A career night that settled two questions at once
Angel Reese scored 31 points and pulled down 14 rebounds in Phoenix on Saturday night, a career high in scoring, and the Atlanta Dream turned it into a 99-89 win that locked up their playoff place. Rhyne Howard supplied 20 points and five assists, Allisha Gray added 17 points, five rebounds and four assists, and Atlanta never trailed after the opening basket.
The Dream are 24-13 with seven games left. That puts them fourth, which matters because the top four seeds carry home-court advantage into the first round. Five wins in their last six, four of them on the road, is the sort of stretch that decides where a team opens the postseason rather than whether it gets there at all.
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Howard set the tone before Reese finished it
Atlanta separated early. Howard hit threes on consecutive possessions for a 14-3 lead with 6:09 on the first-quarter clock, and Phoenix never got within six the rest of the half. A 12-3 run pushed the margin to 46-31 with under three minutes left in the second, and the Dream took a 50-35 cushion into the interval with Howard already on 14 points and four made threes from eight attempts.
Phoenix did find a route back. Kahleah Copper’s three-point play with 5:05 remaining in the third capped a 10-2 burst and trimmed it to 57-52. Howard answered with a driving bank shot at the buzzer for 73-68, then Naz Hillmon’s three with 7:55 to play restored a nine-point gap at 79-70. The Mercury never closed to within six again.
Copper’s 38 and a milestone in a losing cause
Copper finished with 38 points and led Phoenix in scoring for the 19th time this season, which says plenty about where the offensive load has sat. Alyssa Thomas put together a triple-double of 11 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists and moved past 3,000 career rebounds along the way, reaching 3,010 in her 13th season.
None of it was enough. Phoenix fell to 13-24 and were mathematically eliminated, a fifth loss in six outings. Kelsey Plum, acquired from Los Angeles earlier this month, sat out a third consecutive game with a lower left leg problem, and a roster built for a late push is now playing out the string.
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