The Dallas Wings will look to improve their position in the upcoming WNBA playoffs when they host the Connecticut Sun on Sunday in Arlington, Texas.
It’s the final game for both teams before the two-week break for the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup, which will be held in Berlin beginning Sept. 4. Dallas guard Paige Bueckers and Connecticut forward Kennedy Burke will represent the United States and Turkey, respectively, in the competition.
Just 3 1/2 games separate the No. 3 and No. 8 seeds in the league standings, so there is still plenty to be decided. Dallas (23-16) is eighth in the table, a half-game behind New York, with five games remaining.
The Wings head back to the court after a 96-78 win over Portland on Tuesday that clinched a playoff berth for Dallas for the first time since 2023. It was the third straight win for the Wings, the fourth in their past six outings and broke their record for most wins in a campaign since the franchise moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex from Tulsa before the 2016 campaign.
Bueckers led the way with 22 points and 11 assists in the victory, marking the seventh time in an eight-game stretch that she’s been the team’s top scorer. Jessica Shepard added 21 points, Arike Ogunbowale scored 17 and Awak Kuier recorded 12 points and 12 rebounds for Dallas, her second double-double of the year.
The Wings are coming together at the right time and aim to enter the break with some momentum.
“(We) just put action behind our words,” Bueckers said about Dallas’s recent surge. “We all know how to play. But to really apply what we were talking about and do it on the court, even just watching film and our connectivity on defense … and holding each other accountable more, having the tough conversations. That’s what kind of stepped into our growth.”
The Sun (10-29) will not make the playoffs in their final season in Connecticut, as the franchise will move to Houston for the 2027 season and beyond. They travel to Texas after a 111-91 loss to Indiana on Friday and have dropped four of their past five games, falling to 14th place in the 15-team league, two games ahead of Seattle with five contests left.
Diamond Miller recorded 19 points in Friday’s setback, while rookie Nell Angloma tallied a career-high 17 points off the bench. Aaliyah Edwards and reserve Hailey Van Lith both added 12 points for Connecticut.
“We’re gonna try to control what we cannot control,” Sun coach Rachid Meziane said. “We still have to do a lot of things. We need to, we want to, give some more playing time to our own players. We want to develop them. We want to give them some, some minutes to express themselves. We need to assess players for the future. So we still have some goals, even if it’s not that to reach a playoff.”
The teams have played twice this year, with Dallas winning by three points on the road in July and by 20 at home on Aug. 2.
–Field Level Media
