With less than a minute to play on Saturday night, Angel Reese stepped to the line and knocked down a pair of free throws to seal the Atlanta Dream's 99-89 win over the Phoenix Mercury. The free throws gave Reese a new career-high of 31 points and the first 30-point game of her career, and the win, the Dream's third in a row, officially clinched their spot in the playoffs. After making headlines for missing a potential game-winner against the Indiana Fever last Sunday, Reese responded with one of the best weeks of her career.
In the first three games of the Dream's West Coast road trip, Reese is averaging 24 points, 11.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 3.7 steals on 67.4% shooting. The Dream are 3-0 in those games, including a huge win over the Aces, and have moved back into fourth place ahead of the Indiana Fever. One game before her career-high night in Phoenix, Reese put up 20 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists on a perfect 9 of 9 from the field to join Nneka Ogwumike and Tamika Williams-Jeter as the only players in WNBA history to shoot 100% from the field in a 20-point, 10-rebound outing.
Reese has continued to face criticism this season for her poor efficiency around the basket, and rightfully so. (She's shooting 52.5% in the restricted area on a league-high 337 attempts. Among the 15 players with at least 150 attempts, no one else is shooting below 60%.) But she is the best rebounder in the world and has made such significant strides as a defender that when she is making her shots, as she did this week, she's a top-10 player in the league. The Dream are 9-2 when Reese shoots 50% or better this season and 15-11 when she's below that mark.
Ahead of her first postseason, the big question for Reese and the Dream is whether she can maintain this recent efficiency. If she can, no one will want to play Atlanta come playoff time.
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