Wings Things: Don’t look now, but the Dallas Wings have won three of their last four

The Wings toppled the Atlanta Dream, 68-55, on Wednesday with some of the best defense the team has played all season.

ARLINGTON, TX — The Atlanta Dream (10-5) levitated into College Park Center on Tuesday riding wins in nine of the team’s last 11 games after dropping two of their first three on the year. That hot stretch started with an 83-75 win over the Dallas Wings (4-12) in Atlanta on May 24. So it’s fitting, at least if you’re a Wings fan, that Dallas put the clamps on a Dream offense that head coach Chris Koclanes said in his pre-game comments served up “matchup nightmares everywhere,” in the Wings’ 68-55 get-back win the second time around.

Atlanta came into the game scoring the second-most points per game in the WNBA this year, but Dallas held them more than 30 points under their season average. The Wings held the Dream to just 15-of-64 (23.4%) from the field and just 7-of-34 (20.6%) from 3-point range in the win. You just wondered when the dam would break and the Dream would put together their run — but they never did.

“We had a different intensity about us right from the get-go,” Koclanes said. “To hold [Atlanta] under 20 points in all four quarters — that is a crazy effort. I know they missed shots they normally make, but we had a crazy intensity, really battled, really contested everything.”

The Wings have been a revelation over the last week — going 3-1 in their last four games and growing leaps and bounds from the version of the team that consistently battled for three quarters then fell apart in close losses, if they weren’t being blown out, over the first quarter of the 2025 season.

The Dream defense tested the limits of allowable physicality against Wings’ rookie phenom Paige Bueckers, holding her to just 12 points on 6-of-15 shooting on the night. Bueckers came into the matchup having scored 20 or more points in her last three games and in four of her last five, including a 35-point outburst in the Wings’ 93-80 loss at the Phoenix Mercury on June 11. But in the battle of wills this thing turned into down the stretch, Bueckers, Arike Ogunbowale and newcomer to the team Li Yueru made a handful more plays than did the Dream’s more All-Star-laden lineup featuring Alisha Gray, Rhyne Howard, Brionna Jones and Brittney Griner.

Ogunbowale led all scorers with 21 points in the win, and Yueru notched her first double-double (10 points, a game-high 15 rebounds) in a Wings uniform since being traded to the team on June 14. Yueru outrebounded Griner 15-6 in the win.

“[Yueru] did not back down,” Koclanes said. “She’s just really smart and physical, really good with her positioning. I’m just really proud that she stepped up and answered that call.”

Ogunbowale iced the game with a drive past Jones for a slick runner with a little over a minute left that gave Dallas a 66-55 lead as the Dream tried to come back late.

The first quarter was a battle against futility until the Wings broke the stalemate after both teams combined to start the game 5-of-27 from the floor. With about three minutes to play in the opener, the Wings woke up. Bueckers broke down Maya Caldwell’s up-close-and-personal brand of defense with a series of shimmies, shakes and spins to create a little room for her leaner in the lane that gave Dallas a 14-10 edge with 1:14 left in the first. That bucket sparked a 9-0 Wings’ run to end the first and take a 19-10 lead after one.

This one wasn’t always pretty, but it could mark an inflection point for this young Wings team. They’ve had a real shot at winning each of their last six games, including Sunday’s overtime heartbreaker at the Washington Mystics. It’s still an uphill trudge ahead if the Wings want to make a push toward relevancy this year.

But there are signs of life in this bunch. Holding a team with the firepower the Dream have to a season-low 55 points is just the latest.

“I think we’re finally getting over that hump,” Ogunbowale said. “We’ve just been sticking with it, trusting each other and trusting our coaches. Hopefully more wins come.”