‘We Don’t Panic’: Dallas Wings Defeat Los Angeles Sparks 90-82 For Franchise-Record Sixth Straight Win

ARLINGTON, Texas —The Dallas Wings turned back the Los Angeles Sparks 90-82 at a sold-out College Park Center on Sunday, their sixth consecutive win and the longest streak in franchise history. The result, punctuated by a sellout crowd of 6,251, pushed Dallas to 17-8 and dropped Los Angeles to 10-15.

The six-game run is the longest in franchise history, and it comes in the middle of an especially strong stretch — Dallas has won eight of its last 10 games dating to June 20, its best 10-game run since June and July of 2023. Sunday’s win also completed a season sweep of the Sparks; Dallas hadn’t beaten Los Angeles twice in the same year since 2021. The teams meet once more this season, Sept. 17 in Arlington.

Paige Bueckers paced all scorers with 25 points on 10-of-18 shooting, four rebounds and five assists in 32 minutes, though she did not finish the game — more on that below. The outing was her seventh this season with at least 25 points and five assists, a combination no other player in the league has reached as often. Arike Ogunbowale backed her up with 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting, two rebounds, one assist and two steals, her ninth 20-point outing of the season. Jessica Shepard, meanwhile, continued her tear on the glass, turning 11 points, a game-high 14 rebounds, six assists and a steal into her 16th double-double of the year — breaking the Wings’ single-season record and trailing only Angel Reese leaguewide. Azzi Fudd closed out Dallas’ group of double-digit scorers with 11 points, four rebounds, two assists and three steals, her sixth game with at least three steals this season and tied for the most among rookies in the league.

Paige Bueckers, Arike Ogunbowale Close It Out Again

Bueckers got the fourth quarter started with her second three of the game, putting Dallas up 71-63 with nine minutes to play. Los Angeles clawed back within four, 72-68, but Bueckers answered again, scoring four points in a 6-4 stretch that restored a six-point cushion, 78-72, with 5:53 remaining.

She did not stay on the floor to see the finish. Bueckers left the game with just over three minutes to go after hitting her head and did not return, leaving Ogunbowale to close it out — which she did, capping the win with a personal 4-0 run as the Sparks never got closer than four points again. Bueckers finished with nine of her 25 points in the fourth quarter; Ogunbowale added eight in the frame.

“Just grinding it out,” Ogunbowale said of closing the game offensively. “We figured it out, and that’s what you have to do in this league. Every team is good. Every team has All-Stars, great players, and can win on any given night, so we don’t take any game lightly. It’s just getting downhill and doing whatever the team needs. Lately that’s been getting downhill, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”

With Bueckers out for the final stretch, Fernandez pointed specifically to Ogunbowale’s downhill attacks as what kept Los Angeles at arm’s length.

“I thought Arike was really assertive down the stretch,” Fernandez said. “Those baskets, her driving to the basket, were big. I thought she was efficient today as well.”

Dallas has now won 10 clutch games this season, the most in the WNBA — no other team has more than nine — and sits 10-5 in games decided in the final five minutes, a jump from the 10 total clutch wins the franchise had across the previous two seasons combined. Fernandez credited the turnaround to how deliberately Dallas manages the possessions that decide those games rather than any one player’s shot-making.

“When you talk about clutch plays, it’s about making sure the right people get the basketball and the right people take the shots,” Fernandez said. “It’s about execution in the half court, and execution coming out of timeouts is huge. Those possessions in the fourth quarter magnify everything.”

A Different Team From Early Season

The numbers back up the shift. Over the six-game streak, Bueckers is averaging 23.8 points, 5.5 rebounds and 7.0 assists on 53% shooting and 93.3% from the free-throw line. Shepard has been even more dominant in the frontcourt, posting five double-doubles and a triple-double in six games while averaging 16.7 points and 12.3 rebounds. Ogunbowale is putting up 14.0 points a night, and Fudd has added 12.2 points and 2.8 steals per game.

Fernandez traced the turnaround to two specific home losses in the season’s first few weeks, defeats to Atlanta and Minnesota that forced the team to confront its problems before it had any margin for error.

“I think early in the season we’re probably talking about the Atlanta and Minnesota games here at home,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to lose some of those games to learn a lot about yourself that’s going to help you down the road. That team wasn’t the same team we have now. We only had two exhibition games, and if you look back at who we had available in those games and throughout training camp, it was a much different group.”

Fernandez, hired ahead of this season, noted that Dallas has kept reshaping its roster since — most recently adding Fudd, Shepard and Li in the months after that early stretch. “I wasn’t here last year, so this is a totally different roster,” he said. Twenty-five games into piecing that group together, he said, the payoff shows up specifically in how the team handles the final few minutes of close games.

“Now we’re 25 games in,” he said. “You’re seeing people rely on each other and become comfortable together. When we go into the fourth quarter, whether we’re up or down, we talk about it being our quarter. Everything we’ve done up to that point is about putting ourselves in position to close games.”

Ogunbowale pointed to the same growth, drawing a direct line between how Dallas handles opposing runs now and how it played through the season’s first 10 games, when the Wings were still finding their footing.

“The first 10 games of the season, if another team made a run, we probably would’ve folded,” Sims said. “We probably would’ve had loose-ball turnovers and lost. Now, as we’ve gotten into the middle of the season, you can see the growth. We don’t panic in those clutch moments anymore. It’s almost like we’ve been there before, and we know what to do.”

She added that the execution carries weight beyond the regular season.

“These moments are important because they’ll carry over into the postseason,” Sims added. “Our biggest thing is making sure we keep tweaking everything we need to before the playoffs so we’re ready when that time comes.”

Bench Answers the Call

Dallas was playing the second of three games in four days, and the Wings again leaned on their reserves. The team was already without Alanna Smith (right leg), which meant a deeper look down the bench.

Odyssey Sims scored 7 points and dished a team-high-tying six assists in 16:57 off the bench. Li Yueru added 4 points and 4 rebounds in 13 minutes. Awak Kuier, who started at forward, chipped in 4 points in 9 minutes, and Alysha Clark, Aziaha James and Maddy Siegrist combined for 8 points across 26 minutes. Sug Sutton (coach’s decision) and Jones (inactive) were unavailable for Dallas.

Sims, who has filled a key role with the bench for much of the season, framed the group’s approach as staying ready regardless of role.

“We know everybody is important on this team — not just the starters,” Sims said. “We talk about it all the time: be ready whenever your number is called. It’s not just about going in and scoring. It’s about being locked in defensively, knowing the schemes, and making sure you know the plays. I think we do a good job on the bench of staying engaged so that whoever goes into the game is ready to play. We know that’s going to be key down the stretch because the starters can’t play 30-plus minutes every night.”

Fernandez ran through the reserves by name afterward, crediting each for a specific role in getting Dallas through the stretch of three games in four days.

“I thought Odyssey gave us some really good minutes, both from a playmaking standpoint and getting the ball where we needed it to go, allowing Paige to play off the ball,” Fernandez said. “Li Yueru gave us some good minutes. I thought AC in the first half, and Aziaha James and Maddy Siegrist as well. We needed contributions from our bench with these three games in four days.”

Sluggish Start Against a Team Below .500

Dallas entered Sunday with a strong record against teams under .500 this season, and Ogunbowale said that has nothing to do with taking opponents lightly.

“Every game is important, whether it’s a top-four or top-five team or somebody that’s below us,” she said. “The biggest thing for us is approaching every game like we’re playing the best team in the league. Of course, right now we’re top four, so that feels good, and we’re on a winning streak, but we still have to approach every team and every game the same regardless of record.”

That mindset was tested by Dallas’ own sluggish patch, which nearly gave back the cushion the Wings had built in the first quarter.

“Today kind of started slow,” Ogunbowale said. “We had a good first quarter, then we backed off and had a lot of empty possessions. We were able to wake up a little bit in the second half and get going a little later than we wanted to. I’m still proud of my team for staying together in those moments and finding a way to win.” Asked about a slow third quarter — a recurring issue for Dallas this season — she added: “Coach emphasizes the first five minutes of the first quarter and the first five minutes coming out of halftime. Sometimes we don’t start the best, and sometimes our third quarters are a little slow, but we eventually pick it up. We’re continuing to work on that, and we’re aware of it. We take it game by game.”

The Sparks scored the game’s first four points, but Dallas erased that in a hurry, ripping off nine straight to go up 9-4 with 5:49 left in the opening quarter — Kuier accounted for four of those points. Neither team pulled away after that until the final two minutes, when the Wings closed on an 8-0 spurt to turn a two-point edge into a 27-17 lead heading into the second. Bueckers and Fudd paced Dallas with six points apiece, part of a balanced night in which seven different Wings players found the scoresheet in the first quarter alone.

Los Angeles trimmed the margin to four with an 8-2 run to open the second quarter, and Ogunbowale answered personally, scoring five of Dallas’ first nine points as the Wings pushed the lead back out to nine, 36-27, forcing a Sparks timeout with 5:24 left in the half. Ariel Atkins picked up a flagrant foul with 4:36 remaining before halftime, and Los Angeles chipped away again down the stretch, outscoring Dallas 13-10 to close within six, 46-40, at the break. Bueckers carried a 12-point, two-rebound, four-assist line into the locker room, with Ogunbowale right behind her at 10 points. Both offenses were nearly even through two quarters — Dallas shot 47.1% to the Sparks’ 48.6% — though Dallas had the clear edge from three, hitting 45.5% of its attempts to Los Angeles’ 18.2%.

The Sparks came out of the break with intent, going on a 9-4 run to pull within one, 50-49, with 5:54 left in the third, and moments later grabbed their first lead since the opening minutes of the game on a bucket from Ogwumike, 51-50, with 5:40 to go. Dallas needed an answer and got one: a 14-7 surge, punctuated by a Li and-one, put the Wings back on top by six, 64-58, with 1:40 remaining in the quarter. Los Angeles had the final word of the period, though, closing on a 5-4 run to head into the fourth down just five, 68-63.

Dallas finished with 16 turnovers, 14 of them through three quarters — a total that Fernandez felt needed to be better despite the win.

“I was more concerned that we had 14 turnovers,” he said. “We average 10 a game, and we had 14 going into the fourth quarter. We only had two in the fourth, but we gave L.A. too many opportunities. It’s no excuse, but we looked like a team that hadn’t played in a week. We were out of rhythm at times.”

The Wings were actually working off a week’s rest, their first extended break of the season. Shooting percentages finished close — Dallas at 49.3%, Los Angeles at 48.5% — but Dallas won the possession battle in other ways, claiming a 34-30 rebounding edge, cashing in 17 second-chance points to the Sparks’ 10 and winning the fast-break scoring battle 6-4. Los Angeles found its own advantage inside, outscoring Dallas in the paint 50-44. The game swung through nine lead changes and two ties, with neither team ever pulling away by much: Dallas’ biggest cushion was 11 points, Los Angeles’ was four.

Los Angeles played without leading guard Kelsey Plum (left lower leg), along with Morgan, Pili and Williams (right hand); Kate Martin was a coach’s decision. Ogwumike paced the Sparks with a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds, and Hamby was right behind her with 16 points, five rebounds, three assists and a steal.

No Immediate Update on Paige Bueckers

Fernandez did not have an update on Bueckers’ condition when he met with reporters after the game.

“I don’t have an update,” he said. “I know she was being evaluated. I went back there to see her, but she’s with our doctors, and we’ll know more in the next couple of hours.”

Fernandez said Dallas’ response in the immediate aftermath — working through a timeout and getting a defensive stop without its leading scorer on the floor — was one thing he could point to positively from the sequence.

“I thought the team did a good job coming out of the timeout, responding, getting a stop, and then getting the ball where we wanted it on that side pick-and-roll isolation coming out of the timeout,” he said. Asked about the nature of the injury, he said he did not have details yet. “I’ll know more once we talk to the doctors and our sports medicine staff,” he said.

Up Next

Dallas returns to the court Monday for the first back-to-back of its season, welcoming the New York Liberty to College Park Center at 7 p.m. CT. Locally, the broadcast airs on KFAA, with the game also streaming on WNBA League Pass.

Fernandez has coached through crowded stretches before, but never a true back-to-back as a WNBA head coach.

“I don’t know,” Fernandez said when asked about the challenge of the schedule turnaround. “This is my first back-to-back in the WNBA, but I had back-to-back-to-back-to-back games in college when we played three or four games in a row during tournaments.”

Dallas was initially scheduled to host the Liberty on Friday, but travel complications due to a mechanical issue with the plane resulted in the game being postponed to Monday. The Wings had already had multiple practice days to prepare for this matchup, including a shootaround that was converted into a practice on the original game day.

“We already did our film work on New York,” Fernandez said. “We had four film sessions on Wednesday, and we practiced for New York that day.” Dallas will skip shootaround Monday, with players reviewing New York’s scouting report on their own. “All of our players already have the New York scout and will watch film on their own tonight,” he said. “We’ll have some shooting groups tomorrow.”

Ogunbowale’s own answer was simpler. Asked about her priorities before the back-to-back, she said, “Rest and recover.”