Alaina Coates hadn’t even been through a full practice with the Dream before everyone left town for five days.

Coates arrived in Atlanta on July 21, while the Dream were on their way home from a road game at Washington. The following day’s scheduled practice became a shootaround after the team’s flight was delayed nearly three hours, and the day after that the Dream had a home game against Los Angeles.

That game was the Dream’s last game before the All-Star break. When they all came back together on Sunday, Coates had been in Atlanta for a week without fully practicing with her new team.

“It was tough,” Coates said Monday. “It was just so weird. Everything just happened to work out this way. It literally was like, I came down last Sunday, they did shootaround (Monday) because they got back so late Sunday. Game time (Tuesday), and then we’re gone for five days. I was like, ‘This is a lot,’ but I’ve made use of my time. I wanted to be able to come in and make as big of an impact as I can.”

Practice picked back up on Sunday, and Dream coach Nicki Collen can already tell — after just two practices — that Coates is settling right in.

“A lot of progress over two practices in terms of her learning the playbook,” Collen said. “Certainly, we’ll have a condensed playbook when she plays, but (she’s) beginning to understand why we do what we do and when we do it. And us learning to utilize her. I think she’s got the size and ability to score at the front of the rim, and we have to take advantage of that.”

It’s no secret that the Dream have struggled thus far this season. With 14 games left, if the Dream are going to put together a win streak, it needs to start soon.

“With 14 games left, we know that this first week out of the gate is really important,” Collen said. “7 of those 14 games are against teams that have single-digit wins. If we’re gonna make a run, we’ve got to make it right away. I just want to see us compete. I want to see kinda that team that we’ve built that’s more than capable of winning games in this league.”

The second half of the season for the Dream begins on Wednesday at Indiana. The Fever have just six wins, and the game offers the Dream a chance to get off to a good start against a team that is similarly struggling.

And adding Coates to the roster further helps with that. As a South Carolina alumna, she faced off against Teaira McCowan, who played at Mississippi State, multiple times in her college career. McCowan was one of the Fever’s best players the last time these two teams met.

“I think in a game where we’re gonna play against another young player in McCowan that Coates played against in college, definitely understands who she is, she gives us another weapon,” Collen said. “McCowan had 15 rebounds against us the last game. So, I think (Coates) gives us size. She really runs the court well at her size and is a finisher around the rim. I’m excited that she’s here in Atlanta with us.”

The first half of the year wasn’t pretty for the Dream. But Collen isn’t giving up on her team yet. If they can make a run to start the second half, the playoffs are within reach. The Dream are currently five games back from a playoff spot.

But if the Dream don’t start the second half hot and string together some wins, Collen and the coaching staff will have to turn their focus to the future rather than the rest of this season — and they aren’t ready to do that.

“We’ve gotta be in the mode that we have a sense of urgency,” Collen said. “If we don’t come out of the break and get it going right away, then we’re gonna be looking at what are we doing to build toward the future. We’re not prepared to turn the page yet on what can still be this season, right now.”