Angel Reese ‘keeps getting better’ as Dream continue recent surge

Dream forward Angel Reese has strung together a career year in her first season in Atlanta.

“I think she just keeps getting better and keeps being able to expand her game,“ Dream coach Karl Smesko said after the team’s win over the Mercury on Saturday night.

”I think she really found her opportunities to be physical, and they weren’t really sending doubles, so she had her opportunities to catch the ball in the short (post) and do some post moves to score.”

Reese’s dominance over her last three outings has included a perfect night on Aug. 20 against the Sparks, as she shot 9-of-9 from the floor, including a pair of jumpers from deep.

Then she led the Dream to a third straight win in Saturday’s win over Phoenix, and she scored a career-high 31 points. Reese previously had a career high of 27 points in 2024, in her rookie season.

Reese averaged 24 points, 11.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 3.7 steals while making 67.4% of her field goals overall. In the first three games of the Dream’s four-game western trip, Reese became the third-ever player to have 20-plus points, 10-plus rebounds and three-plus steals. She joined Aces big A’ja Wilson and Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike to achieve the feat.

“She was scoring in a multitude of ways,” Smesko said. “She had a really good fourth quarter for us, and it’s good to see her have one of her best games of her career offensively.”

The 24-year-old’s career night carried some big implications for the Dream’s outlook for playing basketball in October. The Dream’s regular season ends on Sept. 23 but their win on Saturday clinched a spot on the WNBA playoffs.

They currently have the fourth seed, and they could face the Fever, who currently are fifth. For Reese, this will mark the first time that she will make a WNBA postseason run.

“It feels good because we got the win,” Reese told reporters in Phoenix on Saturday. “That’s all that matters, and we clinched the playoffs. It’s my first time being able to have a postseason, so I’m really excited.

“This group this year has just been super resilient through the highs and the lows” Reese added. “We stayed together. We didn’t have a great third quarter, but just being able to come together and push forward and push through in the fourth and win this game was important for us, so it felt good.”

The Dream will make their fourth consecutive appearance in the postseason and Reese’s scoring this season has been a boon. They are averaging seven more points per game (91.4) this season than last (84.4).

They also continue to overpower opponents on the boards, though they’ve dropped from first to second in the league in rebounds per game.

Reese leads the league in rebounding and ranks among the top three players, behind teammates Rhyne Howard and Jordin Canada, in the WNBA in steals per game.