The Atlanta Dream have once again continued their stint in the losing column after an 81-76 loss to the Washington Mystics, but is their showing on the court the full story?<\/p>\n
The Dream started on a surge, taking advantage of the Mystics\u2019 constant turnovers and scoring 21 points off them in the first half to take a 41-32 lead. Atlanta\u2019s offense picked up where it left off in the third, this time, however, at a slower pace as Washington woke up to answer back with more aggression and precision in the paint, giving the Dream a run for their money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re playing hard, we forced a ton of turnovers, we want offensive rebounds, but we do have to make some shots, and we haven\u2019t,\u201d head coach Karl Smesko said in the postgame press conference. \u201cWe\u2019ve been playing teams that have shot the ball extraordinarily well, especially from three\u2026we got to find a way to overcome it. We got to find a way to win, even when we don\u2019t shoot it well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The battle of the fourth-quarter teams was the name of Thursday\u2019s matchup as Washington slowed down Atlanta\u2019s offense, kept it close whenever the Dream responded and, even without leading scorer Soni\u0430 Citron on the floor, was able to make every field-goal attempt count down the stretch.<\/p>\n
Smesko explained that there were plays they had planned for the final seconds of the close game but didn\u2019t execute well. However, there were also pivotal officiating moments that didn\u2019t go the Dream\u2019s way near the end \u2014 specifically, an apparent five-second violation by Washington that instead resulted in a timeout being granted to Mystics head coach Sydney Johnson.<\/p>\n
Both the players and Smesko expressed their frustrations during the postgame press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were down two [points], so we would have gotten the ball back, but stuff like that is what\u2019s frustrating, because we did our job, and they need to do their job,\u201d Jordin Canada said after the game. \u201cBut again, I can get fined, I don\u2019t care, I\u2019m just saying refs need to be better, we obviously need to be better, I\u2019m not saying this is an excuse for our loss, but when you have things like this that happen in a momentum shift, that could be very frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canada also touched on the physicality of the game when it came to the way Atlanta was officiated compared to its opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how many times Angel [Reese] has to get beat up in the paint for her to get a foul called. It was blatant tonight, every time she had a fast break layup,\u201d Canada explained. \u201cShe was getting hacked in the paint, no foul calls. But the other way, like Rhy [Rhyne Howard] said, we can\u2019t play physical. Anytime we tried to play physical, it was always a foul call. So I think the officiating has to be better for some reason. Again, I don\u2019t know what Angel has to do. I don\u2019t know what we have to do to get a foul call, but I thought tonight was horrible. I thought all three refs were terrible.\u201c<\/p>\n
Howard also expressed that the team continues to work on ways to play through the adversity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard when only one team is allowed to play that way [physically]. I think we\u2019re doing the best we can to keep our composure\u2026but you know, at some point, something has to give\u2026we just have to figure out what we can continue to do, to make sure that things still go our way, even though it seems that people don\u2019t want it to.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Smesko was asked about the players\u2019 ability to keep their composure on the court, he admitted they weren\u2019t the only ones who had to stay calm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a hard time keeping my composure,\u201c Smesko said, shaking his head. \u201cI don\u2019t want to take anything away from Washington, because they play great, they shot it great, but the officiating is horrendous, and some of the things that I see out there are just borderline bizarre\u2026 some changes need to happen somewhere because the players are too good to get some of the calls that we\u2019re receiving right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think our players have a right to be frustrated with that [officiating], but I\u2019m not really optimistic anything\u2019s going to change, so we\u2019re going to have to figure out to win some games, despite, I would say, way subpar, way below what should be at the W level, officiating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smesko also explained that the team has had multiple meetings and conversations with the referees, during which there would be agreement on missed calls, yet no change would result from those discussions moving forward.<\/p>\n
On the bright side, Howard led all scorers with 24 points while adding two rebounds and three assists. Allisha Gray totaled 17 points, four rebounds and three assists while also reaching 1,500 career field goals. Angel Reese recorded yet another double-double with 13 points and 13 rebounds, and Canada finished with 10 points, three rebounds and seven assists while surpassing 400 career steals during Thursday night\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n
The Dream will look to snap their four-game losing skid when they return home to face the team that not only defeated them twice on the road but also started this difficult stretch, the Golden State Valkyries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people who started this whooping that we\u2019re getting, we\u2019re about to see them again, and either we\u2019re going to turn the page and get back to where we want to get to, or we\u2019re going to continue to endure it,\u201d Howard said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Dream have once again continued their stint in the losing column after an 81-76 loss to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[3444,355,99],"class_list":["post-741161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-atlanta-dream","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}