{"id":130203,"date":"2025-09-09T02:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T02:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130203\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T02:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T02:39:10","slug":"dream-beat-sun-87-62-as-karl-smesko-breaks-wnba-record-for-most-wins-by-a-first-year-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/130203\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream beat Sun 87-62 as Karl Smesko breaks WNBA record for most wins by a first-year head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. (AP) \u2014 Rhyne Howard scored 18 points, Allisha Gray added 15 and Atlanta beat the Connecticut Sun 87-62 on Monday night, giving the Dream’s Karl Smesko a WNBA-record 29 wins for the most by a first-year coach.<\/p>\n

Atlanta (29-14), which won its fifth straight game, moved past Last Vegas (28-14) for sole possession of second place. The Dream close the regular season on Wednesday at Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Atlanta led 45-40 late in the first half before Saniya Rivers banked in a long 3-pointer for Connecticut just before the halftime buzzer. The Dream’s lead was just 52-49 with 5:56 left in the third quarter before closing on a 16-3 run for a 16-point advantage.<\/p>\n

The Sun scored nine points in the third and 10 in the fourth.<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon had 14 points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals for Atlanta. Maya Caldwell added 11 points and Brittney Griner scored 10.<\/p>\n

Rivers scored 16 points, Aneesah Morrow had 13 points and 14 rebounds, and Tina Charles scored 12 for Connecticut (11-32), which dropped to 4-18 on the road this season.<\/p>\n

Rivers made two 3-pointers in the first half to set Connecticut\u2019s rookie record with 42 3-pointers in a single season.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE PARK, Ga. (AP) \u2014 Rhyne Howard scored 18 points, Allisha Gray added 15 and Atlanta beat the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[4643,52985,505,23311,49,48,3458,43808,15706,39661,6740,12932,82,2047,43807,8611,630],"class_list":["post-130203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-allisha-gray","tag-aneesah-morrow","tag-atlanta","tag-brittney-griner","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-connecticut-sun","tag-karl-smesko","tag-maya-caldwell","tag-naz-hillmon","tag-rhyne-howard","tag-saniya-rivers","tag-sports","tag-sun","tag-the-dream","tag-tina-charles","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}