Welcome to Basketball Insider, presented by The BIG EAST Conference. Sitting in the postgame press conference after the Atlanta Dream completed a sweep of the New York Liberty on Friday night, I couldn’t help but process what I’d just seen within the larger context of what we all thought we knew about the two players flanking Dream head coach Karl Smesko, Jordin Canada and Angel Reese.
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The Dream advanced to the WNBA Finals in collective fashion, without question. A defensive game plan powered by assistant Brandi Poole (who absolutely must be on interview lists for any head coaching openings this offseason) kept the Liberty on their back foot all series long. Rhyne Howard did nothing to alter my belief that she belonged on the All-WNBA first team. And Isobel Borlase took the post-World Cup step forward our Lukas Petridis predicted she would.
But the Dream won this series, particularly Game 2 and Game 3, because of in-season improvement from Canada and Reese. Had those two simply maintained their status quo, New York probably finishes Game 3 up 2-1 in the series.
Let’s start with the end of Game 2 and Reese, who has never been an elite free throw shooter, making both her shots with 4.3 seconds to go, setting up New York’s reset timeout so the Liberty get a good final look … okay, you know what happened next. Important not to lose sight of those made free throws, though! Reese made all six of her attempts from the line in Game 2, another 6-for-6 in Game 3, both games the Dream probably don’t win otherwise.
Even scarier for the league: Reese is a confident 3-point shooter now. New York clearly decided they’d live with Reese open threes in Game 3. She made 2-of-4 from downtown. In a game that tight, it’s hard to argue that wasn’t the difference.
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How did she find the range? Not by accident. In fact, it was a point of contention earlier in the season.
“It’s really hard for me to not want to rush success,” Reese told me when I asked about her long-distance evolution. “And Karl told me how patient I had to be with it. I remember a very moment in training camp where we were going through drills and he stopped everybody and told me I had to make two in a row in front of everybody … We couldn’t resume the drill until I made the two in a row. And I was upset with him that day for sure because I didn’t want to let the team down. I didn’t want to feel embarrassed and how long it could have taken me to make them. But now it’s so easy. My confidence is through the roof. When I shoot them, like it just feels like practice.”
Perhaps just as vivid as the results themselves was the reality that both Reese and Canada, who spoke about an early-season lesson where Smesko pointed out to her that making even one of every 25 more will change her accuracy and the way defenses attack her, were obviously listening to their coach. The continuity of thought between players and coaches is a primary indicator, in my experience covering basketball, of future success. Atlanta has it as completely as any team in recent memory.
For Canada, the three altered the way New York could guard her. Ultimately, Canada spent large periods of time in this series as the best player on the floor. That came from in-season improvements — in Canada’s case, nine seasons into her career. In Reese’s case, Year 3 overall, Year 1 in Atlanta. WNBA institutional knowledge on staff (and empowered!) was key.
For all the talk from New York of the adversity the Liberty faced, which is real — no Satou Sabally altered their season’s trajectory and ceiling, while Sabrina Ionescu gave reporters a fuller picture of her back injury struggles afrer her season ended Friday — the Dream did all this without Brionna Jones, who played just nine games this season, and swept New York without the services of Allisha Gray, who is every bit as important to the Dream as Ionescu is to the Liberty.
But it would be hard to point to a single member of the Liberty roster who improved, in-season, this year. Canada and Reese reaching another level? Well, that’s why Atlanta is still playing.
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Our 2027 WNBA Draft Board is also live!
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Five at The IX: Angel Reese, Jordin Canada, Karl Smesko
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