Three and a half games separate third from eighth
That is the whole story of the Western race right now. Dallas sit eighth at 23-16, half a game back of the New York Liberty, with five to play and almost nothing decided. The Wings host the Connecticut Sun on Sunday in Arlington, and then the league goes dark for two weeks.
The pause is for the FIBA Women’s World Cup, which tips off September 4 in Berlin. Paige Bueckers will be there with the United States. Connecticut forward Kennedy Burke heads to Berlin with Turkey.
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Bueckers has led Dallas in scoring seven times in eight games
The Wings arrive on a three-game run. The most recent, a 96-78 beating of Portland on Tuesday, locked up a playoff berth for the first time since 2023, and it came with a number attached that nobody in the organization had seen before: no Dallas team has won this many games in a season since the franchise left Tulsa for the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2016.
Bueckers put up 22 points and 11 assists in that Portland game. Jessica Shepard scored 21. Arike Ogunbowale had 17, and Awak Kuier grabbed her second double-double of the year with 12 and 12.
“We backed up what we said,” Bueckers said of the run. “We all know how to play. But actually putting into action what we were talking about, doing it on the floor, watching film, working on our defensive chemistry, holding each other accountable, having the hard conversations. That’s what has helped us grow.”
Connecticut’s last summer in the state
The Sun are 10-29 and long since out of it. This is also the final season the franchise plays in Connecticut before the move to Houston in 2027, which gives the last five games a strange, valedictory feel.
They come to Texas off a 111-91 loss at Indiana on Friday, four defeats in five. Fourteenth of 15, two wins clear of Seattle. Diamond Miller had 19 against the Fever. Rookie Nell Angloma came off the bench for a career-high 17, with Aaliyah Edwards and Hailey Van Lith on 12 each.
Coach Rachid Meziane has not hidden the plan. Minutes for the young players, development, a hard look at who belongs on the roster next year. The two teams have already met twice, and Dallas won both, by three on the road in July and by 20 at home on August 2.
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