Five hundred boards, and counting
Angel Reese grabbed her 500th rebound of the season in the first half. Nobody in WNBA history had reached that number before. She kept going, finished with 23 points and 10 boards, and the Atlanta Dream pulled away from the Chicago Sky 106-81 overnight in Atlanta.
That rebound total is a single-season league record. So is the double-double count: Saturday was her 31st of the year, another mark that belongs to her alone. Reese has spent the whole summer stacking numbers nobody in this league had reached, and she set the latest one against the club that drafted her.
Atlanta needed the tune-up more than the milestone. The Dream sit at 27-14, level with Indiana for the fourth seed but holding the head-to-head tiebreaker. Two games in Brooklyn against the Liberty close the regular season, and Las Vegas and the third seed remain within range.
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A first half that gave nothing away
For twenty minutes this was a real contest. Eight ties, 17 lead changes, neither side ahead by more than four points. Seven Chicago players scored. The Sky led 39-38 with 3:40 left in the half before Kamila Cardoso picked up her third foul and went to the bench.
Atlanta closed the period on a surge, Reese scoring six of it and Rhyne Howard burying a three for a 51-47 lead at the break.
The third quarter settled it
Early in the second half the Dream ripped off a 12-0 run, capped by a four-point play from Allisha Gray and a Reese fastbreak finish that made it 70-53. Atlanta won the third quarter 32-19 and the second half 55-34, leading by as many as 27.
Shooting explains most of it. Atlanta went 13 of 26 from three, Chicago 4 of 20. Isobel Borlase came off the bench for a season-high 18 points, including threes on three straight possessions in the fourth. Gray scored 17, Howard 14, and Jordin Canada put up 11 points with 10 assists. DeWanna Bonner, three games into her Atlanta spell after the August trade from Phoenix, added eight.
Gabriela Jaquez top-scored for Chicago with 14, Cardoso and Aicha Coulibaly getting 11 apiece. The Sky are 15-27 and have now lost five straight.
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