Angel McCoughtry pounds 32 in Atlanta Dream’s 93-88 victory over Indiana Fever – WNBA Recap
On Saturday night at Conseco Fieldhouse, Angel McCoughtry topped all the scorers with 32 points as Atlanta Dream closed the regular season with a 93-88 victory over the top-seeded Indiana Fever, clinching No. 3 seed in the Eastern
Conference playoffs.
Dream will play the second the second-seeded Connecticut Sun while Indiana will take on the New York Liberty in the first round of the WNBA playoffs, which begins this week. Indiana had already secured home-court advantage in the
Eastern Conference playoffs with a win against the slumping Washington Mystics on Wednesday night.
The night was all about the brilliance of McCoughtry, who also grabbed five rebounds and blocked three shots. The 25-year-old forward shot 9 for 14 from the field and 12 for 14 from free throw line.
Alison Bales, who came off the bench with a double-double, punctuating 15 points and grabbing a game-best 11 rebounds, said of their brilliant victory against the conference leaders,
“Indiana is a great team,” “It is always great to beat them. We are looking forward to the playoffs now that we have wrapped it up.”
Lindsey Harding also racked up 13 points, grabbed four rebounds, dished out four assists and stole the ball twice in the victory.
Katie Douglas led Fever with 30 points on an 11 for 18 shooting from the field, hitting 5 for 8 from three-point range. Jessica Davenport totalled 15 points and nine rebounds while Tangela Smith added 14 points, shooting 6 for
7 from the floor and grabbed four rebounds in the loss. Shavonte Zellous also contributed 10 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three blocks for Indiana.
Indiana played without forward Tamika Catchings for the first time this season.
“If Catchings could have played, she would have played,” Indiana’s coach Lin Dunn said about Catchings who is suffering from a knee injury. “She has struggled with this knee for the last couple of weeks. We knew after the New York
game that it was bothering her much more.”
Indiana were better from the floor on the night. They shot 51.5 percent (34 for 66) from the field and 66.7 percent (12 for 18) from free throw line, limiting the visiting team to only 43.4 percent (33 for 76) from the floor. However,
Dream outscored Indiana in the paint, 44-30 and committed only nine turnovers as compared to 16 by Fever.
McCoughtry was in her groove early and erupted with 12 points in the first quarter as Atlanta carried a 29-24 lead into the second. Indiana broke away in the second quarter and outplayed Dream 31-18 to take a 55-47 lead into the
locker room.
Dream responded in the third.
They trimmed their 8 point halftime deficit to three, 66-63, with 03:14 to go in the quarter. But, just when they felt that they were in range, Davenport drove to the rim for a layup and Pohlen knocked down a three to push Indiana’s
lead to 71-63.
Things however became very interesting when Atlanta scored the last seven points of the period and tied the game at 71 heading into the last 10 minutes of regulation time.
Spurred on by their late third quarter surge, Dream opened the fourth quarter on a 13-4 run to pull away. They were never threatened after ended their regular season with a four game streak.
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