Atlanta Dream’s Wright: ‘I’m extremely proud of this team’
Goforitradio Staff
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The Atlanta Dream’s season ended on Tuesday after falling to the New York Liberty 91-82 in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series at Barclays Center.
New York won the series 2-0 and will advance to the semifinals, where they will face the defending champions, the Las Vegas Aces.
Give the Dream a lot of credit. Although they fell to the Liberty 83-69 in Game 1, they battled in Game 2 and had a 48-43 lead at halftime.
However, the Liberty outscored Atlanta by 14 points in the second half, as Sabrina Ionescu scored 23 of her game-high 36 points in the second half.
Despite the loss, Dream head coach Tanisha Wright was proud of her team.
“I’m extremely proud of this team—the way they first came out tonight and throughout the year—their character really came out this year,” she said. “Despite the injuries, they kept fighting, kept plugging.”
The Dream were ravaged by injuries this season, including missing Rhyne Howard for an extended period of time. According to Allisha Gray, who had a team-high 25 points, it was a challenging season.
“I would say challenging because, like I said, we had to overcome a lot,” she said. “But it’s just the fact that we’re able to put our head down and overcome the challenges. But it wasn’t easy; it was definitely a challenge.”
At the Olympic break, Atlanta was 7-17, but after the Olympic break, the team was 8-8 and was able to sneak into the playoffs.
Howard, who scored 19 points for the Dream in Game 2, enjoyed the team’s flow after the Olympics.
“Post-Olympic break was the most fun that we had, and you could clearly see that we enjoyed being together; we enjoyed coming out and fighting with each other every game,” Howard said. “We obviously wish it would’ve happened sooner.”
Coming into the playoffs, no one gave the Dream a shot against the Liberty, and after getting blown out in Game 1, many thought Atlanta was just happy to be in the playoffs; however, they fought hard and go into offseason with their heads held high.
