Dream’s Angel Reese learned a valuable lesson after Dream’s chippy sweep of the Mystics originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
After a chippy, combative two-game sweep of the Washington Mystics — the first playoff series win of her career — Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream waved “goodbye” to years of postseason disappointments.
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Literally.
As the seconds ticked down on the Dream’s 93-75 win in Game 2 on Wednesday night, Reese and Allisha Gray delivered one final taunt to the young Mystics, who had battled throughout the best-of-three series and forced Atlanta to dig deep in the second half of both games.
MORE: Angel Reese, Dream sweep Mystics as Atlanta’s playoff push picks up steam
The Dream had been particularly aggrieved with the refereeing on Wednesday night, as All-Star Rhyne Howard fouled out midway through the fourth quarter on a highly-questionable offensive foul call.
But as Gray and Reese said goodbye to D.C. and CareFirst Arena, there was veteran DeWanna Bonner — who has been in the Dream locker room for only a month — to lower both players’ hands as the buzzer sounded.
That right there is the value of Bonner’s veteran leadership.
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The 39-year-old, who joined Atlanta as a free agent after she secured a buyout from the Phoenix Mercury, picked the Dream because she saw the Gray-Howard-Reese core as good enough to lead a championship charge.
But Bonner, a two-time WNBA champion who has played four WNBA Finals series, also knows there’s a right way to win, and that’s by respecting the opponent and keeping the main thing, the main thing.
The Dream have experienced the relief of winning their first playoff series since 2018. With that out of the way, Bonner was keen to impress upon her less-experienced teammates that they needed to shift gears quickly to facing the New York Liberty in the semifinals.
