ARLINGTON, TX — The Dallas Wings (19-11) took care of business against an even more depleted version of the last-place Connecticut Sun (7-23), 83-63, on Sunday at College Park Center. Jessica Shepard and Arike Ogunbowale paced the Wings with 15 points apiece as the starting unit got the fourth quarter off in the blowout win.
It took just a couple of minutes for the Wings to find a rhythm offensively early on against the Sun, but when they did, they ran off nine quick points behind a couple of inside
finishes from Jessica Shepard and an Azzi Fudd 3-pointer. Shepard freed Fudd up on a clever screen exchange to give Dallas an early 7-5 lead.
But even without Center Brittney Griner (left knee), Connecticut had a little something for Dallas to start the game. They sent double-teams at Paige Bueckers every time she touched the ball, hit a couple of early 3-pointers and looked keen on making a game of it.
Bueckers and Shepard scored six apiece in the first and the Wings took a 22-16 lead after one.
Arike Ogunbowale drove downhill and scooped home her second bucket of the game to open the second, then Aziaha James scored on the next two Wings possessions to put Dallas up 28-20. After Diamond Miller scored over Bueckers on a baseline jumper to cut the lead to three, Ogunbowale launched her first 3-pointer of the game on the other end and canned it despite the hand in her face to make it 31-25 Wings midway through the second.
Fudd started to heat up as the second quarter rolled on. She came off a barrage of screens on back-to-back possessions with under a minute left in the half to get open for another pair of 3-pointers to extend the Dallas lead into double digits.
When Ogunbowale and Fudd are firing at will along the perimeter, and when Shepard is the constant for the Wings, cleaning things up and taking advantage of easy scoring opportunities inside, the Wings can withstand a quarter or even a half when Diamond Miller gets the better of Bueckers, as she did in the second on Sunday. Miller led all scorers with 14 points after she hit her second 3-ball of the game late in the second, in between those two late Fudd 3-pointers. She got past Bueckers a couple times on drives and connected on a couple of jumpers over Bueckers as well. Miller was the primary defender on Bueckers on the other end, as the Sun held the Wings’ superstar to 0-of-3 shooting from the field in the second.
Miller had a swim through Dallas last season after coming over in the trade deadline deal that sent Dijonai Carrington to the Minnesota Lynx and came into the game averaging nine points per contest. Still, despite it all, the Wings took a 48-37 lead into the locker room.
Dallas pushed the pace throughout the third to push the lead to 21, up 66-45 after two free throws from Odyssey Sims late in the quarter. Then James drove and kicked to Awak Kuier for a baseline jumper to extend it to 23 with less than a minute left in the frame. Kuier scored again on a nice find from Bueckers before the third was finished and had a nice little game off the bench on Sunday after being replaced in the starting lineup by Alanna Smith.
Dallas led 72-45 at the end of three and cruised to the win with little to no resistance from the Sun the rest of the way.
Stop the bleeding
The Wings needed this scheduled win after dropping their first two games out of the WNBA All-Star Break. Dallas had won seven of eight going into the break before stumbling against the Atlanta Dream and at the Washington Mystics.
The playoff race is starting to take shape, and Sunday’s win over Connecticut keeps Dallas firmly in contention for a top-four seed with 14 games left on the regular season schedule. Of course, the Wings had occupied fourth place in the WNBA standings for most of the year before dropping their last two games coming into Sunday’s win. They came into Sunday’s game a half-game behind the Indiana Fever for fifth and moved into a tie with the Fever after beating Connecticut.
Every close win and close loss will be magnified from here on out, so it was good for this team’s psyche to get one in the win column with out so much exertion in the clutch.
Fudd around
The Sun found out about Fudding around along the baseline with No. 35 in white as the primary defender on Sunday. She uses the baseline as an extra defender so well. High school coaches everywhere need to rip film of Fudd forcing turnovers from Sun forwards Kennedy Burke and Saniya Rivers along the baseline.
Her defense is a weapon, often leading to fast-break opportunities on the other end. Fudd was a prototypical 3-and-D guard on Sunday, shooting 4-of-5 from long range and finishing with two steals and a blocked shot in the win over the Sun.
The rook finished with 12 points as she and the rest of the starting five took the fourth quarter off in the win.
