Dream get rude awakening in tough loss to Fire at home
This was not the welcome home the Dream expected.
The Atlanta Dream tried to get going toward the end, but it wasn’t enough in a 101-83 loss to the Portland Fire.
The Dream got off to one of the roughest starts of their season. After committing a myriad of turnovers early, they finally opened their scoring with an Allisha Gray 3-pointer, but couldn’t find their consistency after a 10-0 Portland run put Atlanta in an early hole.
The Fire turned up the pressure defensively in the paint and consistently bullied the Dream out of it. In the second quarter, the Dream’s first basket didn’t come until a little over three minutes into the period.
Visible frustration showed from the team, but so did constant communication, as the Dream tried to make up for the lack of fundamental plays that cost them baskets.
They closed the half trailing the Fire by 14 points (52-38), shooting 25% from the field and committing 10 turnovers.
Though there were hopeful moments from Atlanta, the Fire led with momentum on their side to keep the Dream at bay and put them away in the end.
Key Moments
The Dream showed more energy in the second half. What seemed lacking in flow and decision-making was made up for during the start of the second half.
Though they still struggled to keep their defense steady, the Dream put together a stronger showing and offered a little hope as the clock wound down.
On a bright note, Angel Reese reached her 28th double-double of the season. One more, and she will have the record for the most WNBA double-doubles in a single season.
Top performers
Dream
Rhyne Howard: 26 PTS, 6 REB, 1 AST
Angel Reese: 16 PTS, 16 REB, 6 AST
Allisha Gray: 11 PTS, 3 AST
Jordin Canada: 11 PTS, 1 REB, 6 AST
Naz Hillmon: 10 PTS, 9 REB, 2 AST
Fire
Carla Leite: 26 PTS, 6 AST
Emily Engstler: 25 PTS, 6 REB
Megan Dileo: 16 PTS, 5 REB
Highlight of the night
Back-to-back 3-pointers from Rhyne Howard with a little over five minutes left in the third quarter cut the Dream’s deficit by seven points and changed the momentum in the arena. These were just two of Howard’s six made shots from beyond the arc.
Quotable
“Well, they just wanted it more. Apparently, we weren’t prepared to play for the duration of the game. We didn’t really do much of anything to make any of their shots hard, and once you get confidence, it’s hard to slow the team down.” -Rhyne Howard on what went wrong throughout the matchup.
“You know, I just talked about, we should be building towards something. And we didn’t show up ready to play a basketball game, where you know we were coming off a really good stretch of winning four games in a row on the road, but you gotta … the other team was playing too well today, and even though we made some runs, we could never really fully catch up …. We should be playing playoff basketball now, and particularly that first quarter was not very good.” -Head coach Karl Smesko on his message to the team after the loss
“I just think it’s mentally being ready to compete. I think it’s human nature. You win a few games in a row, and you start to think you can do this, and you forget that, well, you did that by being locked in possession after possession and focusing on a game plan and those types of things … it’s easy not to remember how you played so well. You just think it happens, and it doesn’t. It takes a lot of work to play as well as we’ve played. Hopefully, we realize that. And I think everybody goes through some of these wake-up calls. This is not how we would like to do it, but now that it’s here, we’ve got an opportunity to play the best team in the league … And in truth, obviously, we’ll have to have a much better performance if we’re going to win. And the goal is to win.“ -Smesko on the team’s preparation for their next game against Minnesota
Correction
This story has been updated to correct Rhyne Howard's point total.