Dream reaches five-game win streak in victory over Storm

This wasn’t the prettiest showing of Dream basketball, but their ability to share the load carried them through. Shooting 87.18 % from the field, Atlanta relied on constant communication for clean looks and ball movement. They tightened their defense in the second half to take advantage of second-chance opportunities down the stretch. They also emphasized getting to the free-throw line, making 34 of 39 attempts. The Dream are now on a five-game winning streak.

Key Moments

Several early 3-pointers helped the Dream come back from their slow start in the first quarter. Sherrod’s 3-pointer with 2:26 left in the first quarter put the crowd on notice of her game.

Top performers

Dream

Angel Reese: 21 PTS, 13 REB, 2 AST

Naz Hillmon: 18 PTS, 2 REB, 3 AST

Allisha Gray: 16 PTS, 3 REB, 2 AST

Jordin Canada: 10 PTS, 3 REB, 9 AST

Rhyne Howard: 9 PTS, 2 REB, 5 AST

Brionna Jones: 14 REB, 5 REB

Storm

Natisha Hiedeman: 23 PTS, 5 REB

Dominique Malonga: 16 PTS, 13 REB

Flau’jae Johnson: 9 PTS, 3 AST

Highlight Play

Reese gave Atlanta a spark to open the fourth quarter, knocking down a 3-pointer that pushed the Dream’s lead to 10 (69-59). She added another later in the period, sending the home crowd to its feet and giving Atlanta another momentum boost. It was the first multi-3-point game of her season.

Quotable:

“It’s nice when we get a win. Obviously, we had that tough stretch earlier, and we’re just trying to pick ourselves back up from that. But we know that we have a lot to work on still. There’s things that we know we’re going to see in film, and we have to continue to get better. But we’re always going to be thankful for the win because they’re not very easy to come by in this league. But also knowing that we want to be our best selves by the end of the season, we have things to clean up.” -Naz Hillmon on what the win meant to her

“Just trying to do my job. Honestly, every night I just want to come out and just be consistent for my team and give them opportunities just to get a second chance. And I think just me offensive rebounding and being able to kick out to amazing shooters, it’s so easy and easy to also honestly just get assists too. So, it’s the best of both worlds, really, when you have such a great team.” -Angel Reese on reaching franchise history 137 offensive rebounds

“ I think Jaylyn has done a great job of finding her spots, and she wants to push the tempo and find open players, and she’s done just that…but it’s nice to have that combination of two guards ready to push because I think that’s when we’re at our best.” -Naz Hillmon on Sherrod’s performance

“We had probably one of our ugliest possessions of the year, and then when Rhy (Howard) hit a one-footed three-point shot. I thought that was a huge moment. You could almost sense that that was a momentum changer, and all of a sudden we felt all right…I felt like, just different times, different people made big plays for us that helped us close the thing out. But I don’t think it was ever really comfortable until the last 10 seconds.” -Coach Smesko on overcoming the last-minute Seattle Storm run.

“I think the team has a high level of confidence that they’re able to beat anybody in the league. Now you just have to go out there and get it accomplished against so many teams in this league that are really, really good. So we want to get to the point where we expect to win. Not that we can win. We know we can beat everybody, but we want to get into when we’re playing the best team, we expect to win because we’re the most prepared…I think you always think there’s plenty of time, and there really isn’t. The thing flies by. You only get so much time to work on stuff. So we have to make the most of every game, every practice day, and learn from things, and best prepare ourselves to move forward. -Smesko on the team’s mindset and confidence