ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Wings returned to practice at College Park Center this week, with a few absences. With the FIBA World Cup ongoing, the team has been without head coach Jose Fernandez (United States), guard Paige Bueckers (United States), forward Alanna Smith (Australia) and guard Costanza Verona.
The assistant coaches and players who aren’t in Berlin have gotten back to work after a week off, preparing for the final stretch of the regular season and the playoffs.
Assistant coach Mike Neighbors likened the World Cup break to a “Christmas break” at the college level. He told The IX Sports that he was impressed with the team’s effort returning to practice.
“You worry about whether they’re going to be rested or rusty,” Neighbors said Tuesday. “This group came back — they’re pros. You can tell.”
One player the week off was particularly beneficial for was forward Awak Kuier. The 6’6 forward had been playing her best basketball in recent games but was playing through an ankle injury before the break.
“[The break] just came at the right time,” Kuier told The IX Sports on Tuesday. “When you have injuries like an ankle, the more you use it, the more painful it gets. I feel like it was very important for me to have those days to come back because now I feel great. I feel perfectly fine. So I feel like that was much needed.”
Kuier was also happy with how the team came back to practice and acknowledged what lies ahead for Dallas starting next week.
“It’s always tough to come back from a vacation, especially in the middle of the season. I feel like that doesn’t happen as often,” she said. “But honestly, everybody’s just happy to be back and happy to work because now starts the most important part of the season.”
With the team’s next game not coming until Sept. 17, the team isn’t yet focused on scouting its next opponent. The week has instead provided Dallas time to work on itself.
“Everything we’ve done is with Jose’s blessing, so to speak,” assistant coach David Adkins told reporters Wednesday. “Before he left, we met, planned out what we wanted to do, and this week has been more about us, about how we want to get back, get our legs under us, get our conditioning, get our touch and feel.”
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Still, the team’s work now is in service of ending the regular season strong and making noise in the playoffs. Veterans Arike Ogunbowale, Odyssey Sims and Alysha Clark could be heard addressing the team in a post-practice huddle Wednesday, with an emphasis on attention to detail and having a playoff mentality.
“We talked about being a player-led team, and that’s where this is going,” Adkins said. “… When you have players like AC, like Odyssey, like Arike, even [Jessica Shepard] and [Smith], they all got playoff experience. They’ve got years in this league, and when you have that, you have to listen because they’ve done what you want to do.”
The Wings, who are currently eighth in the standings (at the bottom of a three-way tiebreaker), have four games left to try to improve their positioning. All of those games will be against nonplayoff teams. Neighbors said that the team isn’t overlooking the upcoming schedule at all, but with the eight playoff teams already decided, the current break provides an opportunity for postseason prep.
“You can start working on playoffs a little bit,” he told reporters Friday. “Not that you’re looking past LA or not that you’re looking past Phoenix; we haven’t played them in forever. [We’re] certainly not going to look past Seattle. But you can start preparation.”
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The Wings are 7-15 against the other playoff teams this season, though they won the season series against the Las Vegas Aces, New York Liberty and Indiana Fever. Before their most recent win over Indiana, they had lost eight straight games against playoff opponents in a tough stretch from mid-July to mid-August. What the team learned from that, according to Neighbors, is that “every possession matters.”
“It’s been something that was talked about a lot, but we kind of had to go through it,” Neighbors told The IX Sports. “We had a lot of games that were one or two possessions, and it’s not always the last possession. Everybody focuses on that one, but it could be the third play of the game. It could be the first play of the second half. It could be the 17th play of the second quarter that makes the difference. But I think this group has learned that.”
Specific areas Neighbors feels the Wings can clean up ahead of the playoffs include screening and on-ball defense. But he said the main difference will be execution and playing to their strengths.
“When you get into the playoffs, everybody knows your plays. Everybody knows your play calls. Everybody’s done the scout. They’ve got your tendencies. It comes down to those teams that execute and can do what they’re capable of [and] be the best version of themselves,” Neighbors said. “You can’t be good at everything. So be good at those things you’re good at.”
