The nearly wire-to-wire win was Dallas’ fifth victory in its last seven games after starting the season 1-11.
All season long, Dallas Wings head coach Chris Koclanes has highlighted a theme in his press conferences: fans hadn’t seen Dallas play well for a full game. The team showed glimpses during their recent hot streak, but Koclanes always noted the room for growth for his young squad.
On Thursday, they showed just how much they’ve grown in the season’s first 19 games.
Dallas led nearly wire-to-wire over the league’s second best team — a 12-5 Phoenix Mercury squad led by All-Star Satou Sabally, former MVP Alyssa Thomas, and 2024 All-WNBA selection Kahleah Copper — in a dominant 98-89 victory at College Park Center.
“We came out and we established right from the tip how physical we were going to play and that we were going to set the tempo,” Koclanes said. “Phoenix had been coming in with the second fastest [tempo], our tempo has dropped a little over the month of June, but we talked about wanting to get our pace.”
Rookie guard Aziaha James had a career-high 28 points, six rebounds and six assists, while Paige Bueckers, WNBA’s Rookie of the Month in June, had an efficient 23 points, four rebounds and five assists. JJ Quinerly added 17 points of her own as the rookie triplet of guards tore apart Phoenix’s defense — which had been holding teams to 79.3 points per game this season, fourth-lowest in the league.
“It’s really fun to play team basketball like this where any given night, it can be anybody’s night,” Bueckers said.
Koclanes said the team had good intentions early, playing inside-out basketball knowing they’d have a size advantage. The team ran two-center lineups all game with Teaira McCowan, Luisa Geiselsoder, and Li Yueru splitting time. That size gave Dallas flexibility to play different offensive schemes and throw multiple defensive gameplans at Phoenix’s big 3.
The team’s energy was palpable and Koclanes said the team was feeding off each other all night.
“We’re going to capture that, we’re going to build on it, and we’re going to keep moving forward,” he said. “And as [Paige] said, stick to the process,”
With the win, Dallas improves to 6-13 on the season and is just three games back of the eighth seed after starting the season 1-11. Bueckers said the team knew they had performances like Thursday’s in them all year and believes the team’s record could be flipped if the Wings were able to close out a few close losses early on.
Now, Dallas is figuring it out and they’re quickly becoming a team no one wants to face. The combination of size, guard quickness, and defensive communication makes it hard for any team to match up with. Dallas is confident and they’re playing with the swagger of a team that knows they’ve found their true identity.
“We want to play like we’re hunting teams and are being hunted at the same time,” Bueckers said.
On Monday, they’ll likely be the team in the latter position. Dallas will travel to Phoenix for a rematch, a matchup Koclanes is looking forward to.
“Tonight was a great night, now we turn around and go to Phoenix and you can just guess what kind of effort you’re going to get from them. They’re licking their lips that they get us right away, so that’ll be a great test for a young group: How do you respond on the road to a team you just took care of at home? I’m looking forward to that,” Koclanes said.