The Dallas Wings are 6-3 and playing the best basketball the franchise has seen in nearly a decade. Ask Paige Bueckers why, and she won’t point to a single star or a hot shooting night. She points to something harder to guard.
After Monday’s win over the Seattle Storm, the Wings guard put a name to the thing that’s separating Dallas from the pack. And it’s not something that’s in their box score. It’s a luxury most teams in the league simply don’t have.
Paige Bueckers Points To Depth As The Wings’ Defining Identity
Dallas had just dismantled Seattle 79-56 in its Commissioner’s Cup opener, and Bueckers used the postgame to explain what the team has been chasing all year. For her, it starts with how the roster is built and how willing everyone is to share.
As per her, the depth is the key for the Wings. “We think our biggest weapon is our depth, honestly,” Bueckers said. “That’s what we want to build within our team.”
“There are so many weapons, so many scorers and so many playmakers, and so really we think that’s our, our biggest weapon is our depth, honestly. It’s fun to play that way.” she added.
Then she got specific about the second unit. Bueckers said the bench gives the starters a sense of calm, because it doesn’t matter who’s on the floor. “Regardless of who’s starting, regardless of who’s coming off the bench, that we’ve got dawgs on the team, we’ve got people that are going to step up.”
The way she sees it, Dallas has a luxury of two starting line-ups. “We feel like we’ve got two starting fives, so to have that luxury, to have that confidence, to have this, so many weapons like I talked about before coming off the bench, it makes you relaxed as a starter,” Bueckers said, knowing any given night might belong to someone coming off the bench. “It’s a weapon, for sure.”
Monday was their depth’s ultimate stress test.
Dallas shot just 35.8% from the field and went 5-of-25 from three, their worst shooting night of the season. They still walked off with a 23-point win. Bueckers scored all of her 10 points in the first half, with 9 rebounds and 7 assists. “Sometimes you’ve got to win ugly, like tonight,” she said post-game.
The bench made sure ugly still meant a blowout. Second-year guard Aziaha James came off the pine for a season-high 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting, attacking the rim while her outside shot stayed cold. She scored 7 of those points in the fourth quarter alone to blow the game open.
The bench was indeed the driving force in this win, with reserves combining for 33 points and six different Wings finishing with at least 9 points.
The rest came from their effort. Dallas grabbed 48 rebounds to Seattle’s 36, pulled down 18 on the offensive glass, and turned it into a 25-6 edge in the second-chance points.
Head coach Jose Fernandez pointed to the defense as their primary anchor. “We kept them in front of us,” he said. “We made them take contested shots.” The Storm finished with a season-low 56 points and never reached 20 in any quarter.
The win pushed Dallas to 6-3, its best start since the franchise moved to Texas in 2016. Dallas visits the Los Angeles Sparks on Friday.
