Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Sun, Jul 19, the Dallas Wings hosted the Los Angeles Sparks at the College Park Center in Arlington, Texas and were seeking to win their sixth consecutive game. The Wings had gotten hot at the beginning of this month behind outstanding play from their two WNBA All-Star selections in Paige Bueckers and Jessica Shepherd. Bueckers leads Dallas in points per game and assists per game while Shepherd is the team leader in rebounds. Both were chosen as starters for the 2026 WNBA All-Star Game, which features teams led by WNBA legends Cynthia Cooper and Teresa Weatherspoon. The game will take place at the United Center in Chicago on Sat, Jul 25. Leading up to the All-Star Break, the Wings have caught fire with wins over Eastern Conference opponents such as the Toronto Tempo(twice), Connecticut Sun, New York Liberty and Chicago Sky. Dallas was scheduled to host the Liberty on Thur, Jul 16, but the game was postponed and moved to Monday night due to flight issues encountered by New York’s traveling party. So, this game against the 10-14 Sparks was the first one in a full week for the Wings, who entered the contest in fourth place in the overall WNBA standings. Let’s see if they could keep this winning streak going.

The first quarter featured some clutch shooting from three-point land from both teams as Azzi Fudd made a couple of three-balls. A few baskets were made by Bueckers, including a step-back jumper to put Dallas up by ten points at the end of the period. In the second quarter, the Wings were a bit rusty to start out, but eventually got going with a couple of shots made by Arike Ogunbowale. Bueckers kept her hot shooting up as she made an and-1 three pointer. The Sparks didn’t trail too far behind and were only down by six points at halftime with a tally of 46-40 favoring Dallas. There was some foul trouble brewing among some of the frontcourt players for L.A, but the star player available for the Sparks in Nneka Ogwumike was doing her best to keep her team in it. Ogwumike recently became the all-time leading scorer in Sparks franchise history, surpassing Lisa Leslie for the lead in points. Let’s see how the second half played out.

Los Angeles opened up the third quarter on an 11-4 run that gave them the lead, but the Wings engaged in a tug of war as they eventually retook the lead from the Sparks and grew it to six points. At the end of the period, Dallas was up by five points and opened up the fourth quarter in style as Bueckers made a three-pointer to get herself close to 20 points. L.A kept pushing forward in spite of foul trouble from their frontcourt players other than Ogwumike. A couple of more baskets by Bueckers gave her 25 points on the day, but something scary happened to her with a few minutes left. After a timeout by the Sparks, a collision occurred as Fudd fouled Ogwumike, who then barreled into Bueckers. Both players fell onto the floor and Bueckers came down with the back of her head hitting the hardwood. Both players were checked up on by medical staffers and eventually both got up. Ogwumike stayed in to play, but Bueckers was escorted off the floor as she also had a bit of a knee ailment as a result of Ogwumike colliding with her. Bueckers was taken off to the locker room as her Dallas teammates would have to hold onto the lead without her.

Thankfully, the Wings added onto their lead as Ogunbowale served as the closer in this situation. Scoring six of the last 12 points for Dallas, Ogunbowale helped seal off the game as the Wings won 90-82 over the Sparks. In spite of getting injured, Bueckers was the leading scorer with 25 points along with four rebounds and five assists. Ogunbowale scored 20 points, while Shepherd had a double-double of 11 points and 14 rebounds. Dallas shot nearly 50 percent from the floor and even though they committed 16 turnovers, they still managed to hold off L.A, whose leading scorer was Ogwumike with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Head coach Jose Fernandez did not provide an immediate update on Bueckers’ status, but she is very likely to miss the game against the Liberty tomorrow night. The Wings will play one other game before the All-Star Break as they travel to play the Portland Fire on Wed, Jul 22. Bueckers’ All-Star Game status is now in question as she might have a concussion and knee injury to deal with. Whether or not she returns in time for the WNBA All-Star Game is unknown, but for a star player in her second season in the league to miss any significant time is huge.

The Wings now have a six-game winning streak and at 17-8 are only two and a half games behind the Minnesota Lynx for the best record in the WNBA. Dallas does not even have the longest active win streak in the league as the Golden State Valkyries have knotted together nine consecutive victories and sit in second place in the overall standings. The Wings currently sit a half game back of the Las Vegas Aces for third place in the league(and Western Conference). With the top eight teams in the WNBA regardless of conference being eligible for the playoffs, Dallas finds themselves in a good position at the present moment. However, Paige Bueckers’ health is of utmost importance to this Wings team and hopefully she can be healthy enough to compete in a week or so.