Nineteen in the first half, and the game was gone
Angel Reese had 19 points before halftime. Atlanta led by ten at the break, which felt modest given what came next. The Dream beat the Connecticut Sun 103-59 in College Park on Thursday night, their biggest win of the season by a distance.
Reese finished with 30 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks. The WNBA had been idle for 19 days while the FIBA World Cup ran its course, and Atlanta played like a team that spent the break sharpening rather than resting.
The margin built in stages. Atlanta led 22-17 after one quarter and 45-35 at the half, then turned the third quarter into something closer to a demolition.
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Connecticut simply stopped scoring
Charlisse Leger-Walker got the Sun’s first points of the second half to trim it to 52-37. Reese answered with a hook shot and started a 6-0 run. Baskets from Isobel Borlase and Madina Okot pushed the gap to 25. Naz Hillmon buried a three, Te-Hina Paopao and Okot added layups, and Atlanta carried a 76-46 lead into the fourth.
The Sun managed 24 points after the interval. They shot 3-of-20 from beyond the arc and lost for the fourth game running, dropping to 10-31.
Olivia Nelson-Ododa top-scored for Connecticut with 13. Saniya Rivers, Raegan Beers and Ashlon Jackson each finished with nine.
Atlanta’s supporting cast turned up
Rhyne Howard filled the box score with 10 points, eight assists and four steals. Allisha Gray added 10 points and six rebounds. Okot and Paopao also reached double figures, which is how a team wins by 44 instead of 20.
Atlanta sit at 27-14 and have taken six of their last seven. Reese already owns the league’s single-game rebounding record from August, when she pulled down 26 boards against Los Angeles. Thursday was a reminder that the scoring end works too.
The Dream outscored Connecticut 27-13 in the fourth quarter, long after the result stopped being in question.
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