Friday’s Dallas Wings-Indiana Fever game was the second game this season originally planned for Arlington’s College Park Center before the [WNBA](https://www.swishappeal.com) moved both to the American Airlines Center in hopes of capitalizing on a matchup between two of the league’s young stars — Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark.
In both games, Clark didn’t play, Bueckers did and shined, but the Wings fell short: an unfortunate case of deja vu for the 8-21 Dallas Wings. Friday’s 88-78 loss was the team’s eighth loss in 10 games. After starting the season 1-11, Dallas had won five of seven to build momentum heading into July, but this recent stretch has the team in 11th place, seven games back of the 8th and final playoff spot.
Friday’s game came with an extra level of frustration directed at the officiating crew. Bueckers was sent to the floor multiple times in the game with no foul calls, one of which resulted in her only turnover in a brilliant 22-point, 4-assist, 2-steal night. She said postgame the team didn’t match the Fever’s physicality until the fourth quarter.
“We’re just building reps and we’re a very young team,” Bueckers said. “This is a new experience for a lot of us playing together, growing together.”
The team is indeed one of the youngest in the WNBA and Bueckers highlighted the importance of gaining quality reps in close games as an opportunity to grow. Her head coach offered similar sentiments.
“You have to win games,” Wings head coach Chris Koclanes said. “We have to sit in this and it’s not going to feel good, but you learn and you have a positive mindset and you don’t let one game try to affect the rest.”
But that positive mindset may be cracking. Players were visibly frustrated at times throughout Friday’s game, not just at officiating, but at the scoreboard. Dallas shot just 2-15 from behind the arc, and one of those makes was a last-second three-pointer by Li Yueru after the game was long decided.
In the 38 or so competitive minutes of the game, Dallas shot just 14 three-pointers. Indiana, by comparison, shot 28 and made 12 of them. Bueckers said she wanted to hunt more threes in transition moving forward, but Indiana did a good job limiting their three-point opportunities.
In addition to the 30-point differential from behind the arc, Indiana outrebounded Dallas 44-30, including 14 offensive rebounds compared to Dallas’ 4. Yueru, Dallas’ 6’7” center, played just eight minutes as Dallas got killed on the boards. Koclanes said he liked what Haley Jones was bringing and wanted to get the team’s tempo up. Indiana had 14 fast break points to Dallas’ 10.
Aziaha James, another young bright spot for the Wings, played just 16 minutes Friday. Her minutes have fluctuated from 38 in early July down to just seven in Wednesday’s 88-85 loss to the Atlanta Dream.
“We had 10 available tonight, when Maddy comes back, we’ll have 11. If you divide 200 by 11, no one’s going to be happy,” Koclanes said postgame. “That’s what I’m trying to say, but that’s on me each night. You want to try and establish rhythm and normality with your subbing and rotations and you go into every game thinking that’s going to be the case and then the game unfolds...and things change.”
Another interesting minutes situation Friday was Arike Ogunbowale’s playing time. The franchise’s cornerstone for the better part of a decade played 26 of the game’s first 30 minutes before playing zero fourth quarter minutes. When asked about the decision to play the 4th without Ogunbowale,
Koclanes stood by his decision and said the group on the floor had momentum and he wanted to see what that group could do. However, in an answer to another question about rebounding, that resolve started to crack as Koclanes appeared to take a shot at his guards’ defense. He said his team is getting beat at the point of attack and that is affecting the team’s rebounding position.
“Our guards are getting beat off the bounce, \[so\] our posts have to rotate to protect the rim. Now their posts are rolling three down to rebound,” Koclanes said. “It takes everybody being in there when we throw two people at the point of attack because our guards can’t guard one-on-one so we’ve got to send two people behind the ball.”
Round it all up and it’s a disappointing loss in a season filled with them. Koclanes and the team have preached about staying the course and gaining experience with a young group, but Friday’s game showed the harsh reality of professional sports: team chemistry and growth don’t feel as good as wins.