DALLAS, TX — Jessica Shepard dominated the first half for the Dallas Wings (21-16), then Arike Ogunbowale took over down the stretch as the Wings put together their best game in more than a month in Thursday’s 91-85 win over the Indiana Fever (24-13) in front of 20,297 fans at American Airlines Center.
Kelsey Mitchell may have led all scorers with 36 points in the loss, but Ogunbowale scored 25 of her team-high 32 in the second half as the Wings came into the game losers of seven of their last nine.
Awak Kuier opened the scoring with a nice dribble drive past Makayla Timpson less than a minute into the game, but Caitlin Clark nailed her first 3-pointer at AAC as a professional the next time down. Clark missed both of the Wings-Fever matchups in Dallas last year as injuries marred her second WNBA season.
Clark is back with a vengeance this season, averaging better than 22 points and eight assists per game as the Fever have climbed all the way to third in the standings. Indiana had won five straight games and 10 of their last 12 coming into Thursday’s game against the Wings.
Kuier found Jessica Shepard for her second bucket of the game later in the first, then sent a driving attempt from Kelsey Mitchell into the stands on defense the next time down to keep it a 13-8 game midway through the frame.
Kuier set the tone early, then Shepard almost single-handedly kept the Wings in the game for the rest of the first. She shot 5-of-6 from the field for a game-high 11 points, including a nifty turnaround over Timpson with about a minute left in the quarter to keep Dallas within 22-18. Indiana took that four-point lead into the second.
While the Fever defense keyed on Paige Bueckers, as has everyone else in the W this year, Shepard ran amok on the interior throughout the first half. She finished the first half with a game-high 22 points, but no one on the Wings’ roster appeared to have any interest in trying to slow down Kelsey Mitchell, either.
Mitchell led Indiana with 21 points at the break, and the game was tied at halftime, 42-42.
The Clark vs. Bueckers battle never really broke out, as they both scored just five points in the first half. Kuier put the Wings back in front, 45-44, early in the third with her second 3-ball of the game. Clark hit a fadeaway jumper over Bueckers with 6:19 left in the third to give the Fever a 49-47 lead, then blocked a Maddy Siegrist transition layup attempt less than a minute later to preserve Indiana’s slim lead.
Clark finished with 10 points on just 4-of-15 shooting in the loss.
If the first half was Shepard’s, the third quarter belonged to Arike Ogunbowale. She put up 15 points in the frame as the Wings were finally able to wrestle control of the game away from a quality opponent for the first time in more than a month.
Frustration sets in
Beuckers started the game just 2-of-9 from the field, and frustration began to set in early in the third quarter. After being whistled for her third foul a little more than two minutes into the second half, Bueckers argued the call and got whistled for a technical foul, just like Ogunbowale did earlier.
Bueckers has made a habit of starting games slowly this season and then exploding for incredible numbers in the third and fourth quarters. She picked up her fourth foul with 1:29 left in the third, before connecting on her toughest attempt of the game, a contested leaner with 1:20 left in the frame that put the Wings up 63-58.
Bueckers rested to start the fourth before playing the final 7:35. She immediately got to work despite the rough sledding through the first three quarters, pulling up for a mid-range jumper in her first possession back on the floor that gave the Wings a 74-64 lead. Her next pull-up with 6:42 to play made it 76-67 and forced Fever head coach Stephanie White into a timeout with the game in the balance.
She finished with a halfway respectable 14 point-eight assist line.
5,000/1,000 club
With her first bucket of the game, a pull-up jumper near the nail with 2:36 left in the opening frame, Ogunbowale became the third-fastest player in WNBA history to reach 5,000 points and 1,000 assists. She’s always been a volume shooter, as Wings fans well know, but when they start going down, it’s a thing to behold.
Ogunbowale went 1-of-4 in the first and was called for a technical foul 15 seconds later while arguing a foul call on the other end of the floor. The eighth-year guard had a nice seven-game stretch of 17 or more points back in July, but has been spotty on offense since.
Ogunbowale started to heat up in the third, scoring a pair of nifty buckets inside before stepping back for her first 3-pointer of the game with 4:30 left in the frame to briefly move Dallas back in front, 52-51. She banked one in over Clark with 3:50 left in the third to tie it again at 54-54, then turned around in the lane the next time down for another fading bucket to give the Wings back the lead.
She scored through Mitchell’s foul with 2:53 left in the third and completed the three-point play, to give Dallas its biggest lead of the game, 59-54. Ogunbowale scored 15 in the third quarter on 6-of-8 shooting from the field to lift the Wings into control.
She got free for another 3-pointer with 5:45 left to play to extend the Dallas lead to 10, up 79-69, in one of the most impressive halves of basketball we’ve seen from Ogunbowale in the last couple of seasons. She pulled up over Clark again the next time down to make it 81-70. She scored 22 of her team-high 29 points in the second half on a night when the Wings desperately needed her leadership and scoring punch.
Big lineup, big results
There just may be something to the big lineup featuring Kuier, Shepard and Alanna Smith in the frontcourt. They came into the game having played zero minutes together yet this season, but Kuier and Shepard especially got after it in the first half.
Kuier blocked five shots in the first half, including on Clark’s drive to the hoop early in the second quarter, and nailed her first 3-point attempt of the game later in the frame. That make put the Wings up 33-32, the team’s first lead since Kuier made the first bucket of the game. The crowd erupted at her fourth blocked shot, again against Timpson, who couldn’t shake loose of Kuier, inside.
Meanwhile, Shepard was a wrecking ball inside on offense. She was set to maximum efficiency, shooting 10-0f-11 for 22 first-half points. She could have done even more damage, but she went just 1-for-6 at the free throw line to start the game.
Kuier finished the game with a new career-high mark of seven blocked shots, to go along with 11 points and eight rebounds. Her last block came with 2:58 left to play as Mitchell tried to slice through the lane and cut into Dallas’ 83-72 lead. Starting three bigs was just what the doctor ordered against the Fever on Thursday.
Shepard made her first field goal of the second half on the Wings’ first possession of the fourth quarter, a little baseline jumper that gave Dallas its biggest lead of the game, up 68-61 with 9:20 to play. She finished with 26 points and eight boards for the Wings.
