‘We Got Off To A Really Good Start’: Paige Bueckers, Dallas Wings Never Trail In 89-76 Win Over Toronto Tempo

TORONTO — Paige Bueckers scored 22 points and handed out 7 assists, and the Dallas Wings never trailed in an 89-76 win over the Toronto Tempo on Sunday at Coca-Cola Coliseum, the first-ever meeting between the two franchises.

Dallas (13-8) posted its best start through 21 games in franchise history and improved to 7-5 on the road, while Toronto (9-11) had its 2-game winning streak snapped in front of a sellout crowd of 8,210. All five Wings starters scored in double figures, the seventh time this season Dallas has had five players reach double digits in a game. The Wings are 7-0 when that happens.

Bueckers went 9-of-16 from the field, including 1-of-3 from 3-point range, and made all 3 of her free throw attempts. It was her 12th 20-point game of the season, moving her into sole possession of the second-most 20-point outings in the WNBA this year. The 22-point night also stretched her streak of at least 22 points to 5 straight games, the longest active streak in the league and the second-longest 22-point streak in the WNBA this season, even as it closed out a separate run of four consecutive 25-point games.

Azzi Fudd scored 17 points on 6-of-16 shooting, going 5-of-11 from 3-point range for her second game this season with at least 5 made 3-pointers, a mark no other rookie has reached twice. Fudd also surpassed 20 blocks in her WNBA career, the fastest any guard has reached that total in league history, in 20 games played.

Jessica Shepard recorded 14 points, 15 rebounds and 3 assists for her 12th double-double of the season, second in the WNBA behind the Atlanta Dream’s Angel Reese, as part of a breakout year that also earned her a first-career All-Star selection. It was the sixth time this season that Shepard has grabbed 15 or more rebounds in a game, the most in the WNBA, and she tied her season high with 6 offensive rebounds.

Arike Ogunbowale and Awak Kuier each finished with 10 points. Ogunbowale grabbed a season-high 6 rebounds to go with 2 assists in 27 minutes, while Kuier matched a season high with 3 blocks, along with 6 rebounds and a steal.

Marina Mabrey led Toronto with 19 points on 7-of-18 shooting, including 3-of-9 from beyond the arc, and picked up a technical foul in the second quarter. Nyara Sabally added 14 points, and Isabelle Harrison scored 13. Kia Nurse made 3 3-pointers off the bench and finished with 12 points.

Dallas Wings Race Out Early, Weather Toronto Tempo’s Rally

Dallas opened with the same starting lineup for the eighth straight game, Bueckers, Ogunbowale, Fudd, Kuier and Shepard, and jumped ahead on a 9-2 run built on 3-pointers from Fudd, Bueckers and Kuier. Toronto answered with back-to-back 3-pointers from Mabrey, but the Wings responded with 8 straight points for a 17-8 lead at the first media timeout, starting the game 5-of-6 from beyond the arc through the first five minutes.

Dallas led by as many as 14 before a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Sabally trimmed it to 30-19 after one, a quarter in which nine different Wings scored and Dallas set a season high for points in any period, improving to 6-0 this season when scoring 30 or more in a quarter. The Wings also tied a season high with 7 offensive rebounds in the frame.

Mabrey scored 10 of her game-high 19 points in that opening quarter alone, forcing Dallas to adjust its coverage on her for the remainder of the night. Azzi Fudd, who finished with 3 steals to go with her 17 points, said the Wings leaned on ball pressure and traps to take the ball out of Mabrey’s hands after that opening surge.

“I thought Arike and everyone who was guarding her, plus the players helping trap and trying to get the ball out of her hands, did a great job of being aggressive, pressuring her and making things difficult,” Fudd said. “She’s super skilled and can score from wherever, whenever, so the goal was to make things hard and make it difficult for her to kick the ball out. I thought we did a great job with our team defense on her and then scrambling and rotating out of it as well.”

Dallas carried that pressure into the second quarter, trading baskets with Toronto before pushing the lead to 39-26. A 5-2 Toronto spurt cut it to 41-31, and an and-one from Bueckers pushed the Wings’ margin back to 44-31, their largest lead of the half at 13. But Toronto closed the second quarter on an 11-3 run, capped by a Mabrey layup with 2 seconds left, to cut the deficit to 47-42 at the break.

Fudd led all scorers with 12 points at halftime, while Bueckers added 10 points, 2 rebounds and 5 assists. Both teams made 7 3-pointers in the half, with Dallas shooting 38.1% overall to Toronto’s 44.1%, and the Wings tied a season high with 9 offensive rebounds over the first two quarters.

Third-Quarter Response Puts Dallas Wings Back in Control

Harrison’s basket to open the third quarter made it a one-possession game at 47-44, but Dallas answered with 8 unanswered points for a 55-44 lead that forced a Toronto timeout. Jose Fernandez, asked afterward about the fast start and the response that followed Toronto’s rally, tied both back to a point of emphasis from the coaching staff over the past week.

“That’s what we talked about. We needed to get off to better starts, and I thought we got off to a really good start,” Fernandez said. “I didn’t think we closed the second quarter very well. On a four-game road trip, we’ve got to find some time to rest our top five or six players, and that’s what we tried to do. But at the beginning of the third quarter, those first five minutes, we came out and made Toronto take a quick timeout, and that was big.”

Shepard, who scored 4 of those 8 points to open the third, said the response started on the defensive end.

“We did a great job from the jump of just being aggressive on defense, which allowed us to kind of get going offensively,” Shepard said. “Then we knew the first five minutes of the third quarter were going to be really important for us after they had gone on a run. I think we did a great job of answering in those first five minutes of the third quarter.”

An 8-4 Wings run later in the quarter built the lead to a game-high 15 at 63-48 before Toronto trimmed it to 63-55, and Dallas closed the period on another 8-4 spurt to take a 71-59 lead into the fourth. Bueckers led Dallas with 6 points in the quarter, while Kuier and Fudd each scored 5.

Toronto opened the fourth on a 7-4 run to cut the lead to single digits at 75-66, but Dallas answered with 4 points from Bueckers and an and-one from Ogunbowale to push the margin to 82-66. The Wings’ lead grew as large as 20 in the final period, and Toronto did not get closer than 13 the rest of the way.

Dallas out-rebounded Toronto 42-35 for the game, including a 16-13 edge on the offensive glass that helped fuel a 20-6 advantage in second-chance points. The Wings also outscored the Tempo 38-32 in the paint, while Toronto held a 19-15 edge in fast-break points. Shepard, who grabbed 6 offensive rebounds among her 15 total, said the extra possessions were an emphasis area the team executed well.

“We did a good job as a team,” Shepard said. “Obviously, 16 offensive rebounds is huge. For myself, that’s kind of a way to get going offensively and be involved no matter what. Those are effort plays, and we knew we needed to step up in that department.”

Fernandez said the rebounding number came with one exception he flagged as uncharacteristic for his team.

“We gave up two offensive rebounds on free throws, so that’s uncharacteristic for us. But I thought we were intentional about going to the glass,” Fernandez said. “I thought our coverages were good, we got into passing lanes, and we rotated on the backside.”

Toronto had not played since an 89-80 home loss to Phoenix a week earlier, an outing Mabrey missed with neck spasms after tying the WNBA’s single-game scoring record with 53 points in a 125-97 win over the Los Angeles Sparks the game before that.

Jessica Shepard on Building Chemistry With Paige Bueckers

Reporters pointed to a first-half sequence in which Shepard, setting a screen from the elbow, faked a screen for Bueckers before cutting hard to the basket for an easy finish, the kind of read the two have developed over just a few months as teammates. Jessica Shepard, in her first season alongside Paige Bueckers, said the connection has come easily.

“I think Paige and I have a great connection on the court,” Shepard said. “I think it’s just because we both play basketball the right way, and obviously that makes it really easy to make the reads that I do make. She’s a great cutter.”

Shepard was named a first-time All-Star starter earlier this month, one of two Wings players selected alongside Bueckers for the July 25 game in Chicago. Asked how playing alongside Bueckers has helped push her game to that level, Shepard pointed to her teammate’s energy.

“I’ve said it before: Paige’s confidence and her energy are contagious,” Shepard said. “Just being around her, she believes so much in herself, but she also believes so much in her teammates. I think it kind of lifts everyone up. Even when you’re having a bad game, she can make you feel like you’re having a better game than you probably are. So it’s been fun.”

Jose Fernandez on Paige Bueckers’ Offensive Versatility

Asked about Dallas’ 16 assists on 33 made field goals while discussing the complementary performances of Bueckers, Shepard, and Fudd, Fernandez first had to check the numbers with reporters in the room, joking that he needed his glasses to read the stat sheet. Once he had the figures, he cautioned against reading too much into the total.

“That number’s a little skewed because we went to the glass and had putbacks, and those obviously aren’t assisted baskets,” Fernandez said. “But I thought we did a good job finding Azzi, and she was very assertive. She put the ball on the deck and got to the rim, which was good.”

Bueckers split time between point guard and shooting guard as a rookie last season, but this year she has moved off the ball more often as Dallas has added backcourt depth. Fernandez discussed the shift, saying the added ball handlers have let the staff design a package specifically for Bueckers away from the ball.

“We’re trying to play her off the ball,” Fernandez said. “With O [Odyssey Sims] and Sug [Sug Sutton], that’s given us the opportunity to move her away from the ball and have a package designated for her with isolations, pick-and-roll situations and certain things where we want to get the basketball to her when she’s off the ball.”

That inverted look was part of how Dallas turned its 47-42 halftime edge into the 71-59 lead it carried into the fourth. Fernandez said Toronto adjusted well to the action designed to get Bueckers the ball away from the primary screen.

“That inverted action was big, but I thought Toronto did a good job adjusting because they overhelped on that inverted screen, and we were able to get it back to P [Bueckers], and she made good decisions,” Fernandez said. “I thought Toronto made some good adjustments because even when we set it, she ghosted out. When we got it to the second side after that, that’s where we did a good job. We crashed the glass, and we were able to create opportunities after missed shots because of their defensive rotations.”

Fernandez said Toronto’s coverage on Bueckers shifted throughout the night, mixing switches with hard hedges to try to disrupt her reads.

“They switched. I thought they hard hedged. They’re well coached, and they do a really good job with their team,” Fernandez said. “I just think Paige does a really good job reading where the ball needs to get to, especially when defenses change up coverages and when they’re switching.”

Up Next

Dallas visits the New York Liberty on Tuesday, July 7, at 7 p.m. CT, with national coverage on ESPN. The Wings and Tempo meet again Friday, July 10, at 6:30 p.m. CT in Montreal.

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