoming demand and NFL arrival demand at once.
Bay Area readers who flipped that around got the best trip of the series: Mercedes-Benz Stadium is across the plaza from State Farm Arena and the 49ers are in it Sunday afternoon. One flight, one hotel, two games, no rental car, both venues off the same MARTA stops, and the Sunday night was one extra room night to see an NFL road game. Revenue managers watch pickup pace against a comp set of nearby properties, and when a Saturday fills faster than the Friday and Sunday around it, the standard response is a two-night minimum on arrival and a stop-sell on discounted tiers. That is what the 24th looked like.
Moving Game 4 to 1 p.m. did not change any of that. An earlier tip rearranges traffic. It does not change how many people slept in town on the 24th.
The useful move was to arrive early, and with Game 3 played, early meant Friday. Thursday the 22nd had the SOMBR concert, a mostly local crowd. Friday the 23rd had nothing on it. Those were the soft nights in front of Game 4. For Game 6 there was no fence to beat: a Thursday with a lunchtime tip and only the Hawks in the building that evening was the ordinary case this page keeps describing, where the arena alone does not move the market.
Two ways that played, for the record, and which one won depended on how you got to Atlanta.
Flying in: Friday the 23rd in, Sunday the 25th out, or Monday if the Falcons game was the add-on. One cheap Friday, the certain game, and the Sunday put you at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The reason that beat buying Saturday alone was the fence. Minimum-stay controls and stop-sells on discounted tiers attach to the arrival date, so a Saturday arrival walked straight into a two-night minimum on the most expensive night of the month while a Friday arrival was already in house when the fence went up. If you took the Wednesday-to-Sunday block this page recommended after the schedule change, the midweek nights were the price of being inside before the fence.
Driving in for Game 4 alone, a Saturday-only room downtown was likely to meet that two-night minimum, and Friday-Saturday had to be priced against it. A second tank of gas was still cheaper than a night with no game attached, where a property would sell the Saturday by itself.
The Braves are also out, eliminated by the Dodgers at Truist Park on October 7, so the Battery and Cumberland hotel cluster ten miles northwest is not competing for the same travelers this time.
How hard is the ticket?
Two different answers, one per city, and Atlanta’s just got easier.
For the first two playoff rounds the team sold only the lower bowl at State Farm Arena, about 8,800 seats of roughly 17,000. A team spokesperson told Front Office Sports on October 5 that the short turnaround on playoff ticket sales was why. Then the lower bowl sold out and they opened upper sections anyway, and both of the first two home games drew more than 9,700. During the regular season the Dream moved six games downtown and averaged 6,928 across their home schedule, up about 2,500 a game year over year, with five of those six downtown dates selling the full 17,000.
For the Finals they did not ration it. The Dream opened the full 17,000 seats for Games 3 and 4, which Front Office Sports reported on October 13, general-public sales started Friday, October 16 at 10 a.m. ET at atlantadream.com, and Game 4 drew 17,099, per ESPN. That was roughly five times what Gateway Center Arena holds, released in one go, the day before Game 1. Atlanta was the softer ticket in this series by a wide margin, and Game 6 got the 17,000-seat building downtown rather than the 3,500 in College Park. The ticket question is now entirely San Francisco’s.
San Francisco is the hard one and the Valkyries have the receipts. They have now sold out every regular-season home game in both of their seasons, 44 in a row by the team’s own count, averaging 18,064 at Chase Center and leading the league in attendance twice. There is no soft inventory to find. Plan on the resale market and plan on paying for it. Book the room first anyway; the refundable one costs you nothing if the ticket hunt goes badly.
San Francisco: the Saturday everyone misreads
No expansion team in this league has ever reached the Finals as fast as Golden State just did. The Valkyries made the playoffs in year one, won 32 games and the No. 2 seed in year two, then beat the defending champions 71-60, 83-81 and 87-77 in overtime without losing a game. Las Vegas had won three of the last four titles. Kayla Thornton had 18 in the clincher. As the higher seed, Golden State gets four of the seven at Chase Center.
Now the market, which is the part the rest of the internet is going to get backwards.
Saturday, October 17 looked like the scary night and wasn’t. San Francisco hotel rates in October move on the convention calendar far more than on sport, and the convention calendar for this window was specific. Moscone’s own event pages had SEMICON West in Moscone North and South and TechCrunch Disrupt in Moscone West, both October 13 to 15. Two shows, three buildings, same three days. That crowd checked out Thursday the 15th and Friday the 16th, and nothing loaded into Moscone again until Cloudflare Connect took Moscone West on Monday the 19th. Game 1 tipped at 12:30 on the Saturday sitting in that gap. Revenue managers, the people who set nightly rates, had been watching pickup pace on the 13th through 15th for months, and the 17th was the night they expected to discount. That part of the call is now closed, and it was right.
Monday, October 19 was the hard one, and it is played. Cloudflare Connect took Moscone West from October 19 to 21, which put its arrival night on Sunday the 18th and its first full day on Game 2 day, and the 49ers hosted Washington at Levi’s that same Monday at 5:15 p.m. Pacific, fifteen minutes after Game 2 tipped in Mission Bay. Monday Night Football in Santa Clara and a WNBA Finals game in San Francisco, same evening, one metro, one airport cluster. The 49ers’ own trip to Atlanta is the following Sunday, Week 7, so Bay Area fans get both ends of this. That Monday priced the way a compression night with a convention arrival on it prices: minimum-stay controls on the arrival date, discounted tiers closed. It is the comparison to carry into the next one.
Monday, October 26 is played, and it was not a clincher. Neither was Thursday. Golden State won Game 5 64-55 before 18,064, per ESPN’s box score, went to Atlanta at 3-2, and came home at 3-3 after the Dream won Game 6 80-69 on Thursday the 29th. So the Valkyries get the home clinch chance after all, and so do the Dream: Game 7, Saturday the 31st at 5 p.m. local, the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history. Game 5 followed a Doja Cat show at Chase Center on Sunday the 25th at 7:30, so Mission Bay took a sold-out arena two nights running with Moscone posting nothing for the week, a softer city than the 19th was, with the arena the only thing pushing. Phoebe Bridgers had the building two nights of her own, Tuesday the 27th and Wednesday the 28th. Game 7 lands on Halloween in San Francisco, one night after the Warriors host the Lakers in an NBA Cup game at the same address on Friday the 30th at 7. Five arena events in seven nights, every one of them now certain, in a neighborhood with almost no hotels in it.
One more thing about the arena, because the building barely got a dark night in here. The Warriors closed their preseason against Portland on Friday the 16th, Game 1 was Saturday the 17th, there was a $5 open practice on Sunday the 18th, and Game 2 was Monday the 19th. Four straight days of events at the same address, and the Warriors’ home opener against Memphis on the 23rd came before the Finals returned. Mission Bay traffic and the T Third are carrying all of it.
Where to stay for a Chase Center game
The arena is in Mission Bay, and Mission Bay has biotech, a hospital, apartments and very few hotel rooms. So “stay near the arena” is not the advice here. Stay near the train.
SoMa and Yerba Buena. First pick. Deep room supply, short Muni ride, and you are already next to Moscone if half your trip is work. The 13th through 15th convention block sat in exactly this neighborhood, and Cloudflare Connect on the 19th sits here too, so this is the cluster that feels the Game 2 squeeze first.
Union Square. The biggest hotel block in the city, on the same subway line, and the deepest fallback when a date gets tight. Worst value on a quiet night, best availability on a busy one.
Dogpatch and Potrero Hill. The local’s answer. Close enough to walk back after a 5 p.m. tip, enough bars and restaurants to make an evening of it, and far enough off the Moscone footprint to price independently. Thin supply, so it goes early.
Down the peninsula. Caltrain and BART both work, and Millbrae puts you on the airport side. The warning that applied to exactly one date is now behind us: Stanford’s Reunion Homecoming was Saturday, October 17, with the Cardinal hosting Elon at 4:30 at Stanford Stadium, and Cal hosted Wake Forest at 7:30 the same evening. Neither campus touched Monday the 26th, so the corridor was a fair look for Game 5. Check both schedules against Game 7 on Saturday, October 31 before you count on a discount.
On rentals. San Francisco is the hardest major market in the country for a whole-place booking and the rules are why. A host has to register with the city, rent only their primary residence, and occupy it at least 275 days a year, which leaves a hard cap of 90 un-hosted nights annually. Supply is genuinely thin and the listings that exist should display a registration certificate number. For a crew of four or more doing multiple nights, look at Dogpatch, Potrero Hill and the Mission before you look at Mission Bay. For a single night that is definitely happening, the strict host policy stops being the problem and the cleaning fee on one night becomes it. Hotel first; a rental when the hotel search comes back empty.
Getting to the arena
Muni’s T Third line runs in the median of Third Street and stops at the UCSF/Chase Center platform, which is essentially the arena’s front door. On event days SFMTA runs the segment as the S Shuttle Mission Bay between Chinatown-Rose Pak and the arena, about every 10 minutes, starting roughly two and a half hours before tip and continuing two and a half hours after. Chinatown to the arena takes around 20 minutes.
Coming in on BART, you have two moves. Transfer at Powell to the Union Square/Market Street station and ride the S south, or stay on to 16th St Mission and catch the 78X Arena Express, which runs from two and a half hours before until an hour after. Caltrain riders get off at 4th and King and either pick up the T at the 4th Street platform between King and Berry or walk it, 15 to 20 minutes. The 22 Fillmore runs normally, the 48 and 55 stop about four blocks out, and the 91 Owl covers 3rd and Warriors Way every half hour late at night.
And the fact that saves you actual money: your event ticket is your Muni fare. Digital or paper, it is proof of payment for the whole day you are attending, cable cars excluded, and you walk in through the double-wide faregate doors. No Clipper card, no app, no second transaction.
Last-train anxiety barely applies here, because every Chase Center Finals game is an afternoon or early-evening local start. Read the clock twice: those 8 p.m. tips are Eastern. In San Francisco that is 5 p.m., which covered Game 5 on the 26th and covers Game 7 on the 31st, as it did Game 2 on the 19th. The 5 p.m. start has its own catch, though. You are travelling to Mission Bay in the middle of the evening commute, on the same trains as everyone leaving work. Leave downtown by four.
Do not plan on a ferry. The Port of San Francisco’s Mission Bay Ferry Landing is still in construction, Phase 2b, with service not expected until 2027. East Bay fans ride into the downtown terminal and connect to Muni like everyone else.
Every arena in this bracket has a venue page on our WNBA index, including the ones whose seasons just ended.
The refundable calendar, Finals edition
Same engine as the refundable rate playbook, now aimed at real dates in real cities instead of candidates.
October 17 and 19, San Francisco. Closed. Game 1 was played and Golden State won it 68-64; Game 2 was played and Atlanta won it 79-65. Keeping this line here on purpose: if you booked either night off this page, the 24-hour rate we pointed you at did its job and there is nothing left to cancel. The only thing to check is whether the two went on one reservation you now want to extend, because extensions get priced at the current rate.
October 21, Atlanta. Closed. Game 3 was played and Atlanta won it 97-71. A room on the 21st has nothing left to cancel.
October 24, downtown Atlanta. Closed. Game 4 was played and Golden State won it 67-62. A room on the 24th has nothing left to cancel; if you took the Friday-in, Sunday-out shape this page pushed, the Sunday is the Falcons across the plaza at 1.
What Game 4 decided is that the 26th was nobody’s trophy night and the 29th might be somebody’s; what Game 5 decided was whose it could be; what Game 6 decided is that it was nobody’s. Atlanta won it, so the trophy night is Halloween at Chase Center, for whichever team wins.
October 26, San Francisco. Played. Golden State 64, Atlanta 55. A room held for it has nothing left to cancel, and the 24-hour premium you paid against a sweep that never came was the cost of the option, not a mistake.
October 28 and 29, Atlanta. Played. Atlanta 80, Golden State 69 at State Farm Arena, 12:30 p.m. tip, series 3-3. The building was resolved on October 26 with the Hawks pushed to 8 p.m. in the same arena that night, the hotel night was Wednesday the 28th, and a room on it has nothing left to cancel. The Dream’s season moved to San Francisco with the final buzzer.
October 31, San Francisco. Certain, and it decides the title. Game 7 is played at 3-3 whatever else happens, and Halloween is the hardest night on this calendar to book late, because San Francisco does not need a basketball game to fill hotels that night and now it has one, with the Lakers in the same building the night before. The refund clock is nearly spent and it no longer matters the way it did: a 72-hour cutoff on a Saturday check-in closed Wednesday afternoon, a 48-hour cutoff closes Thursday afternoon, a 24-hour cutoff closes Friday afternoon. Take whatever refundable rate is left on the T Third corridor; take a prepaid one if that is all there is, because the game is not going anywhere.
Two rules behind all of it. Refundable where you can get it, and the small premium over the prepaid rate is what the option costs. And put every cancellation cutoff in your phone the day you book, because a refundable room you forget to cancel is just an expensive room. For October 31 the Friday-morning alarm this page told you to set is now a reminder that you are going, not a decision point; the only thing left to cancel it for is a flight that falls through.
