Brittney Griner recorded 17 points and four blocks off the bench to fuel the visiting Atlanta Dream to an 88-72 victory over the Connecticut Sun on Wednesday in Uncasville, Conn.
Griner made 7 of 11 shots from the floor in the regular-season finale for the Dream (30-14), who won their sixth straight game to move ahead of the red-hot Las Vegas Aces (29-14) in the race for the No. 2 seed.
Atlanta will clinch that seed if Las Vegas sees its franchise-best 15-game winning streak come to a halt against the host Los Angeles Sparks in the teams’ season finale on Thursday. The Aces own the tiebreaker over the Dream by virtue of sweeping the season series.
Rhyne Howard scored 15 points while Allisha Gray and Brionna Jones added 13 each for Atlanta, which completed a home-and-home sweep of Connecticut. The Dream shot a sizzling 54.1 percent from the floor and held a 34-10 edge in points off the bench.
Marina Mabrey scored 22 points and Saniya Rivers added 16 for the Sun (11-33), who made 3 of 20 shots from 3-point range.
Connecticut’s Tina Charles scored nine points to boost her total to a franchise-best 700 on the season. Charles sank a jumper from the top of the arc late in the second quarter to pass DeWanna Bonner (697) for the record.
The Sun trimmed a 23-point halftime deficit to nine points at 65-56 following Rivers’ layup with 2:18 remaining in the third quarter. Atlanta, however, scored nine of the next 11 points to bridge the third and fourth quarters. The Dream were not seriously threatened the rest of the way.
Howard connected from beyond the arc with 7:38 remaining in the first quarter to become just the ninth player in WNBA history — and first member of the Dream — to make 100 3-pointers in a single season.
Howard added another 3-pointer and Nia Coffey connected from long range just before the buzzer to propel Atlanta to a 31-13 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Griner scored a team-high six points in the second quarter to help Atlanta push its advantage to 51-28 at halftime.
–Field Level Media
