The Atlanta Dream had no intention of letting a matinee become their curtain call.

Facing elimination at a lunchtime tipoff, the Dream overwhelmed the Golden State Valkyries 80-69 on Thursday afternoon to force a decisive seventh game in the WNBA finals, rediscovering their offensive touch just as their championship hopes were threatening to slip away.

Atlanta buried six three-pointers and shot 73.3% from the floor in a blistering opening quarter at State Farm Arena, built a lead that ballooned to 25 points before half-time and held on to send a series that had swung sharply towards Golden State back to San Francisco for Saturday night's winner-take-all finale. Both teams are seeking their first championship.

Allisha Gray scored a team-high 23 points including five threes, Rhyne Howard added 21 while Angel Reese notched her fourth double-double of the series with 15 points and 14 rebounds to go with six assists.

Gabby Williams finished with a game-high 26 points for the Valkyries after being held to four in the first half. Tiffany Hayes chipped in 15, but Golden State shot just 31.4% from the field and 25.9% from three-point range. Veronica Burton endured a particularly frigid afternoon, making just two of her 13 shots from the floor and missing all six three-point attempts.

"It's do or die. It's win or go home," Howard said. "I knew that coming in, we had to be aggressive from the jump, and that starts with me. You know, I have to be a good leader for this team. I have to set the tone early, and I feel like that's what I did today."

The Dream had managed only 62 and 55 points in back-to-back defeats that erased their 2-1 series lead. On Thursday, they scored 32 in the first quarter alone, making 11 of their first 15 shots and moving the ball with a fluidity Golden State had largely disrupted over the previous two contests.

Reese said a players-only meeting before a film session had helped restore Atlanta's confidence, with Dream forward Naz Hillmon urging her teammates to remember who they were.

"All of us have been superstars on a team at some point," Reese said. "We needed the best out of every single person tonight."

It wasn't quite a first-round knockout, but the Dream were never seriously threatened even when the Valkyries found their footing after the intermission. Golden State cut the deficit to 13 early in the fourth quarter, only for Gray hit a three-pointer followed by another from Reese to restore a 74-55 advantage with 5:43 remaining.

The Valkyries made one final push, getting as close as 77-69 on Williams's three-point play with 1min 15sec remaining, which fouled out Howard. But Gray answered with her fifth three-pointer off a Reese assist to remove all doubt with 56sec left. Golden State opted not to extend the contest by fouling in the closing seconds, leaving a final margin that barely hinted at the scale of the hosts' dominance.

"We needed the opportunity. That's all we needed, and we maximized it today," Reese said. "I'm just really proud of this group. The job is not done, and I'm looking forward to it. One more. Job's not done."

The performance came amid the controversy surrounding a 12.30pm tipoff, a scheduling compromise that placed the biggest home game of Atlanta's season in the middle of a work day. The Dream nevertheless announced a sellout crowd of 17,099.

"I had no doubt that they would show up," Howard said. "Everybody kept asking me about 12.30, 12.30. Now they can leave with a better taste in their mouths, go get the bottomless mimosas, you know, enjoy the rest of the day, 'cause I know nobody's going back to work."

For Golden State, the start was equivalent to 9.30am on their normal California clock, but their coach, Natalie Nakase, refused to blame the scheduling.

"No. That had nothing to do with it," she said. "We played at one o'clock last week."

She added: "We knew they were going to play desperate. We knew they were going to play like their life depends on it. For us not to match that is disappointing and frustrating."

The WNBA adopted a best-of-seven finals last year, only for the series to end in a four-game sweep. This time, the extended format has delivered the ultimate decider. After six games have left nothing to separate the Dream and Valkyries, the first Game 7 in league history on Halloween night will settle everything.

"Both teams want it, and so the mindset is a sense of urgency," Burton said. "It is do or die, officially."