In this week’s Bowman Beat, the Dream start the final part of the season with a pair of weekend games that show promise – is this the turnaround the Dream have been looking for?  I also look at the rest of the league and provide a new set of WNBA Power Rankings.

Minnesota Lynx 84, Atlanta Dream 82

If you were disappointed for the lack of fireworks in the 86-70 loss by the Dream to the Lynx in Minneapolis on July 31, you certainly wouldn’t be disappointed by Friday night’s game.  Maya Moore always has a crowd of family and friends waiting for her when she returns to Georgia, but Angel McCoughtry doesn’t like it when Moore gets cheers on Atlanta’s home turf.  Moore vs. McCoughtry is usually big, and it was extra-large this time.

It was so big that two players came back for it:  Sancho Lyttle returned to the Dream after suffering a plantar fascia tear earlier this season.  She made up for Tiffany Hayes, who sat out this game due to knee discomfort.  Seimone Augustus came back for her first start since arthroscopic surgery on her right knee.

Roneeka Hodges was forced to leave in the first quarter due to a calf strain, but the Dream looked like they were playing well enough without her.  The Lynx took the first-quarter lead but the Dream stayed right on their heels.  McCoughtry took the advantage in the battle versus Maya with six first-quarter points.   Forward Delisha Milton-Jones missed a long three pointer near the top of the arc at the buzzer as the Lynx hung on to a one-point lead after 10 minutes.

The second quarter started with a steal by Lyttle which Schimmel soon turned into a triple that put the Dream up 21-19.  The Dream would stay on top and extend their lead, switching from a zone defense to a man-to man and perplexing the Lynx.  Minnesota turned over the ball seven times during the quarter, errors which Atlanta turned into 12 points.  Minnesota’s set plays were working but McCoughtry was playing great defense and Atlanta looked very much like the team that watchers hoped they would be at the start of the season.  At halftime, McCoughtry had 16 points and Moore had 14, but the most important stat was the fact that the Dream had just one (1) turnover for the entire first half as they went into the break with a 45-36 lead.

In the third quarter, the Dream was feeling confident, and after hitting two three-pointers at the start of the second half, McCoughtry was confident enough to strike a pose and flex her muscles after some contact under the basket.  A pair of free throws by McCoughtry – her 25^th and 26^th points – put the Dream up 59-43 with 5:14 left in the period.

Unfortunately, this was a season where Minnesota has a lot of experience digging themselves into holes and digging back out.  Minnesota center Sylvia Fowles began to find her touch and the Lynx went on a 19-7 run in the back half of the third quarter.  Once leading by 16, the Dream found themselves up by just four, ahead 66-62 with only 10 minutes left.

It was time for Moore to heat up, and for McCoughtry to cool down.  Minnesota stayed within a couple of baskets and inched slowly ahead.  With 2:20 left, Moore scored her 36^th point of the game on a 3-pointer and put Minnesota up for the first time since the first quarter, 80-79.

Both teams looked for the long ball.  Augustus, then Damiris Dantas, then  Moore, THEN McCoughtry all missed 3-point attempts.  With 31 seconds left, Fowles found the basket to put Minnesota up 82-79.   The Dream could eat up the clock on their next possession, and with 12 seconds left McCoughtry took a 3-point attempt to tie the game from the top of the arc…that fell short. She would get another 3-pointer at the buzzer, but it was too little, too late as the Dream had run out of time.

McCoughtry had 32 points for the Dream in the loss and Schimmel’s 18 points were a season-best.  Lyttle posted eight points and six rebounds, including the 2000^th of her career (17^th all-time in league annals).

Moore rose to the occasion and finished with 36 points.  Fowles had 19 points and eight rebounds and Minnesota shot 46.2 percent for the game.

Michael Cooper on McCoughtry’s 3-point attempt:  “No, we were looking to get something going to the basket and knowing Angel being the competitor that she is and the winner that she is, she was trying to tie the score up. Those are the lessons that we are learning on our way to being a better basketball team. But no, we definitely wanted a better shot than that.”

Maya Moore on the comeback:  “There’s always a time to come back because it’s such a fast-paced game, so we just stayed calm and continued to trust in our game plan. We weren’t happy, we never want to be down that much, but we didn’t give up… we were squeezed and resilience came out.”

Atlanta Dream 90, Connecticut Sun 77

With Camille Little, Jennifer Lacy, Jasmine Thomas and Alex Bentley starting for the Connecticut Sun on Sunday afternoon, it looked like a revenge game of Dream players vs. ex-Dream players.  Coach Cooper started with Lyttle, Henry and Dantas but soon found himself having to call not one, but two timeouts as the Sun took a 20-6 lead on 6-for-8 shooting.  Hayes returned to the game but the Sun was shooting the lights out from long range.  Connecticut, however, found itself in foul trouble and the Dream surged back, marked by a video highlight pass by Ajavon, dribbling behind the back with a pass to Sydney Carter to close to five points.  Sun forward/center Nikki Greene was charged with two quick fouls and the Dream added three more points from the foul line.  Atlanta tied it up but Shekinna Stricklen made a 3-pointer in the closing seconds of the first quarter to lead 26-23 after the period.

It didn’t last.  Kayla Pedersen came in to score a couple of baskets and a free throw and after a Jasmine Thomas triple dropped the Sun lead was back up to 12 early in the second at 37-25.  Cooper put the trio of Lyttle, McCoughtry and Schimmel back on the floor and Atlanta responded with a 7-0 run forcing a Connecticut time out.  The Sun’s lead surged again with the team shooting more than 60 percent at one point, but after Atlanta turned three 3-point attempts in a row into long air balls, Hayes hit a buzzer-beating triple as the half expired and trimmed Connecticut’s lead to 42-39 at the break.

An offensive rebound managed to close the gap to 46-45 early in the third but the Sun answered with six straight points as Connecticut led 52-45 with 5:47 left in the third period.  Every time Atlanta threatened, the Sun would answer back, often by Jennifer Lacy (leading the Sun in scoring) or another time with a 3-pointer from Jasmine Thomas.  Connecticut started to cool down and Atlanta closed down to within one, the Sun were up 57-56 before calling a time out with 2:11 left in the quarter.  After the pause, McCoughtry answered with a left-elbow jumper that put the Dream up for the first time in the game 58-57.  The Sun found themselves over the limit in fouls and free throws by Ajavon and Hayes boosted Atlanta’s lead.  A drive by Schimmel as time expired put Atlanta up 65-59 at the end of 30 minutes, their biggest lead in the game.

Connecticut was forced to call another timeout with 8:14 left as Bentley was caught on the wrong end of one-on-one fast break by the Dream as their lead increased to 71-59.  Atlanta took control in the fourth with a 13-0 run.   Between 5:47 left in the third quarter and 7:42 left in the fourth, Connecticut shot just 1-for-12 from the floor.  With the Dream up 74-61 with 5:30 remaining, Lyttle got hit in the face by an elbow from her teammate Henry and was forced to leave the game.  Jennifer Lacy would hit a three to close the sun to 80-71, but it would be as close as the Sun could get.

Gray had her best scoring performance of her rookie season with 18 points and six rebounds, tying McCoughtry’s 18 points.  Schimmel scored 15 and Hayes added 10 from the bench.  Ajavon had nine points, all on free throws (she went 9-for-10 from the line but missed all four of her field goal attempts).

Lacy led her team with 21 points, tying a career high.  Three other Sun players scored in double figures, but Connecticut shot 29.3 percent in the second half versus 55.6 percent in the first half.

Cooper on Reshanda Gray’s performance:  “We lost a heck of a basketball player in Erika de Souza. Again Erika gave us so many great years here but we thought that the foundation of the organization is trying to move forward to become a young team and we had the opportunity to get two solid players in Dantas and Gray. A lot of people don’t know about that young lady but I know her and I recruited her since high school. She turned me down but I finally get a chance to coach her, but that’s what she can bring, that toughness and just another big that can rebound the basketball.”

Cooper and the Dream defense:  “We kept jumping in and out of our defense and that’s been one of our Achilles heels, sustaining good defensive consistency.  I think it helps us when we can get into a zone. I love the fact that we are a team that can jump from man-to-man to a 2-1-2 defense.  If you can do that sometimes you can throw good offensive teams off balance and they were going good early and so once we shifted our defense it worked to our benefit.”

Sun head coach Anne Donovan:  “We moved the ball and sometimes we didn’t, generally I’m confident that Thomas or Bentley are going to knock down some shots, but we just struggled to put the ball in the hole against the zone. We need to do a whole lot better with our attack.”

Angel McCoughtry on the Dream having a shot at the playoffs:  “Oh yeah! What other way should you be? Why be down? Why not believe?”

WNBA Tidbits

* With Minnesota’s 83-76 win against visiting San Antonio on Tuesday, the Lynx became the first WNBA team to clinch a playoff spot this year.

* Phoenix’s 83-66 win over visiting Seattle on Wednesday was their ninth straight win against the Storm.

* On Friday, the Connecticut Sun had a special greeting for New York Liberty head coach Bill Laimbeer – the “Imperial March” theme from Star Wars.  Laimbeer’s Liberty put a force-choke on the Sun, winning 90-78 for its highest scoring win this season and their ninth in 10 games.

* Every starter for the Sky scored in double digits in Chicago’s Friday 94-84 victory over the home team Seattle Storm.

* Atlanta’s 16-point meltdown is not the biggest one this year in the WNBA.  On July 28^th the Chicago Sky blew a 19-point lead over the Phoenix Mercury to lose 89-87 in overtime.

Upcoming games

Friday August 21:  Atlanta Dream @ New York Liberty, 7:30 pm

(New York leads 2-1.)

Even though the Liberty are the toughest team in the WNBA , they are not indestructible – the Dream beat them 84-76 in Atlanta this season behind 32 points from McCoughtry.

That win broke a five-game winning streak by the Liberty against Atlanta.    It was also the last game before the Dream’s miserable road trip that saw the Atlanta lose Cierra Burdick (injury), Erika de Souza (trade) and Erica Wheeler (waived).   So there’s a big difference between the Dream playing on Friday and the Dream that started the 2015 regular season with a loss against the Libs.

But New York can be had.  The Shock broke a 10-game losing streak in New York on Saturday night.  Tina Charles, averaging 15.5 ppg/7.9 rpg is one of the reasons that the Liberty is second in the WNBA in rebounds over the last 10 games but New York is also second in steals over the last 10 – it could be why the Liberty is 8-2 over that span.  But if the Liberty can lose to Tulsa at home, they can certainly lose to the Dream now that Lyttle is back.

Sunday August 23:  Atlanta Dream @ Connecticut Sun, 6 pm

(Connecticut leads 2-1)

You might be saying to yourself, “wow, we’ve seen a lot of Connecticut lately”.  You’re not kidding, and the Dream will actually play its fifth and final regular season game against the Sun just two days later on Tuesday, August 25.

Sunday, however, comes first.  Atlanta plays at the fastest pace in the WNBA, so the Dream hope to make Connecticut play at their speed.  Sun center Kelsey Bone usually scores in double figures, so Atlanta will need a little more oomph under the post in Uncasville.  Atlanta is lucky that Alyssa Thomas will be sidelined for the next couple of weeks due to a shoulder injury and probably won’t play either in this game or the one two days later.  Thomas has averaged 8.7 points a game this season.

This might be a defensive battle, as point guard Alex Bentley is leading the WNBA in steals and Lyttle is always a Defensive Player of the Year candidate for the Dream.  In any case, if the Dream scores 70 or more points, they have a shot – the Sun are 6-11 when opponents cross that benchmark as the Dream proved on Sunday.

WNBA Power Rankings

1. New York Liberty (16-7) – Most games won by the Liberty since 2011. Most games won by Laimbeer since 2008.
2. Washington Mystics (14-9) – Next four games for the Mystics are a rematch with the Lynx on Wednesday, the Sky twice, and then the Mercury.

(tie)  Los Angeles Sparks (8-16) – The win-loss record means nothing.  Candace Parker had 21 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in the win against the Sky.  If they keep playing like this, the Sparks could “upset” their first round opponent.

4. Indiana Fever (14-9) – Indiana has won six of its last seven, with five of those wins by double digits. Next two road games are against West teams.
5. Phoenix Mercury (15-9) – The field goal percentage title this season will come down to either Brittney Griner or Crystal Langhorne of Seattle.
6. Minnesota Lynx (18-7) – The best team in the West is looking pretty pedestrian. Late season swoon?

(tie) Connecticut Sun (12-12) – The Sun’s record against Eastern Conference teams?  4-11 after Sunday’s loss to the Dream.

8. Chicago Sky (15-11) – Sky are leading the league in points, but aren’t playing like it.
9. Seattle Storm (7-19) – Over their last 10 games, their margin of victory is only -1.9.
10. Atlanta Dream (9-15) – Schimmel’s Sunday game was her third straight game in double-digits and her fourth in her last five games.
11. San Antonio Stars (7-18) – Still winless on the road.
12. Tulsa Shock (11-14) – Shock’s win against the Liberty is much needed – but too little, too late?