As the last five seconds of the first half of Unrivaled’s final regular-season game between Rose BC and Vinyl counted down, Chelsea Gray danced around Dearica Hamby.

Gray jab-stepped to the top of the key, pulled back out and scooted to her right, narrowly avoiding Hamby. With a hand in her face, Gray rose up for a midrange jump shot.

As she fell to the ground, the ball fell through the hoop. Gray got up, looked at the crowd and licked her lips before calmly walking back to the Rose bench.

This rose is called Point Gawd for a reason 🪄✨

10 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists at half🌹 pic.twitter.com/Mnu78ntRL1

— Unrivaled Basketball (@Unrivaledwbb) March 11, 2025

Heading into Unrivaled’s debut season, questions surrounded Gray: Would her defense be exposed? Would the foot injury that forced her out of the 2023 WNBA Finals and held her out the first 12 games of the 2024 season be an issue? And, as Gray put it, did she still have it?

To “quiet the noise,” she took it upon herself to prove that she does still have it. And performances like the one she had against Vinyl — Gray finished with eight 3-pointers and 33 points — demonstrated she hasn’t lost a beat.

“Damn Chels, that’s a lot of 3s,” she said to herself after the game with a grin spreading across her face.

That approach of proving doubters wrong has been a common thread for Gray and her Rose teammates Kahleah Copper, Brittney Sykes, Azura Stevens and Lexie Hull on both a personal and team level.

After starting the season 1-4, the Rose rattled off a five-game win streak at the start of February — a stretch that included handing the league-leading Lunar Owls their only loss of the season — and finished the regular season winning seven of their final nine games.

Now they enter Sunday’s semifinals as one of the hottest teams in the league.

“I’m always the person who believes it’s not the way you start the season, it’s the way you finish it,” Gray said. “Midway through you want to start building those habits and chemistry and camaraderie. … I think that’s where we took a huge step forward. … You want to be playing your best basketball, no matter what, going into the playoffs.”

Seeded No. 2 in the playoffs, the Rose (8-6) will face the No. 3 Laces (7-7), with the winner advancing to Monday’s title game to face the winner of the other semifinal between the No. 1 Lunar Owls (13-1) and No. 4 Vinyl (5-9).

Each member of the title-winning club will earn an additional $50,000 in prize money on top of their Unrivaled salary.

Part of the Rose’s resurgence came behind Gray’s dominance — she scored at least 26 points in seven of the Rose’s final 10 games of the regular season, including a 38-point game to match a league high.

“I’m healthy,” Gray said. “That’s the biggest thing for me. Your body is your body of work when you are playing a sport. Then two, having the mindset to get back at it … coming in here with the mindset of trying to get better every single time you play.”

Another part has been her growing chemistry with Angel Reese and Reese’s overall development over the Unrivaled season.

Like Gray, Reese had a point to make when she arrived in Miami. Coming off what she called a “disappointing” rookie season that ended early after an injury to her left wrist, Reese wanted to get healthy and grow her game.

She wanted to show that she could continue to dominate the boards while expanding her offensive repertoire. And she wanted to avoid her game being labeled as one-dimensional.

“Looking down the long road, sometimes I think, ‘How many years am I going to be able to get these double-doubles and all these rebounds,'” Reese said. “I continue taking shots, risky shots I guess, and shots that people don’t expect me to take. This league, you want to win and play the right way, but work on things that lead into the WNBA season.”

She has spent a lot of time working with WNBA great Lisa Leslie, who told Reese that the Rose and Chicago Sky player is the “2.0” version of her.

The Sky had a young roster in 2024, and without veteran teammates to guide her in the WNBA, Reese sought out extra time with Gray and fellow Rose teammate Kahleah Copper in Miami.

Reese finished the regular season leading the league in rebounds, averaging 12.1 per game. She recorded eight double-doubles, including a 22-point, 21-rebound game — the first 20-20 performance in Unrivaled history — against the Lunar Owls on Feb. 21.

“Being here at Unrivaled has been the best thing for me,” Reese said.

ANGEL REESE (2/21/25) pic.twitter.com/D26eV6BBBS

— @balapattyszn (@balapattyvids) February 22, 2025

Reese, Gray and the rest of the Rose see the opportunity they have in playoffs. To win, the Rose know they have to limit their turnovers and keep up their aggressive style of defense, while limiting fouls. If they can do those things, and if Gray and Rose can continue their dominance, they have a shot at winning.

“There are times when your journey, things just fall into place right away. And other times you have to fight through a little hit of adversity to get to where you want to go,” Rose coach Nola Henry said. “The trust and the belief were there from Day 1. We didn’t have any doubt in our mind about what we were capable of, as long as we put the team first and everybody did their job.”