Monique Billings #25 of the Atlanta Dream drives to the basket against the New York Liberty in the second half at the Barclays Center on June 13, 2023 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

Atlanta Dream have the highest scoring bench in the league

By Jackie Powell

Eight games into the regular season and the Atlanta Dream have the highest scoring bench in the league. Atlanta scores 23.8 points per game and are trailed by the Indiana Fever whose bench averages 21.2. The Dream are also third in the league in bench rebounding, as players who aren’t starting contribute 10.5 boards per game trailing the Fever who are first in this category with 12.7 and the Aces who get 11.4 rebounds a game coming from their bench.

Some of the most productive players that come off the bench for the Dream are AD Durr, Naz Hillmon and Monique Billings. Durr leads the way scoring 8.3 points per game in around 16 minutes each game. Hillmon averages 5.5 points in her 16.4 minutes so far in this young WNBA season. Billings has come off the bench in 14.6 minutes per game in 7 total games played for the Dream while scoring an even 5 points per game.

The Dream’s high scoring bench also included minutes and scores from rookie Haley Jones who came off the bench for 6 out of Atlanta’s games so far this season. In her minutes coming

off the bench, Jones averaged 4.3 points per game in 6 games in around 14.17 minutes each game.

Atlanta’s bench showed out especially on Tuesday night in their 86-79 win over the New York Liberty. The Dream got 27 points off their bench to the Liberty’s 9. Durr and Billings led the way with 13 and 12 points, respectively.

We’ll take that! 🪣 #atlantadream pic.twitter.com/8ptxNicY9H

— Atlanta Dream (@AtlantaDream) June 14, 2023

“Mo was great,” head coach Tanisha Wright said about Billings’ performance coming off the bench. “We needed to go a little bit bigger. So that’s why we went with Mo. And she just had a very laser focus on what the game plan was and what we needed to take away from New York.”