What toughness and what a night for the Atlanta Dream.<\/p>\n
Allisha Gray scored the Dream\u2019s last five points, including a jumper in the final seconds, to lift her team to an 82-81 victory over Dallas on Wednesday at College Park Center.<\/p>\n
The Dream, which trailed by as many as 15, won despite missing 15 of 16 3-pointers. The one it hit, by Rhyne Howard, was important in sparking her team in the fourth quarter. The Dream outscored Dallas 30-17 in that period to win its fourth consecutive game.<\/p>\n
Trailing 81-77, Gray was fouled by Arike Ogunbowale, who was called for a flagrant type 1, while shooting a 3-pointer. Gray hit all three free throws to put her team within one, 81-80, with 18.8 seconds left. Because of the flagrant foul, Atlanta also got back the ball. Gray scored again with a 12-foot jumper to give her team its final lead with 15 seconds left.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach drew it up, said go get the ball and go score, and that\u2019s what I did,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n
Atlanta\u2019s defense forced Dallas to miss two shots on its final possession to complete the season sweep.<\/p>\n
Gray finished with a game-high 25 points, including all nine of her free throws. Angel Reese had 22 points with 12 rebounds, Bri Jones added 11 points and Isobel Borlase 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them before the game, \u2018we gotta walk that walk,\u2019\u201d Reese said. \u201cAnd I feel like we hadn’t done that the first half of the season, knowing how good we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atlanta entered the fourth quarter trailing 64-52. The Dream trailed by as many as 15 in the third but six points from Borlase near the end of the period kept her team in the game. The Dream was 0-for-13 on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
Dream Head Coach Karl Smesko said the team needed to pick up its pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t moving the ball all that well for 2\u00bd quarters,\u201d Smesko said.<\/p>\n
Reese\u2019s continued good movement, Gray\u2019s aggressiveness, and better screens helped spark the offense, Smesko said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody was connecting better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Howard converted a three-point play to get the Dream within five, 70-65, with 5:44 left.<\/p>\n
A running layup by Gray got the Dream back to within five, 76-71, with 3:39 left.<\/p>\n
Canada and Gray saw shots on consecutive possessions roll around the rim and out that would have put the Dream within a 3-pointer of tying the game.<\/p>\n
Two Reese free throws with 1:57 remaining finally got Atlanta within three, 76-73.<\/p>\n
Paige Bueckers grabbed an offensive rebound and hit a step-back 3-pointer over Reese to increase the Dream\u2019s gap to six.<\/p>\n
Jones missed a layup on Atlanta\u2019s next possession.<\/p>\n
Atlanta forced a shot-clock violation to give itself another chance to stay in the game with 45 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
Canda was fouled by Li Yueru and hit one of two free throws to cut Atlanta\u2019s deficit to 79-74 with 38.8 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
Dallas\u2019 Jessica Shepard missed two free throws, and Howard hit a 3-pointer, Atlanta\u2019s first, to put Atlanta within two, 79-77, with 25 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gave us hope,\u201d Smesko said.<\/p>\n
Bueckers answered with two free throws, and Atlanta trailed 81-77 with 23 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
That set up Gray\u2019s game-winning heroics. Gray said the jumper was easier than the three free throws because there was no one around her when she was at the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like when my number was called, I was ready for the moment,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What toughness and what a night for the Atlanta Dream. Allisha Gray scored the Dream\u2019s last five points,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-391597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}