ARLINGTON, TX — Say what you will about Arike Ogunbowale’s tendency to play hero ball. In her eighth year with the Dallas Wings, she’s at very least had a lot of practice at it. Her latest act of heroism included shattering a WNBA playoff record for points scored in a single game in the Wings’ 108-100 Game 2 victory over the Golden State Valkyries in the first round of the WNBA Playoffs.
The Wings prayed over every desperation heave Ogunbowale could launch on Wednesday, and kissed by the basketball
gods, they just kept falling. Her biggest shot of the night came with four seconds left in the fourth quarter. The Wings trailed 93-90, and the long perimeter defenders the Golden State Valkyries had thrown in Paige Bueckers’ direction all night long had once again forced the ball from the hands of the second-year star.
Ogunbowale dribbled once, side-stepped and faded away along the sideline over the outstretched arm of Gabby Williams, whom Ogunbowale had been going bucket-for-bucket with all night long. That prayer was answered, sending the game into overtime. Then another miracle leaner fell, late in the shot clock on the Wings’ first possession of overtime, this one even more ridiculous than the baseline blessing. Ogunbowale saw the shot clock nearing absolute zero and leaned to her right, 27 feet in front of the basket, this time over the outstretched arm of Kaila Charles, to give Dallas a 96-93 lead with 4:30 left.
“I was going to shoot regardless,” Ogunbowale said.
Just two minutes later, though, Ogunbowale and Golden State guard Tiffany Hayes got tangled up after a play on the Golden State end of the floor, ending in flagrant fouls called on both players. At the end of the frakas, with both teams shooting a pair or free throws, the game was tied again, this time 100-100.
Arike came to rescue yet again. Center Kiah Stokes got switched onto Ogunbowale along the perimeter on the Wings’ next possession, and Ogunbowale crossed the bigger defender up. She stepped back for her fifth 3-pointer of the game to give Dallas a 103-100 lead with 1:30 showing on the clock. She had racked up 42 points to that point.
Ogunbowale would set a new WNBA playoff record with 45 points on 12-of-23 shooting (5-of-8 from 3-point range) before it was all said and done. She dragged the Wings to their first win over the Valkyries in five combined tries over the regular season and first round of the playoffs this year. On Sunday, Ogunbowale looked very ordinary, shooting just 2-of-7 from the field for 10 points in the Wings’ 104-80 Game 1 loss.
But she ruled over Game 2 with a blue-and-green fist.
“We knew she liked the step-back left,” Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase said of Ogunbowale’s step-back late in the fourth quarter. “It’s on the scouting report. That’s on me. She did a hell of a job.”
Alysha Clark, who played just 11 minutes per game in her 14th season, erupted for 21 points off the bench in a performance that came out of nowhere on the night the Wings needed someone, anyone to ride shotgun with Ogunbowale. The Valkyries held Paige Bueckers to just 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting three days after Bueckers was the only player who brought any juice at all for the Wings in Game 1.
“I’m so proud of our effort and the way we fought,” Clark said in her postgame interview over the College Park Center PA.
The Wings held an 84-83 lead midway through the fourth quarter when Janelle Salaum gave Bueckers a pump fake near the nail and canned a jumper to see-saw the Valkyries back in front for the final time. Kaila Charles, who spent part of last season with Dallas, cut to the basket the next time down for Golden State for an easy bucket that made it 87-84 with 3:32 left to play.
The valiant effort of the Wings’ elder stateswomen began to wobble, but only slightly. And to that point, Ogunbowale had made just two 3-pointers. She saved her fadeaway daggers for the decisive four seconds of regulation and the first 3:30 of overtime.
She’s been hitting contested step-back 3-pointers over long, rangy WNBA defenders since the Obama administration, so it shouldn’t come as that big a surprise that Ogunbowale served up a new WNBA playoff record in the Wings’ latest improbable comeback.
For the record, three WNBA players had scored 42 in a playoff game before Ogunbowale’s 43-point explosion on Wednesday: Napheesa Collier in 2024, Breanna Stewart in 2022 and Angel McCoughtry in 2010.
