Rhyne Howard had 24 points and Allisha Gray finished with 21 points and four assists in the Atlanta Dream’s 82-73 victory over the visiting Indiana Fever on Sunday.
Atlanta (15-13) improved to 8-6 at home, bouncing back after losing its previous two games against the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury this past week.
Indiana (7-21) has lost 14 of its last 16 games.
Cheyenne Parker had 16 points and six rebounds and Nia Coffey and Danielle Robinson each added nine points for Atlanta.
The Fever were led by rookie Aliyah Boston’s season-high-matching 25 points and 10 rebounds.
Kelsey Mitchell added 20 points and former Dream guard Erica Wheeler had 15.
Boston, playing with five fouls, made jump shots in back-to-back possessions to cut the Dream’s lead to 76-71 with 1:11 left.
Robinson answered with a layup on the following possession.
After Wheeler committed a turnover, Parker made a layup to increase the lead to 80-71 with 43 seconds remaining.
Nine different players recorded at least one assist for the Dream. They finished with 23 assists on their 30 made field goals.
After Wheeler made a layup with 3:28 left in the second quarter to cut the Dream’s lead to 34-30, Atlanta outscored Indiana 9-4 the rest of the half to take a 43-34 lead at halftime.
Howard, Coffey, Gray and Parker outscored Indiana 37-34 at that point.
The quartet made 15 of 30 shots from the field by halftime while Indiana as a team was 13 of 31.
Atlanta is now 10-2 this season when leading at halftime.
The Dream outscored Indiana 9-4 to start the second half to lead 52-38 with 6:03 left in the third quarter.
Howard and Parker each made a 3-pointer in that span.
Atlanta took a 62-50 lead into the fourth quarter behind seven points in the third from both Howard and Gray.
Indiana outscored Atlanta 17-8 to start the fourth quarter to cut the lead to 70-67 with 5:05 left.
Mitchell had 12 fourth-quarter points for the Fever.
–Field Level Media