Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Dream
Three nights after climbing off the mat once, the Atlanta Dream did it again — and this time they saved the real drama for the final 20 seconds.
Allisha Gray scored the Dream’s last five points of the game, capped by a cold-blooded 12-foot jumper with 15 seconds on the clock, to lift Atlanta to an 82-81 win over Dallas on Wednesday night at College Park Center. It was a victory built on almost nothing going right for three quarters and everything going right when it mattered most — the kind of win that tells you more about a team’s spine than its shot chart.
And that shot chart was ugly. The Dream missed 15 of their 16 three-point attempts on the night. They trailed by as many as 15 points. They looked, for stretches, like a team headed toward a letdown loss on the road. Instead, they turned in a 30-17 fourth quarter, swept the season series from Dallas, and won their fourth straight game.
Gray’s Closing Kick
Nobody wrote the final chapter better than Gray. With Atlanta trailing 81-77 and the clock bleeding away, she drove into contact and was hit with a flagrant foul by Arike Ogunbowale while attempting a three. Gray calmly knocked down all three free throws to pull the Dream within one, and because the foul was flagrant, Atlanta kept the basketball. She didn’t need a second invitation — Gray got the ball right back and buried a 12-footer to put Atlanta up 82-81 with 15 seconds to go.
“Coach drew it up, said go get the ball and go score, and that’s what I did,” Gray said.
From there, it was on the defense to finish the job, and it did — forcing Dallas into two missed looks on the final possession to seal the sweep.
Gray finished with a game-high 25 points, going a perfect 9-for-9 from the free-throw line. Fittingly, she said the game-winning jumper actually felt easier than the free throws that set it up, since there was nobody around her at the line.
“I feel like when my number was called, I was ready for the moment,” she said.
Reese Backs Up Her Words
Angel Reese put together another strong all-around night, finishing with 22 points and 12 rebounds. Before the game, she’d challenged her team to match its own hype.
“I told them before the game, ‘we gotta walk that walk,'” Reese said. “And I feel like we hadn’t done that the first half of the season, knowing how good we are.”
For a half, it looked like the message hadn’t landed — Atlanta trailed 64-52 entering the fourth quarter and had gone 0-for-13 from three-point range through three quarters. But a late 6-point burst from Isobel Borlase kept the deficit manageable, and the Dream carried that lifeline into the final period.
Bri Jones added 11 points, and Borlase finished with 10 off the bench.
The Fourth-Quarter Surge
Atlanta’s turnaround wasn’t about one shot falling — it was about the ball finally moving. Head coach Karl Smesko said the slow start came down to pace and connectivity.
“We weren’t moving the ball all that well for 2½ quarters,” Smesko said. Once Reese’s movement, Gray’s aggressiveness and cleaner screens kicked in, the offense opened up. “Everybody was connecting better,” he said.
The comeback arrived in waves. Rhyne Howard’s three-point play cut the deficit to five. A Gray layup trimmed it to five again. Reese hit a pair of free throws to make it a three-point game with under two minutes left. Dallas answered — Paige Bueckers buried a step-back three over Reese to push the lead back to six — but Atlanta refused to fold, forcing a shot-clock violation to earn one more possession.
The Dream’s defense also created the space for the miracle finish. Rhyne Howard drilled Atlanta’s lone three of the night, its first make on 14 attempts, to cut the deficit to two with 25 seconds left. Bueckers split the difference with two free throws, setting the stage at 81-77 for Gray to take over.
“It gave us hope,” Smesko said of Howard’s triple — and hope was all Atlanta needed.
What’s Next
The win extends Atlanta’s win streak to four and completes a season sweep of Dallas, a signature response after trailing by double digits deep into the third quarter. With Gray’s closing burst and Reese’s continued double-double production, the Dream now carry real momentum — and a growing habit of finding a way — into their next stretch of games.
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