With a first-round sweep of the Washington Mystics, the Atlanta Dream are headed to the semifinals of the WNBA Playoffs for the first time since 2018. And for the core members of the Dream – Rhyne Howard, Allisha Gray, and Angel Reese – it is the first time that any of them made it beyond the first round of the playoffs.
It showed on Wednesday.
As the final buzzer sounded, Reese and Gray were walking off the bench, waving goodbye to the fans and the Mystics after eliminating them.
That’s when DeWanna Bonner stepped in and lowered both of their hands.
Vets are going to vet.
“I think from the very first practice, she was somebody who was willing to be vocal,” head coach Karl Smesko told reporters ahead of Game 2. “So even if she didn’t know the offensive sets or defensive principles that we play with, she knows if we were being careless with the ball. She knew if we were slow to get back on defense, and she was willing to use her voice to get everybody on the same page.
“She is a really quick learner, and was picking things up really fast on how we do things. And she’s just been what you’d expect a vet with her experience to be like – a great leader, somebody who’s very serious about winning, and contributing.”
That moment after the game is one of the reasons why the Dream brought in Bonner. She’s a two-time WNBA Champion, and she’s able to bring a winning approach alongside Jordin Canada for a team that, while experienced in regular season games, doesn’t have the track record of postseason success.
“She’s a great vet, and I’m so happy to have her here,” Reese said upon Bonner joining the Dream with five games remaining in the regular season.
It’s easy, too, to point at the leadership that Bonner provides, but it’s more than her vocal leadership – she can still hoop.
“The great thing is, she’s been more than just a vocal leader for us on the floor,” Smesko said. “She’s getting it done and making positive contributions to winning.”
It was no more apparent than in Game 1 against the Mystics. The Dream entered the half trailing the young Mystics’ team by 5 points, shooting just 29%.
Coming out of the third quarter, Bonner took over, scoring 11 points in the frame on 4-of-4 shooting.
“She just comes in and just is able to read the game,” Shatori Walker-Kimbrough told The IX Sports ahead of Game 2 about Bonner. “Her ability to just watch the game and just immediately have immediate impact, whether it’s defensive rebounding, which we know is crucial to a team like Washington, coming in and making shots, being able to attack off the dribble. It’s like the perfect puzzle piece to our team.”
It’s momentum that the Dream carried out throughout the final six quarters of the Mystics’ series.
“DB’s (Bonner) coming in here trying to be comfortable, and trying to make sure everybody else is eating,” Howard said of Bonner after Game 1. “But I told her, ‘you need to shoot that ball, and you need to go get a bucket.’ And so seeing her do it and be able to do it with ease, like she’s been doing for years now, it was like, thank you. She’s showing up, and you know we’re gonna go as she goes.”
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For Bonner, she pulled from her experience to set the Dream on the right path forward.
“I think we were just playing with a lot of nerves and not ourselves. We weren’t enjoying the game, and we were like a little uptight,” Bonner said after Game 1. “And the one thing you can’t do in the playoffs is be uptight. You still gotta have fun playing basketball. We still gotta laugh and enjoy this moment. So I think the second half call settled us down. We played Atlanta basketball, so that was a lot of fun.”
That’s why there’s a line to walk when it comes to having fun and playing Atlanta basketball and not having the extra stuff like Bonner put a stop to after Game 2.
When Reese blocked a shot from Michaela Onyenwere, she said “give me that shit!” emphatically.
That’s Atlanta basketball and having fun.
“I think we just had to get back to playing with a little bit of joy,” Bonner said. “We kind of took that out of it, and I think we were playing with nerves, hoping that we were going to make shots, hoping that we were going to make this defensive play instead of knowing that we can’t do it. And this is what we’ve been doing all year. It’s what got us here. So let’s get back into having fun.”
The fun carried over into Game 2, where the Dream knew going in that if they won, they would have home-court advantage in the semifinals against the New York Liberty after the latter shocked the Minnesota Lynx by sweeping them in two games.
While Bonner showed up and showed out in Game 1, it was another veteran who set the pace and the tone for the Dream in Game 2.
“JC hit a lot of big baskets for us tonight. I just love playing with JC because she just sees the floor so well,” Allisha Gray told The IX Sports about Canada after Game 2. “She pushes the pace. I mean, she’s really our engine. So we go as she goes. But she played so great tonight, especially in that fourth quarter. We needed big buckets. She was down and ready with her threes, and she just played so well tonight. So I’m so proud of her.”
All throughout the season, when second-year point guard Te-Hina Paopao would talk about Canada, she would say, “That’s my Year 9 vet” about the way she would learn from her fellow point guard.
Paopao is soaking up the knowledge from not just Canada now, but also Bonner.
“Ms. DeWanna,” Paopao said, jokingly. “Man, I love DeWanna. She’s probably like, ‘Stop calling me DeWanna.’ She’s been very active in my ear and saying, ‘Hey Pao, we need you to lock in.’ She knows that I get fidgety in practice, and she’ll say, ‘Just give me 10 minutes, Pao.’”
The Dream knew what going home to a decisive Game 3 could mean. They were on the wrong end of the experience last year, losing a shocker to Indiana.
That’s why they wanted to take care of business against Washington on the road.
“I do think we were good enough to advance last year, and I thought we were good enough to win a championship last year, but you have to do it on the court,” Smesko said after Game 2. “And if you just mess up one round, or it could be just one or two possessions, it’s over. We’re always really motivated to go as far as we can.”
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This time, they’ll go at least as far as Round 2, as they’ll play host to the Liberty starting Sunday, Oct. 4.
The Dream won the season series against the Liberty, two games to one, after taking the final two games of the regular season on New York’s home court.
It’ll be a challenge for the Dream against a Liberty team that has a championship pedigree with its big four – Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Jonquel Jones, and Leonie Fiebich – winning the WNBA Finals in 2024.
They are an experienced team, and also a long team.
But that’s where Bonner can help in both cases.
“There’s a serious seriousness about her, about wanting to make this run and win a championship,” Smesko said after Game 2. “She’s just been a great addition, and she’s been everything you could ask for.”
What the team is asking of Bonner and the other 11 players is to prepare for the Liberty and the challenges that they present.
Advancing to the semifinals is one thing, but the Dream have their eyes on the WNBA Finals.
“We know the job’s not done. Of course we’re happy with this series victory, but now we put it behind us and focus on New York,” Gray said after Game 2 against the Mystics. “The biggest thing is getting back to watching film and knowing there are some improvements we can make in this game to get better. The biggest thing is staying locked in.”
Spoken like a team leader.
Spoken like someone Bonner would be proud of.
The IX Sports’ Jenn Hatfield contributed reporting for this story.
Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the group that owns the Washington Mystics, holds a minority stake in The IX Sports. The IX Sports’ editorial operations are entirely independent of Monumental and all other business partners.
