Dallas Wings Turn Practice Adjustments Into Dominant Win Over Mystics

Two days of practices finally culminated into a full-game effort for the Dallas Wings.

Dallas entered Monday night’s matchup against the Washington Mystics coming off back-to-back one-possession losses to Atlanta and Minnesota. Wings head coach Jose Fernandez said the focus was clear after those losses: post defense, rebounding and ball pressure. Pregame, Fernandez said Dallas needed that work to carry into the game.

“It’s great to be able to get in the gym and practice and worry about things that you can control and work on,” Fernandez said. “Now the only thing is you want to carry over from practice to the game.”

The Wings did that from the opening quarter.

Dallas held Washington to nine first-quarter points and forced eight turnovers in the period, setting the tone for a 92-69 win at College Park Center and its first home victory of the season.

“This game was won because [of] how we defended, how we rebounded,” Fernandez said after the game. “It was won because of the commitment to us the last two days practicing.”

Washington never settled. The Mystics finished with 18 turnovers, a number both Shakira Austin and Mystics head coach Sydney Johnson pointed to afterward.

“I mean, honestly, we were just giving them the ball,” Austin said. “Turning the ball over allows them to have extra possessions.”

“Turnovers really hurt us in that first quarter,” Johnson said. “Just not giving ourselves enough opportunities.”

At Sunday’s practice, Mystics guard Sonia Citron said slowing Dallas in transition would be critical because the Wings could “pick you apart” if allowed to run freely. Dallas controlled that tempo and turned stops into flow.

The Wings finished with 30 assists on 33 made baskets and only eight turnovers. The 30 assists marked a season high and the fifth-most in a regular-season game in franchise history.

“We can just score from every position,” Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale said. “I think we can have a lot of those games where the assist to how many buckets we have is really high because if you don’t have a shot, your next player has a shot and [is] more than likely going to knock it down.”

Paige Bueckers led Dallas with 18 points and seven assists while shooting 4-of-5 from three. Ogunbowale added 16 points and three steals. Jessica Shepard had 12 points, 16 rebounds and six assists without a turnover. Azzi Fudd scored a career-high 12 points, while Maddy Siegrist added 10.

Ogunbowale said the sharper performance came from practice time Dallas had not been able to maximize with its full roster.

“Just having the practice that we were able to have these last couple days and hone in on the things that we need to do on communication, on defensive rotations, on offensive plays, late clock, just all little things that you really do in training camp that we didn’t have much time to do with our whole team, that really helped us,” Ogunbowale said.

Wings veteran Alysha Clark said Sunday the practices helped Dallas “reestablish a new baseline for this group.” That showed on the glass, where Dallas outrebounded Washington 31-24 and held the Mystics to two offensive rebounds.

Jessica Shepard was central to that effort.

“For myself, I know that’s one of my biggest controllables in the basketball game,” Shepard said. “So, knowing that they have two really elite offensive rebounders on that team, I knew that we had to control the glass and I just wanted to do my part.”

Shepard also created space for Dallas’ guards through screening.

“We know screening is an area we need to be better in as post players,” Shepard said. “So I’m just putting an emphasis on it, holding the screen a second longer to get the guards open and also get yourself open too.”

Washington entered with confidence in its young frontcourt. Kiki Iriafen said Sunday the Mystics’ resilience had carried them early in the season, while Lauren Betts later said the WNBA’s speed and physicality remain part of her early adjustment.

Dallas never let that frontcourt control the game. Austin said Washington’s inside-out offense stalled against Dallas’ help defense and paint pressure.

“We’re trying to be an inside-out team and we’ve had success with that,” Austin said. “But today, and also last year, we’ve seen a lot of times where teams packed the paint, teams helped off other players, double teams. I think we just didn’t have enough recognition of what to do or where to go.”

Johnson said Dallas’ main pressure points were obvious.

“Paige, Arike and Jess, they put a lot of pressure,” Johnson said.

Fudd gave Dallas another boost off the bench, matching the aggression the starters established early.

“My goal was just to be aggressive when I got in the game, contribute any way I could,” Fudd said. “Watch what the stars were doing. They started the game off pushing the pace, being aggressive, getting stops. So I wanted to continue that.”

For Dallas, the win matched the standard Ogunbowale said the team expects from itself.

“We know our standard,” Ogunbowale said. “We know what [Coach Fernandez] wants us to do. We know what we expect from ourselves, and I think we showed that tonight, so we just got to continue that.”

Dallas heads into its first road trip of the season looking more like the team it expected to be entering the year.