Bueckers, Ogunbowale, Sims Each Score 20 As Wings Edge Fever 107-104 In Season Opener

INDIANAPOLIS — Arike Ogunbowale scored 22 points in her first game in nine months, Paige Bueckers crossed 700 career points and added 20, Odyssey Sims chipped in 20 of her own, and the Dallas Wings opened the 2026 season with a 107-104 win over the Indiana Fever on Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Jessica Shepard finished 1 rebound and 1 assist shy of a triple-double with 13 points, 9 rebounds, and 9 assists, and Dallas shot 59.1% from the field and 52.2% from 3-point range while assisting on 26 of its 39 made baskets in front of a sellout crowd of 17,274. The 107-104 final marked the first regular-season opener in WNBA history in which both teams scored at least 100 points.

The win was the regular-season debut for first-year Wings head coach Jose Fernandez and pushed Dallas to 3-1 in its last four season openers dating to 2023.

“It’s great to start off a season with a win, and now we get to go back home,” Fernandez said.

Dallas Wings Build Lead, Survive Fever Push

The teams traded baskets through the opening minutes. Sims led the Wings’ early scoring with 6 first-quarter points on 2-of-2 shooting from 3-point range, and Dallas held a 17-16 edge at the first media timeout. The Wings pushed the lead to 5 on a 6-2 spurt out of the break, but Indiana closed the quarter on a 7-4 run to trim the deficit to 27-25. Sims paced Dallas with 8 points in the period; Maddy Siegrist added 7 points off the bench in her first appearance.

Indiana flipped the script briefly to open the second, ripping off a 6-0 run for a 31-27 lead before the Wings answered with a 10-6 push to tie the game at 37 by the media break. Bueckers had 4 of Dallas’ 10 in the run. An and-one finish from Ogunbowale put the Wings back ahead 40-37 with 5:19 to play in the half, and after Indiana tied it again at 48-48 with 1:56 left, Dallas closed the half on a 12-3 surge to take a 60-51 lead into the break.

Ogunbowale led the Wings at halftime with 13 points, 1 rebound, and 5 assists; Bueckers and Shepard each had 10. Dallas shot 10-of-16 (62.5%) from 3-point range in the first half, with 30 of its 60 first-half points coming from beyond the arc. Lexie Hull was assessed a technical foul at the 2:29 mark of the second quarter.

Fernandez identified the third-quarter rotations as the costly stretch in his postgame assessment of the swing.

“I thought that first half we got off to a great start,” Fernandez said. “Went up 16 the first half, and then we knew that they weren’t going to go away, and they were going to make a run. That third quarter hurt us a little bit with our cover downs and our rotations.”

The Fever opened the third on a 6-0 run to cut the Wings’ lead to 60-57. After Dallas pushed it back to 8 at 67-59, Indiana ripped off 8 unanswered points to tie the game at 67 with 4:48 left in the quarter. The teams played even down the stretch, leaving the game tied at 80 heading into the fourth quarter. Indiana shot 57.1% (12-of-21) from the field in the third; Dallas shot 46.7% (7-of-15). Sims led the Wings with 7 third-quarter points, and Bueckers added 6.

Indiana drew first blood in the fourth on a driving layup from Aliyah Boston, taking an 82-80 lead with what became the final lead change of the night. Dallas answered with a 6-0 run behind a four-point play from Aziaha James and a fast-break layup from Ogunbowale, retaking the advantage at 86-82 and forcing an Indiana timeout with 8:57 to play.

The Wings pushed the cushion to 7 at 97-90 with 4:05 left, but Indiana cut it to 99-97 on a 7-2 run with 2:52 to go. The Fever drew within 1 at 101-100 when Boston grabbed a missed free throw and put it back with 1:32 remaining.

Shepard split a pair of free throws with 25.3 seconds left to push Dallas ahead 106-102, and Makayla Timpson answered with a layup to make it 106-104. Sims was fouled with 13.2 seconds remaining and made 1-of-2 free throws for the final 107-104 margin. Caitlin Clark missed a tying 3-point attempt with 7.1 seconds left, and after Bueckers was fouled with 1.6 seconds to play and missed both free throws, Kelsey Mitchell misfired on a last-second look at the buzzer to seal the result.

Fernandez closed with a veteran-heavy lineup featuring Sims, Ogunbowale, Bueckers, Shepard, and Alanna Smith.

“Tried to rest them as much as we could in the fourth, but I wish we could have rested them a little bit more, probably another minute and a half for them to close,” Fernandez said. “We knew I was going to close with that group.”

Paige Bueckers Shows Why Jose Fernandez Calls Her ‘Special’

Bueckers shot 8-of-10 from the field, going 1-of-3 from 3-point range and 3-of-6 from the foul line, while committing just 1 turnover in 32 minutes. She added 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 steal and finished with a team-best plus-8 rating.

Bueckers entered the game 8 points shy of 700 career points and crossed the threshold on a 16-foot jumper with 6:02 left in the first half. The second-year guard navigated repeated double teams from Indiana and consistently found the open passer or scoring lane. Asked what stood out about her processing under pressure, Fernandez did not hesitate.

“She’s special,” Fernandez said. “She reads how she’s being guarded. Having coached against her and seeing her now, she sees things two, three times ahead of stuff. And that’s remarkable.”

Bueckers downplayed her own production and instead pointed to the team’s collective offensive flow.

“My teammates do a really good job of screening for me, getting me open, and rolling to the basket or popping,” Bueckers said. “Coach has a really good playbook for us to get an efficient offense and play without turning the ball over.”

Ogunbowale, who shared backcourt duties with Bueckers and Sims, said her processing speed has changed how the Wings attack.

“She’s super efficient every night, eight for 10, one turnover when they’re trapping her and trying to get the ball out of her hands and still scored 20,” Ogunbowale said. “So she’s just really elite. She runs this team well. Between those two, going back and forth with the point guard position, they run the team well, and it makes it easy for us.”

Arike Ogunbowale Scores 22 in First Game Since August

Ogunbowale’s 22-point performance came in her first game action since August 10, 2025. She missed the final 12 games of the 2025 season with injury, played overseas in the offseason, arrived late to training camp, and did not appear in either of the Wings’ two preseason games. She finished 8-of-15 from the field, 3-of-7 from 3-point range, and 3-of-3 at the foul line with 1 rebound and 5 assists in 28 minutes as the franchise’s all-time leading scorer.

“A lot of studying the plays,” Ogunbowale said of her preparation. “He has a million plays, which is great, and there’s a lot of ways that we can score. So just each practice talking to P, talking to O, seeing where I’m supposed to be, studying the plays while I’m at the house and just getting really up on the plays. I think that was the biggest thing.”

Fernandez said Ogunbowale’s pickup of the system was nearly seamless.

“I thought it was a pretty good performance,” Fernandez said.

Ogunbowale also credited the Wings’ depth for relieving the scoring burden she has shouldered for much of her career in Dallas.

“It’s easy when you have five players on the court that can score,” Ogunbowale said. “Maybe years before there were times where I had to take harder shots or Paige had to take harder shots. But if you don’t have a good shot, swing it, and there’s a person that’s probably 50 percent right next to you that’s going to knock it down.”

She entered the game determined to set the tone on both ends.

“That’s how we approach the game every game. You want to come out and be the aggressors,” Ogunbowale said. “They always have a big crowd here. Obviously, if they’re going on runs, the crowd’s going to get hyped, and we kinda wanted to settle that.”

Odyssey Sims Sets Tempo in Official Return to Dallas

Sims, in her first regular-season game with the Wings since 2024, set the early pace at point guard before sliding off the ball when Bueckers checked in. The veteran went 8-of-11 from the field with 2-of-3 from 3-point range and added 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals in 25 minutes. Her two early 3s and 8 first-quarter points helped Dallas establish an offensive rhythm.

Sims had spoken pregame about her excitement to share the backcourt with Ogunbowale and Bueckers.

“Arike is different. The same with Paige. They can get on a heater and score 10 in 30 seconds. It’s a beautiful sight to see,” Sims said before the game. “So I’m excited to be playing with her again along with Paige.”

The trio combined for 62 points on 24-of-36 shooting (66.7%) from the field. Fernandez highlighted Sims’ tempo-setting and her seamless point guard handoff to Bueckers as the connective tissue.

“I think she provides a lot of leadership,” Fernandez said. “She sets a tempo and a pace to start the game when we had her at the point guard spot. And when you take her out, now P takes it.”

Sims, a Dallas native, framed the postgame performance as a starting point rather than a finished product.

“We know it was ugly,” Sims said. “We had some stretches where we turned it over. We settled, which led to baskets for them. It comes with it. That’s the beauty of the game. But at the same time, we’re not satisfied. We’ll take the win, of course, but we still know we got more to work on.”

Jessica Shepard Just Misses Triple-Double

Shepard, the offseason free-agent signing brought in to anchor the frontcourt’s playmaking, finished 1 rebound and 1 assist shy of a triple-double in 32 minutes. She shot 5-of-8 from the field, grabbed 8 defensive rebounds, posted 2 steals, and operated as a primary release valve against Indiana’s pressure. Both her 9 rebounds and 9 assists were team highs.

Bueckers identified Shepard’s ability to alleviate trapping pressure as the trait that made her a free-agent target.

“It’s what made her so attractive in free agency, her ability to playmake, run the offense, be someone that we can throw the ball to to alleviate pressure, and just make great reads,” Bueckers said. “She can score, rebound, pass, defend. She’s really an all-purpose four player who can play all positions on the floor.”

Fernandez praised Shepard’s processing while flagging late-game sideline-out-of-bounds reads as an area for refinement.

“There were some really, really good pressure releases for her,” Fernandez said. “But we’re going to look at those sideline out of bounds, especially the last one, where we gotta do a much better job of if they’re top-siding us, if they’re switching, to make better reads. And we will.”

Wings’ Bench Provides Spark From Aziaha James, Maddy Siegrist, and Azzi Fudd

James added 10 points off the bench for Dallas, going 3-of-3 from 3-point range in 15 minutes, with the four-point play that flipped the score from 80-82 to 84-82 standing as the most pivotal swing of the fourth quarter. Siegrist chipped in 7 points on 3-of-7 shooting in 17 minutes, including all 7 of her points in the first quarter. No. 1 overall pick Azzi Fudd scored 3 points on 1-of-2 3-point shooting in 17 minutes during her regular-season debut.

Dallas outscored Indiana 26-22 in bench points overall.

Fernandez signaled that managing minutes between the Wings’ deep guard rotation will be an ongoing exercise.

“We had two guys play 32 minutes,” Fernandez said. “We got to now, with coming back home, figure out how to get some of those that were in the 15s and 17s to 20s, because it’s a long year.”

He declined to put a specific role on Fudd as the team continues testing combinations.

“Nothing. Just continuing to do what she’s doing,” Fernandez said. “It’s her first year in the league. We got five really talented backcourt players in Odyssey Sims, Paige, Arike, Azzi, and Aziaha James.”

Fudd had described her transition to the WNBA as a study in small adjustments before the game.

“It’s weird. It’s different, but at the same time, it’s not,” Fudd said. “Once I’m on the floor, obviously there’s different rules I’m still adjusting to, like the jump balls, the free throws, three seconds in the paint. But at the end of the day, it’s still basketball.”

Ogunbowale shared her advice for Fudd before tip-off, emphasizing that she should remain confident and let it fly when she has space to get her shot off.

“Just play your game. She’s number one for a reason. She’s one of the best shooters I’ve seen,” Ogunbowale said. “And just go out there confident. We’ll never get mad if she shoots any shots, so shoot it.”

James, a second-year guard who emerged in preseason play, drew praise from Fernandez for her two-way mentality.

“She’s open. She doesn’t shy away from defending, and she doesn’t shy away from getting to the basket,” Fernandez said. “And you saw that in the two preseason games.”

Awak Kuier and Alysha Clark rounded out the rotation. Clark hit her only 3-point attempt in 4 minutes; Kuier collected 1 rebound and 1 assist in 2 minutes. Li Yueru went 0-of-1 from the field but made 3-of-4 free throws for 3 points in 4 minutes off the bench. JJ Quinerly and Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu were inactive for coach’s decision.

Kelsey Mitchell, Aliyah Boston, and Caitlin Clark Pace Indiana Fever Attack

Fernandez had detailed Indiana’s three-headed scoring threat in pregame, calling Mitchell and Clark “so dynamic” and pointing to Boston’s combination of rim finishing and post passing as the linchpin.

“Caitlin and Kelsey are so dynamic. They can get downhill, they can score at three levels, and both can shoot the three,” Fernandez said before the game. “I think transition defense for us will be huge.”

Of Boston specifically, he added, “She finishes around the rim, and she’s an elite passer for a post player. So we gotta be solid in our preparation and our coverages.”

Shepard had echoed the focus on Boston ahead of tip-off.

“Aliyah’s a great player. Super physical down low,” Shepard said. “I think we know that you have to be physical back, and you have to eliminate her deep catches, or else it’s really hard.”

The trio combined for 73 points. Mitchell led the Fever (0-1) with 30 points on 11-of-22 shooting, including 2-of-9 from 3-point range. Boston added 23 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists on 9-of-14 shooting. Clark finished with 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists. Clark shot 7-of-18, including 2-of-9 from 3-point range, and committed 5 turnovers in 31 minutes.

Timpson scored 11 off the bench on 5-of-6 shooting, and Damiris Dantas added 7 points on 3-of-4 shooting, including a made 3. Sophie Cunningham went 1-of-2 from the field for 3 points in 26 minutes, and Myisha Hines-Allen posted 6 points and a team-high 6 rebounds in her debut as a Fever starter.

Indiana shot 51.9% from the field overall but was limited to 29.2% from 3-point range. The Fever outscored the Wings 62-44 in the paint and 22-7 in second-chance points, but were undone by a 25-12 deficit in fast-break points and a 12-7 disadvantage in made 3-pointers.

Monique Billings was ruled out for the Fever with an ankle injury.

Dallas Wings Pinpoint Defensive Cleanup Areas

Defense had been the unanimous pregame answer when Wings players were asked to identify the most important key against Indiana. Ogunbowale, Shepard, and Sims each pointed to stops as the priority before tip-off.

“Defense. I think defense is our biggest thing,” Ogunbowale said. “We know how to score, so just getting stops.”

The postgame conversation centered on the same theme. Bueckers identified perimeter containment as the team’s top defensive priority moving forward, citing Mitchell’s drives in particular.

“I think building a wall and playing as a fist on defense,” Bueckers said. “I felt like we let Kelsey Mitchell get off a little bit, get to the paint without any disruption. It’ll come with reps and us getting to know each other and our tendencies and talking and communicating. And then again, defending without fouling. I think that’s been a theme.”

Fernandez echoed the assessment, citing a lack of on-ball containment as an area for growth.

“The ball got downhill too much,” Fernandez said. “We got to do a much better job of keeping the ball in front of us.”

Fernandez had also flagged turnovers as a pregame focus, citing live-ball giveaways from preseason.

“We had a lot of live ball turnovers in the back court, especially in that first quarter,” Fernandez said before the game. “We can’t give these guys extra possessions tonight.”

Dallas still committed 17 turnovers that produced 22 Indiana points, an area both Bueckers and Fernandez flagged afterward as a clear correction. The Wings forced 14 Fever turnovers, leading to 19 Dallas points.

“We want to clean it up to single digits,” Bueckers said of the team’s turnover total. “It starts with me at the point guard position.”

Ogunbowale also noted the league’s emphasis on freedom of movement as an early adjustment, after both teams flirted with foul trouble.

“I think we can see they’re calling it a little different,” Ogunbowale said. “We saw that in the preseason game, and I guess we just have to adapt because that’s going to happen. It’s been a long time since I had three fouls in the first half and almost fouling out. So I guess just show our hands and see what we can do and hold better defense. It’s going to be a long season.”

Dallas Wings’ Offensive Identity Shows Early Promise

The Wings’ 26 assists on 39 made baskets and 12 made 3-pointers framed Saturday’s offensive output as a baseline for the team’s identity under Fernandez. Dallas scored 60 in the first half and 47 in the second.

“That’s how we want to play,” Fernandez said. “The way that the offense is built, if we’re in the 90s and 100s, we’re going to be pretty tough to beat, I think.”

Fernandez also took note of the atmosphere in a building that hosted the league’s national-television opening-weekend showcase, headlined by Bueckers and Clark, both former No. 1 overall picks.

“It was great. It was awesome,” Fernandez said. “I know there were three games yesterday, but this is a state that loves basketball. And it was an incredible atmosphere for the people in the arena, people watching on TV, especially on national TV. I think the stars shined today, and I think both teams represented the W in a great way.”

Ogunbowale called the back-and-forth scoring battle good for the league but downplayed any added energy from the high-scoring environment.

“It’s great for basketball. It’s great for the fans and people watching to feel the excitement,” Ogunbowale said. “But I think we’re going to give our all whether it’s zero fans in here or 20,000.”

Asked whether the offensive trade was fun, Ogunbowale was direct.

“Nah, ’cause we’d rather get stops than scores,” she said.

Bueckers framed the win in the context of a 44-game season rather than a marquee opening statement.

“We’re all humble enough to know how hard it is to get wins in this league,” Bueckers said. “It’s not to say get complacent or, ‘Oh, we got one win, we’re going to go 44-0.’ We’re so focused on winning the day and winning at practice and getting better every single day, which then leads to wins in total.”

Box Score Notables

Saturday’s 107-104 final marked the first regular-season opener in WNBA history in which both teams scored at least 100 points.

Dallas’ 59.1% shooting from the field was the second-best mark by any team in a season opener in WNBA history. It was also the sixth time in franchise history the Wings shot 59% or better in a regular-season game and the first since 2023.

The Wings outshot the Fever 52.2% to 29.2% from 3-point range, finishing 12-of-23 from beyond the arc to Indiana’s 7-of-24. Dallas shot 10-of-16 (62.5%) from 3-point range in the first half alone, with 30 of its 60 first-half points coming from deep. Since the franchise’s relocation to North Texas, the Wings have shot 52.2% or better from 3-point range in just 12 regular-season games.

Dallas tallied 26 assists to Indiana’s 23 and held a 25-12 fast-break advantage despite being outscored 62-44 in the paint and 22-7 in second-chance points. The Wings outscored the Fever 26-22 in bench points.

The Wings shot 70.8% from the foul line, going 17-of-24, and missed 7 free throws, an area Fernandez singled out down the stretch.

“We missed some free throws down the stretch,” Fernandez said. “That’s not going to happen.”

The Wings attempted 11 fewer shots than Indiana, taking 66 to the Fever’s 77. The Fever held a 28-27 rebounding edge and grabbed 7 offensive rebounds to Dallas’ 3.

Saturday’s announced attendance of 17,274 was a sellout, with the game broadcast nationally on ABC.

Up Next

The Wings return home for their 2026 home opener on Tuesday, May 12, against the Atlanta Dream at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. CT.

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