There was no denying the giant step forward the Dallas Wings had made, even as an elated group of Valkyries leapt skyward in celebration, and Paige Bueckers’ head sank, eyes closed along the sideline at Chase Center after Golden State outlasted Dallas down the stretch of Game 3 of their first-round WNBA Playoff series, 77-73, on Friday.
Bueckers immediately installed herself as the unflinching constant for these Dallas Wings, as early as in her first game as a pro, when she whipped an electric no-look
pass 40 feet to a waiting teammate underneath the basket on one of her very first touches in the WNBA at College Park Center in May 2025 against the Minnesota Lynx. She increased her scoring average (20.9 points per game) by nearly two points in year two and filled out the stat sheet a little more in other pertinent columns (5.9 assists, 4.1 rebounds per game), in an effort that led her teammates and head coach to campaign for her candidacy for a first-teal All-WNBA nod after the Game 3 loss.
All of which made Bueckers’ 6-of-27 disappearing act from the field in the final two games of the series that much more of a head-scratcher. Though her 17-point, six-assist line in Game 3 looked halfway decent on paper, it came on the second straight night when the Valkyries’ No. 1 defense in the W made Bueckers work for every touch, let alone every bucket.
“Paige is taking it hard,” Wings head coach Jose Fernandez said after Game 3. “She carries that load. She’s a winner. This series shouldn’t have any inkling on the kind of season she had for us. We don’t get to this point without Paige. She takes a lot of ownership and carries a heavy load. The great ones do.”
Bueckers was the only Dallas wing who showed up to Game 1 of the series, trying to drag the rest of the lethargic roster toward anything vaguely resembling respectability on her way to 21 points on 9-of-10 shooting and six assists in a blowout 104-80 loss. She only got up 10 shots because she only played 25 minutes in that laugher.
The Valkyries made a conscious decision to take Bueckers away in the rest of the series. Kaila Charles, who had two separate cups of coffee with the Wings last season on temporary hardship contracts before ultimately being waived by Dallas and signing with Golden State in August 2025, proved to be one of the key defenders glued to Bueckers throughout the series, limiting the budding superstar to just three field goals in each of the next two games.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall of whatever room Curt Miller and Greg Bibb were squirming in while watching the overly motivated defender they tossed on the heap a year ago lock down the Wings’ best offensive weapon in the two highest-stakes games the franchise has sniffed in over two years.
Charles, Tiffany Hayes and Gaby Williams all had a hand in putting the clamps on Bueckers, who became more and more timid with the ball as the defensive pressure ratcheted up one notch after another. She shot just 3-of-13 for 10 points in Game 2 before backing that up with a 3-for-14 performance in the deciding Game 3.
Bueckers was dejected in the Game 3 post-game press conference, even as Fernandez and Arike Ogunbowale praised her effort against some of the toughest matchups the league’s best defense could throw her way. Bueckers found ways to make a few plays, especially in the first half of Game 3, and continued to play really good defense down the stretch, but to have back-to-back single-possession games in back-to-back stinkers for the team’s best player was something that Dallas ultimately couldn’t get past.
The next step in Bueckers’ development into the superstar she seems destined to become will be to use this disappointing first-round exit as a springboard to another level of killer instinct in the biggest moments of the year.
She’s already proven her ability to carry a heavy load in this league. Now she needs to sharpen the killer instinct fans know she already possesses into something that can cut through a league-leading defense.
The great ones to that, too.
