The Dallas Wings look to move up in the standings and inch closer to clinching a playoff spot when they host the scuffling Seattle Storm on Sunday afternoon in Arlington, Texas.
The Wings (21-16) carry considerable momentum into the clash following a rousing 91-85 home win over Indiana on Thursday. That victory snapped Dallas’s two-game losing streak and allowed it to move closer to seventh-place Washington in the standings.
Arike Ogunbowale led the way for Dallas in Thursday’s win with 32 points, with Jessica Shepard scoring a career-high 26, Paige Bueckers hitting for 13 and Awak Kuier adding 11 points and a franchise-record seven blocked shots.
“We’ve been on a little skid here and we wanted to make sure that we showed up and put together 40 minutes,” Shepard said after Thursday’s win. “We still had a couple minutes in there probably that we could’ve been better as a team … just keep learning every game and hopefully get some more wins.”
Ogunbowale’s production in the victory pushed her past 5,000 career points, allowing her to become the third-fastest player in WNBA history to reach 5,000 points and 1,000 assists.
A Wings win would all but assure them a spot in the postseason and close the gap on the seventh-place Mystics with six games remaining. Dallas will be without top draft pick Azzi Fudd for the rest of the year because of a knee injury that will require surgery next week.
“Azzi brought so much on the defensive end because she had the assignment to guard the other team’s best perimeter player,” Dallas coach Jose Fernandez said. “So that moves some things around for us in regards to how we’re guarding individually and where we’re bringing help from.”
The Storm (7-30) continue to slog through a difficult campaign that has seen them drop two straight and 12 of their past 13 outings. Seattle is in last place in the standings, three games below Connecticut at the start of WNBA play Saturday and already eliminated from postseason contention with seven games remaining.
Seattle’s most recent game was an 82-80 loss at home to Chicago on Aug. 16, with Dominique Malonga racking up 19 points and 13 rebounds and Ezi Magbegor scoring 17 points for the Storm. The loss ended a three-game homestand in which Seattle went 1-2; both defeats were by two points.
The Storm hope they found some answers during their seven-day respite.
“We don’t want to be a team that just gives up, and I don’t think we ever have been this season,” Magbegor said. “And so, whether it’s a five- to 21-point deficit, we’re always going to stay locked in games. But I think it just comes down to not wanting to be in a 21-point deficit.”
Dallas has won the first two games of the season series with the Storm, posting a 79-56 decision at home on June 1 before surviving a 112-110 overtime game in Seattle on June 22. The teams will play once more after Sunday — on Sept. 23 in the Emerald City in their respective regular-season finales.
–Field Level Media
