Nobody’s head would have spun during the season if you predicted the Atlanta Dream would be three wins away from competing for a championship.
Their opponent in the WNBA semifinals, however, is a bit of a stunner.
The fourth-seeded Dream will host the No. 8 New York Liberty on Sunday afternoon in Game 1 of a best-of-five series.
After matching last season’s franchise record with 30 regular-season wins, Atlanta breezed past the Washington Mystics by a combined 33 points in two first-round wins.
In search of the franchise’s first finals appearance since 2013, second-year head coach Karl Smesko has seen the puzzle pieces fall into place in another exceptional season.
“We knew we were a good team last year, but I was learning the (WNBA), they were learning the system and there were some stress points where maybe there wasn’t complete clarity in what we wanted to do,” Smesko said. “A year later, I think everybody just feels a lot more comfortable.”
In Atlanta’s first postseason series victory since 2016, Allisha Gray averaged 22.0 points and Rhyne Howard chipped in 20.5.
In the semifinals for the first time in her 10-year career, Gray is anything but satisfied.
“The biggest thing is staying locked in,” Gray said. “We know the job’s not done. Of course we were happy with the series victory, but now we’ve put it behind us and can focus on New York.”
It will be a confident New York team heading south to face Gray and company. The Liberty became the first No. 8 seed in league history to eliminate a No. 1, doing so in a two-game sweep of the Minnesota Lynx by a combined 32 points.
Under rookie head coach Chris DeMarco, New York was 13-12 on July 18 before winning 13 of its next 17. While the first-round upset of Minnesota may have caught some by surprise, DeMarco wasn’t the least bit shocked.
“I feel like we’ve been trending in the right direction for a while now and it doesn’t always show up in wins and losses,” DeMarco said. “But we were ready to play and we knew we had to be at our best at the end of September and October and I think we are right now.”
Breanna Stewart averaged 27.5 points across the two wins over Minnesota, while Sabrina Ionescu added 15.5 points and 6.5 assists per contest.
New York dropped two of three against Atlanta in the regular season, including consecutive losses to end the campaign on Sept. 21 and 23.
–Field Level Media
