Angel Reese’s near-perfect historic day was marred by controversy. Her strong start with the Atlanta Dream continued as they blew away the Toronto Tempo 102-77 on the road. Reese lived up to her walking double-double name once again, as the Fire used all the tricks in the books to stop her, culminating in a flagrant foul from one of her former teammates.

Reese finished the game against Tempo with a stat line featuring 15 points and 17 rebounds. Notably, 11 of those rebounds came on the offensive end of the court, which, according to @angelreesecenter on IG, is tied for the second-most offensive rebounds in a single game. Only Nneka Ogwumike and a handful of others have grabbed 12 offensive rebounds in a single game.

Furthermore, Angel Reese is also among the top five players now with the most games of 15+ rebounds, according to the Real app. The Atlanta forward has had 25 such games in 77 games played, while Sylvia Fowles leads the list with 43 such games in 408 games played.

If Reese can keep up with this consistency, she won’t need much time to even dethrone Fowles from that list. Reese’s 11 offensive rebounds fueled Atlanta’s 102-77 blowout.

“Angel just got a remarkable number of offensive rebounds,” Atlanta Dream head coach Karl Smesko said of Reese in the press conference. Averaging 11.9 rebounds a game this season, she has been on a fine streak, but the performances against the Temp

Angel Reese did not have it easy on the court, though. After being heckled all gam, the most controversial move came from her former teammate, Isabelle Harrison.

The moment unfolded in the third quarter of play when Reese received the ball near the paint from Rhyne Howard. Reese was in a perfect place to score, but Harrison, who was trying to guard Reese, pulled the former’s shoulders to leave her on the ground.

Harrison was assessed a Flagrant 2 and was ejected from the game, and the whole play moved Reese to tears on camera. After sharing the locker room for a season at the Chicago Sky, Reese was unable to accept the foul from someone who once mentored her.

According to the WNBA Rulebook, Flagrant 2 is described as: “if contact committed against a player, with or without the ball, is interpreted to be unnecessary and excessive … a personal foul is charged to the offender, and a team foul is charged to the team.”

The officials did hand Harrison a flagrant two for her foul play. She was ejected from the game and, as per WNBA rules, will have to pay a $1,000 fine.

Reese struggled early in the game against the Toronto Tempo as she had just 3 points in the first two frames of play. But she truly exploded in the second half, contributing 12 points to her team’s total. Her elite offensive rebounding kept Atlanta going on the attack through second-chance opportunities.

Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard combined for 50 points in the game. But undoubtedly, it was Reese who anchored the team’s offense during her 27-minute stay on the court.

Despite this rough physicality against Reese, Karl Smesko believes that his player has done well in navigating such tough measures.

“Everybody goes through some tough patches of a game. You’ve got to keep playing, and it just shows if you stay with it, you can turn it around. And I mean she turned it around in a big way today,” Smesko said postgame when asked about Reese’s slow start to the game.

Smesko isn’t too worried about Reese and simply feels it’s something the Atlanta forward will have to cope with.

“Definitely, it’s one of those situations where she’s going to be inside, she’s going to be physical, and sometimes not getting the calls, and you just have to manage it,” Smesko said in the post-game presser. “You can’t control it. So, you just got to keep playing, and I thought she did that tonight. I think that’s a large reason why she had a great second half of the game.”

Meanwhile, Angel Reese herself got into some foul trouble in the Toronto Tempo game. She received five personal fouls. Furthermore, her game time was just 27 minutes. It’s something that Reese will have to address immediately.

Without Reese, the Atlanta frontcourt loses major production, and thus, a persistent foul issue can largely harm Atlanta’s chances in tightrope games. With this win, the Atlanta Dream are now 9-4 in the season. They sit second in the Eastern Conference, with their next game against the Indiana Fever.