The Dallas Wings will look to expand on their season-best five-game winning streak when they host the slumping New York Liberty on Thursday in Arlington, Texas.
The teams are on different paths in advance of their third and final meeting of the season. Dallas took the first two matchups, both in Brooklyn, including an 88-77 decision on July 7 that started the Liberty’s current three-game losing streak.
The Wings (16-8) return to the floor after a gritty 96-91 win over Chicago on Sunday in a game played at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Paige Bueckers led the way with 22 points and 11 assists in that victory, while Jessica Shepard finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds, Arike Ogunbowale had 17 points, Azzi Fudd scored 16 and Li Yueru racked up 10 points and 10 boards.
Dallas won despite trailing by 10 points in the third quarter.
“We’re still continuing to find our identity,” Bueckers said. “We’re not perfect, and (the win over Chicago) wasn’t even close to our best game. But we stuck together, dug in, found a way to win, and I think that’s really been the key.”
Sunday’s performance marked just the third time in Wings history, and the first since July 31, 2018 (also at home against Chicago), that three Dallas players produced a double-double in the same game.
The victory pushed Dallas to its longest winning streak since the 2023 season — the most recent time the Wings have made the postseason. A triumph on Thursday would earn Dallas its longest winning streak since the 2015 campaign, when it forged eight consecutive wins early in the year and later six straight before bowing out in the first round of the playoffs.
Bueckers earned WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week on Tuesday for the first time in her career after averaging 23.6 points per game, 7.4 assists and 5.8 rebounds as Dallas carried a 5-0 record during the stretch.
The Liberty, meanwhile, are struggling. They head to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex having dropped five of their past six games and seven of their last 10.
New York’s most recent outing was a 93-91 road setback to the Toronto Tempo on Sunday in which it rallied from 16 points down after three quarters to tie the game on Breanna Stewart’s layup with 1:30 to play. After Toronto took the lead, Stewart missed a contested layup with 8.6 seconds left on the Liberty’s final offensive possession.
Sabrina Ionescu scored 28 points to lead the Liberty (13-11) in the loss. Stewart had 22, Pauline Astier finished with 14 points and Jonquel Jones collected 10 points and 10 boards.
New York has trailed by at least 13 points at some juncture in five of its past seven games and has dropped all five of those contests.
“It’s a matter of will and want,” Ionescu said. “And I’d say everyone that stepped out (on the floor) in that second half, especially, played with a lot of assertiveness and tried to do everything you could to get a win.”
–Field Level Media
