Angel McCoughtry has two goals for the rest of the year.
She wants to be 100 percent healthy when she plays in this summer's Olympic Games which begin in late July. And she wants to remain just as healthy for the second half of the WNBA season, which will resume on Aug. 17 after the completion of the Olympics.
Though the Dream's guard-forward said she could play against New York on Tuesday, she was not sure it would be a wise decision.
"I think I could because I'm a strong-willed person, but it wouldn't be smart," McCoughtry said. " ... I don't want any injuries, so I need to get this one together, build myself up and get it out of the way."
The WNBA's leading scorer at 22.7 points per game missed the Dream's last contest, a 75-73 defeat to Connecticut on Sunday, with an MCL sprain in her left knee sustained against Los Angeles last Friday. McCoughtry said the sprain was an aggravation of the same injury that plagued her much of last season.
"I was turned away and trapped in the center," McCoughtry said of the play on Friday. "I tried to pass out and when I jumped, I came down on someone's leg and it buckled and twisted somehow. As soon as I came down I was like, ‘Whoa, what's that?' I kept playing on it because I had the adrenaline to play through it."
On Saturday, however, McCoughtry could tell something was wrong when she couldn't bend her leg.
"I didn't know what the heck was going on, but I knew I couldn't play like this because it was hurting so bad," she said. "I've been doing so much shooting that I can bend it now, but I still feel uncomfortable laterally."
McCoughtry doesn't believe she will dress out on Tuesday, since she feels she would be a liability to the team.
"You've got to be able to plant and go, plant and go, and I'm not very strong [in that area] right now, so I think in one more week I should be ready," McCoughtry said.
Dream coach Marynell Meadors, who termed her star's status is "day-to-day," called the injury "unfortunate." But in the middle of the season, the team can't afford to slow down. That's why Meadors said she has not given any thought to sitting McCoughtry for a few precautionary games prior to the Olympics to make sure one of the United States' top players is operating at optimum efficiency.
"Absolutely not," said Meadors, who will be assistant on Geno Auriemma's U.S. women's basketball staff at the Olympics. "We're playing for the Atlanta Dream right now and she's one of our better performers. ... I'm not going to rest her. The Atlanta Dream is important. This is her job."
And McCoughtry wants basketball to remain her occupation for years to come. For her, missing one game like she did Sunday does not mean much in the grand scheme of things.
"It's always frustrating not being able to play, but I'm thinking about the longevity of my career," she said. "Am I going to stress out about not playing one game? I don't want to retire at 30 because I'm not taking care of my body."
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