ATLANTA — The Atlanta Dream fully believe they can win a WNBA championship this season. That desire has been the loudest not-so-secret kept secret that coach Karl Smesko and his team think they accomplish.
“I think I had the mindset from day one that we had enough great players on our team, that if everybody could stay healthy, that we’d have a really good chance to compete with anybody,” Smesko said.
The beauty of the way that Smesko operates is that players are totally bought in and have been since early in his tenure. Rookie guard Te-Hina Paopao, who was drafted with the 18th overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft, didn’t hesitate to admit she believed from her first team meeting.
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“[Smesko] just told us that at the end of the season we wanna hang that banner up,” Paopao said. “I knew from that point on we have a chance to do it.”
Smesko put an emphasis on Atlanta’s defense ahead of a Friday matchup with the Los Angeles Sparks, a prerequisite for any contending team who wants a coveted trophy. He asked his roster to play better from their 86-75 win over the Sparks earlier in the week.
Atlanta’s defense had markedly improved early, even withstanding an early surge from Los Angeles. Dream guard Rhyne Howard had 29 points at halftime and seven 3-pointers, which helps a lot with his request.
In the second half, the Dream went inside, feeding forward Bri Jones to get her into double figures and that much closer to the team’s average of 36.6 points in the paint per game. Then, when the Sparks tied up the game at 64 all at the midway point of the third, Atlanta went on a 21-8 run to end the period, powered by more punishing 3-point shots from Howard and guard Maya Caldwell.
By the time the fourth quarter was well underway, the Dream had 19 total 3-pointers thanks to Howard’s valiant efforts and Caldwell helping to push the team along, too, with five 3-pointers of her own.
What’s more, Howard tied the WNBA single-game regular-season record for most shots from beyond the arc with nine. She became the first player in WNBA history to make nine or more 3 pointers in a single game twice in one season.
“I think that forces people to put me in the conversation with the best shooters because you can’t leave that off because nobody’s ever done it until I got here,” Howard said of her historic night.
The former Rookie of the Year eventually got up to 37 points by game end, Caldwell had 19 off the bench, and Bri Jones finished with 12 points. Also, nearly every Dream player who played scored on Friday, a day that was supposed to be, again, focused on defense.
“Offense was working well for us, but we knew we had to stop them earlier in conversion, stop letting people get wide open layups. So that was the adjustment we had to make,” Caldwell said postgame.
Perhaps it’s a good thing Atlanta was able to put up 100 points twice within the last week en route to an 104-85 win that helped them secure a top-four seed in the WNBA playoffs. What’s more impressive, Smesko’s team accomplished it this time without guard Allisha Gray. (Gray has been out since September 3 with a knee injury.) Rhyne Howard says part of the team’s success and perhaps its DNA is the ability to have fun.
“You would think it’ll be some seriousness, but it’s not. All we do is play,” Howard said, smiling. “Of course, when it is time to really lock in, we do it, but we are just a bunch of big ole kids.”
Smesko, unsurprisingly had different take, but his words were the underbelly of Howard’s thoughts. The first-year coach admitted the team’s DNA is yet to be determined because the most important part of the season (the playoffs) is coming up. Still, he landed on a profound point that challenges his team to dig deeper when the postseason starts on September 14.
“I know that we’re competitive. I know that we have a really good team. I know we’re capable of beating everyone, but … do you have the toughness that the first opportunity you have to take care of business? You find out a lot about a team when the playoffs come. When the most pressure’s on, how do you respond?”
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