Angel Reese knows what it feels like to stand on the brink of a championship. As the leader of the LSU Tigers, she led them to the program’s first women’s basketball national title in 2023. Now the Atlanta Dream forward believes she sees something familiar ahead of her first WNBA Finals appearance, and highlighted her team’s chemistry ahead of Game 1.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“I know there’s a lot of special things coming. I have the LSU feeling that when I won that championship. So I’m feeling it right now,” Reese told Amazon Prime during an interview, which was clipped and posted to Instagram.
“We’re super talented, but I think the difference is the connectivity in the locker room. Adding DeWanna [Bonner], a vet that has played in many playoffs, has played in many championships as well, she knows what it takes. So I think a sister in the locker room is now better than ever. We have a lot of fun together. We genuinely love each other, and we want each other to win. So I think we’re gonna do it together.”
The connection Reese described has been on full display during the team’s postseason run. They have swept both the Washington Mystics and the New York Liberty, and they head into the finals against the Golden State Valkyries undefeated.
What makes their series sweep over the Liberty even more impressive is the fact that Allisha Gray, who led the team in scoring in the regular season and first round, was forced to sit out due to an injury to her shooting hand. She logged just 10 minutes in the series, yet the team rallied together. As Reese pointed out, Bonner was the catalyst.
The Dream entered halftime of Game 1 in that series down 40-37, and according to Jordin Canada, Bonner had some fiery words from the team, which eventually led them to turn the game around in the third quarter.
“DB got into us at halftime, I’ll just say that,” she said.
“We knew we didn’t play our best in the first half… We just weren’t being aggressive enough on the defensive end and offensive end. We talked about a second-half surge, that the first three minutes of the second half are going to be really important, and so we came out ready to go.”
Bonner herself stepped up that game, finishing the game with 23 points on 10-for-18 shooting, grabbing nine rebounds and two steals. However, her leadership also extends off the court in more subtle ways.
After the Dream beat the Mystics in Game 2 to eliminate them, Reese and Gray waved goodbye to the Washington crowd. Almost as soon as they started it, Bonner stepped in, forcing their hands down and taking them back to the locker room with the rest of the team.
Meanwhile, Bonner sees Reese as the clear leader, and has drawn attention to her relentlessness on all ends of the floor.
“She’s the motor [of the team],” Bonner said after Game 2 against the Liberty. “Her defensive presence is unmatched. … She brings the toughness. She brings the umph. As long as she’s out there, we see her go hard; it’s like, ‘Man, I want to dive on the floor for a ball.’ That’s rare. That’s kind of hard to find … we feed off her, and she gets us going every single game.”
Now, Reese is headed to the WNBA finals in her third season, after winning the national championship in her third year at LSU. There’s a pattern of success there, and it’s one Atlanta will count on as the franchise looks to bring home its first championship in the team’s first finals appearance since 2013.
The Golden State Valkyries await the Dream at Chase Center on October 17, and only time will tell if what Reese feels translates to the court.