WASHINGTON — The Atlanta Dream’s 81-76 loss to the Washington Mystics Thursday night at CareFirst Arena was a microcosm of their season.
The Dream (12-8) forced 28 turnovers, five off the WNBA record, but lost the field goal percentage battle 55.4 to 36.3.
On the season, they lead the league in opponent turnover percentage (18.6) and turnovers forced per game (16.4), with four of their players in the top 10 in steals. However, they also sport the second-to-worst opponent field goal percentage (47.5)
and the fourth-to-worst field goal percentage (43.3)—not up to the standard of a championship contender, which the Dream purport to be.
Washington’s clip of 55.4 was well above the highest field goal percentage for a team this year, and Atlanta’s rate of 36.3 was well below the league worst.
The Dream have lost field goal percentage in each of their eight losses, and in six of those contests, they’ve won turnover margin. In the other two, they tied and lost the turnover battle by two, respectively. In addition to being the best at wreaking havoc defensively, they are No. 4 in the league at taking care of the ball with 12.6 turnovers per game; on Thursday, they committed 15 miscues to win the margin by 13.
On their current four-game losing streak, they’ve shot below their already-low season field goal average in each contest. Their shooting defense was decent in the first two losses (45 and 43.5 percent surrendered, respectively), but they allowed 60.3 percent on June 27 before Thursday’s Mystics game.
While these have been their strengths and weaknesses all year, it has never been as drastic as it was on Thursday.
It was their largest margin of defeat in field goal percentage (19.1) and two off their largest margin of victory in turnovers. When they won turnovers by 15 against the New York Liberty on June 11, they lost field goal percentage by 10.2, which is a lot, but comfortably below 19.1.
The Mystics (10-9) were missing their best player in Sonia Citron (knee soreness). While Washington has been proving they should be a favorite to make the playoffs, they are not as good as the Dream, even with Citron. Atlanta really should have won this game; they won the first meeting between the teams by a score of 109-77 on June 6 in College Park.
The Dream can only hope that this will be a wake-up call, alerting them in earnest of issues that have plagued them all season long.
Their defensive playmaking can single-handedly keep them in games. But, to win more consistently, they need to shoot better and allow less easy looks.
Watching the Dream’s defense in person was electric
The Dream’s Rhyne Howard is first in the W in steals per game at 2.6. They also have Jordin Canada (second, 2.1), Allisha Gray (fifth, 1.7) and Angel Reese (tied for 10th, 1.6).
Gray picked up her two Thursday swipes in the first 2:45 of the contest. Her first led to a Reese fast break layup attempt that Shakira Austin blocked at 7:58. Gray picked up the rebound, drew a foul and made 1-of-2 free throws. She then turned her second steal into her own fast break layup for a 10-6 Atlanta lead at 7:11.
Right away, you could see the explosiveness of the Dream’s defense and their hunger for steals.
It kept going, with one of the fastest players on the planet in Canada taking one the other way for a layup and 16-10 lead at 6:23.
Isobel Borlase recorded the next Atlanta steal at 5:08, but was called for traveling three seconds later. The Dream added a fifth steal in the first quarter courtesy of Reese, forcing 10 total turnovers in the opening frame.
They would induce nine more miscues in the second quarter before Washington got their act together, somewhat, only committing four in the third and five in the fourth. The Mystics are dead last in the league in turnover percentage (18), so this was the ultimate bad matchup for them.
At the 8:30 mark of the second frame, Naz Hillmon notched her lone steal of the contest, leading to a Reese transition layup that made it 28-25 Atlanta. Then, the steals queen, Howard, got involved with four of her five steals on the night coming over the final 4:35 of the period, including three over a stretch of 1:35. Two of the swipes led to points.
One turned into a Gray layup and tied the Dream’s largest lead of the contest at 38-28.
The other came eight seconds before the break; after a pass to Canada, Howard got the ball back and buried a triple with two ticks remaining, killing some Washington momentum and making it 41-32 at halftime.
Atlanta would add three more steals in the second half for a total of 13, comfortably above their league-leading average of 9.3.
Reese’s second steal led to a Borlase 3 that made it 47-38 Dream at 6:50 in the third. Then, at 4:57, Canada poked the ball away, made an amazing effort to save it along the left sideline before it went out of bounds and took it all the way to the basket for a 53-44 lead.
The Dream’s last steal of the night (Howard off an inbounds with 1.9 seconds to go in the game) was inconsequential as it only allowed for a Gray 3-point attempt with 0.3 remaining that would have cut it to two but wouldn’t have realistically given the team a shot at winning.
This underscores the importance of Atlanta cleaning up their issues in other areas.
The Mystics stunned Atlanta with their hot 3-point shooting
Washington (10-9) entered with a meager 3-point percentage of 29.5 (then-No. 14 in the league) and 5.8 makes per contest (also 14th). They also were missing their best 3-point shooter in Citron.
Yet, they managed to shoot 56.3 percent from beyond the arc with nine makes, above the league average of 8.5.
Austin, who was 7-for-35 (20 percent) in college and 3-for-20 (15 percent) across 2,328 WNBA minutes entering this season, improved to 9-for-21 (42.9 percent) across 523 minutes in 2026 with her eighth and ninth makes and no misses.
She hit from the left wing to cut it to 41-37 at the 7:39 mark of the third. She then made a step-back to cut it to 56-54 at 2:03 remaining in the frame. It was a huge effort for the Mystics from someone who is just now developing a 3-point shot, and it was devastating for the Dream.
Meanwhile, Alicia Flórez came in shooting 3-for-19 (15.8 percent) from deep, yet went 2-for-3, including a make that gave Washington a 74-71 lead with 3:30 remaining in the contest.
Cotie McMahon, a 29.6 percent shooter in college (but 37.4 percent as a junior and 37.8 percent this year with 14 makes) went 2-for-5.
Lucy Olsen, an end-of-the-bench player who is a decent 3-point shooter, cashed in on her one attempt, as did known 3-point shooter Georgia Amoore. Underscoring the Dream’s bad luck against mostly unknown 3-point threats, was the fact that Amoore’s banked in; it also came when Atlanta had a 10-point lead and was threatening to pull away.
Kiki Iriafen rounded out the Mystics with at least one trey, as she went 1-for-2. She made just six triples on 21 attempts in college and just two on 11 as a WNBA rookie in 2025, but is 7-for-20 (35 percent) this year.
Yes, some of this is bad luck, but the Dream should have been aware of the improvements that Austin, McMahon and Iriafen have made. Likely, they were, they just failed to close out. And while one night can be bad luck, the Dream’s poor 3-point defense is a trend.
Karl Smesko’s 3-point vision has yet to be fulfilled in the ATL
The Dream’s struggles to bother shooters more is one thing. But they are expected to be a great offense with the big stars that they have. They are expected to be especially good in the 3-point shooting department, seeing as their head coach, Karl Smesko, is known for that. At the very least, they should be getting up a lot of 3s, even if they’re not making them, because of Smesko’s dedication to that area of the game.
However, the Dream are shooting 1.8 fewer 3s than last year, sitting at No. 7 in the league in attempts per game at 26.6. Both this year (32.1 percent) and last year (33.7 percent) they have failed to be among the elite in efficiency, with this year’s mark being 11th in the league and last year being No. 8.
On Thursday, they managed to fulfill their mission of launching a lot of 3s with 31 attempts, which is tied for their fourth-most on the season and matches the league-leading Valkyries’ season average. However, they made just seven for 22.6 percent. Less makes than the woeful-from-3 Mystics on 15 more attempts.
Howard salvaged Atlanta’s pride with a 5-for-13 (38.5 percent) performance and Borlase was 1-for-2. But Hillmon was 1-for-5, including a miss that essentially decided the game; had it gone in, it would have given the team a one-point lead with 34 seconds remaining. Gray was 0-for-5, and Canada, Te-Hina Paopao and Sika Koné were all 0-for-2.
Gray is shooting 30.3 percent after shooting 38.4 percent last year. Meanwhile, Hillmon, whose elevation to decent 3-point shooter was key for the Dream last year, is shooting 27.1 percent. Of note, Gray was also 3-for-8 from the stripe on Thursday and is shooting well below her career clip of 80.7 percent at 73.3 percent.
Atlanta was decent from 3 in Smesko’s first season. Now, they are really struggling and need to turn it around. Here’s how Smesko summed up Thursday night:
I think we’re playing hard. We forced a ton of turnovers, we won offensive rebounds. But we do have to make some shots.
We’ve been playing teams that have shot the ball extraordinarily well, especially from 3. It’s another game where the opponent shoots 56 percent from 3. You know, we’ve probably had more banked-in 3s against us than any team in the league.
But we gotta find a way to overcome it. We gotta find a way to win even when we don’t shoot it well and the other team does. And we almost did that by winning possessions by the number we did. But weren’t able to execute down the stretch and get the kind of shots that we wanted.
Rhyne Howard confirmed her superstar status
To end on a positive note, I’ll point out that Howard’s ability to nearly lift her team to victory was inspiring.
She finished with a game-high 24 points and had three assists to go along with the five steals. I recently wrote about how she has ascended to superstar status this season, and she did not disappoint on Thursday.
While the Dream’s other top scorer in Gray has struggled with efficiency, Howard has enjoyed the most efficient season of her career. Gray is still more efficient inside the arc (52.6 to 49.1 percent), but Howard is getting it done with career-bests from downtown (36.8 percent) and the stripe (88.6 percent).
The rest of the team needs to follow Howard’s lead if they want to snap this four-game skid and become the championship contender they know they can be.
Canada is remaining confident, offering:
It’s up to us to figure out how we’re gonna come together. There’s been a lot of things that have not gone our way on this road trip, and, to be honest, throughout our season. But I think at the end of the day we’re gonna figure it out.
Canada and Howard were critical of the officiating, including of a Mystics timeout that was controversially granted late in the game after the initial call was a 5-second violation. But they also acknowledged that winning and losing comes down to them.
