When a team in your city is in the championship, everyone is locked in.
On Friday night in Atlanta, the city was lit up blue for the Atlanta Dream. From Jackson Hartsfield Airport, to Truist Park, to SkyView Atlanta, the city was showing out – and showing up – for the Dream.
That included the Atlanta Hawks and guard C.J. McCollum, who coined a new moniker for All-Star forward and Defensive Player of the Year, Angel Reese.
“The Atlanta team changed when the Queen of the South got here,” McCollum told reporters during media availability on Thursday. “I’m happy for her. I’m happy to see them doing well.”
The Queen of the South is an apt nickname for Reese, as the feel, the culture, and attention has shifted for the Dream since she arrived via trade with the Chicago Sky in the offseason.
From Day 1, she’s wanted to learn from her teammates and play for a coach, an organization, a city that supports her and allows her to be her.
On Monday night, in a critical Game 2 of the WNBA Finals, she showed the world exactly who she is and why she said during Game 1, “they ain’t fucking with me.”
It’s because they can’t.
They aren’t.
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Because while the Dream were staring at an 0-2 series deficit, Reese took over the game like she has many times for the Dream, lifting them to a 79-65 win as the series shifts back home to Atlanta, tied instead 1-1.
“Angel’s a dog. She has that dog in here,” Allisha Gray told The IX Sports earlier this year.
And she had that dog in here Monday night, becoming the third player ever — and the youngest in WNBA history — to record a 30-point, 15-rebound performance in the WNBA Finals.
When asked postgame about what was happening and working on the court for the Dream, Gray smiled and simply said, “Angel Reese.”
It was a bounce back performance, of sorts, for Reese. After establishing her presence in the first half of Game 1 against the Valkyries, she disappeared in the second half.
Ahead of Game 2, Valkyries’ head coach Natalie Nakase said that the game plan was stop Reese.
“Don’t let her touch it,” Nakase told reporters about how to slow her down. “She’s a tough coverage. It’s gonna be a team-based defense.”
The thing about a plan is that, well, as the saying goes, everyone has a plan until they get … you know the rest.
“Going into the locker room, the first person I made eye contact with was Angel, and I’m like, ‘Oh I like this look. I like this look,'” Smesko said postgame about Reese’s demeanor pregame. “She was just fantastic, on both ends of the floor. Just a superior performance.”
It’s what the team needed, too, as Reese and Rhyne Howard both got into early foul trouble in the first half.
With Smesko keeping his rotations tight to a seven-player rotation – with Madina Okot playing 37 seconds and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough playing 44 seconds – compared to the Valkyries playing 11 players in the first quarter, he needed his star to show out.
And show out she did – especially when Rhyne Howard was kept in check offensively again, scoring 5 points as she’s shooting just 30.6 percent from the field during the playoffs.
Howard’s impact was felt defensively, though, as Smesko noted.
“Boy, did she have an impact on the defensive side of the ball today,” Smesko said postgame. “Deflection, steals, getting us out in transition, making good decisions with the ball. She came up huge for us, despite the foul trouble.”
The Dream need Howard to show up offensively, though, as the Valkyries are likely to bounce back offensively in Game 3 after turning over the ball 19 times.
When the Dream and Valkyries tipoff Wednesday in Atlanta, it’ll be in front of 17,000-plus fans after 42,000-plus fans were in the queue to get tickets.
As she has been all year, Reese will be the third player announced in front of the crowd.
But make no mistake — this is her team.
This is her city.
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There hasn’t been an athlete to have a stranglehold over a city like this since Michael Vick arrived in the city.
Ilya Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley? No.
Ronald Acuña and Freddie Freeman? Not quite.
Bijan Robinson? Close, but no.
Trae Young? Maybe. Maybe that’s it.
But he’s never been coined the King of the South. That’s T.I.
The Queen of the South, though?
Reese is three wins from a WNBA championship. But she’s got that Queen of the South title already locked up.
