The Atlanta Dream will look to continue their torrid ways on Wednesday when they conclude a season-ending home-and-home series against the Connecticut Sun in Uncasville, Conn.
The Dream (29-14), second to Minnesota in the league standings, recorded their fifth win in a row with an 87-62 victory over the Sun (11-32) on Monday night in College Park, Ga. The result enabled Atlanta’s Karl Smesko to etch his name into the WNBA record books for most wins by a first-year head coach, surpassing Michael Cooper’s 28 with the Los Angeles Sparks in 2000.
“He’s been able to adapt. He’s been able to relate,” Dream forward Naz Hillmon said of Smesko. “It’s just the makings of what I feel is a Coach of the Year candidate. Obviously with the wins, (but) every game he’s always trying to figure out he can be better and how we can be better. That’s nice to hear as a player that we know we can be better, but Coach is also thinking about ways he can improve game to game — and he absolutely does that.”
Rhyne Howard continued her sizzling stretch by collecting 18 points, six assists and five rebounds Monday. That output came on the heels of her tying a WNBA single-game record with nine 3-pointers and finishing with 37 points in the Dream’s home victory over the Sparks on Friday.
“I think it forces people to put me in that conversation with the best shooters,” Howard said. “Because you can’t leave that off. Nobody’s ever done it until I got here.”
Howard finished with 23 points in the Dream’s 93-76 win at Connecticut on Sept. 1.
The Suns’ Saniya Rivers scored 10 points in that game and added a team-high 16 on Monday.
Connecticut, however, was outscored 42-19 in the second half on Monday en route to losing for the fourth time in the last five games.
“We came out at halftime and I think we were excited. I think we had good energy going in,” Rivers said. “But I think we fell off on defense. I don’t think we were playing 1-on-1 defense well, team defense well. That’s where all their points came from.”
–Field Level Media
