The Dallas Wings were already walking a fine line heading into the final stretch of the regular season. But with Azzi Fudd officially ruled out for the remainder of the season, that margin has become even thinner. The No. 1 overall pick’s rookie campaign has come to an unfortunate end after a knee injury forced her toward arthroscopic surgery, leaving Dallas without one of its most important perimeter pieces.

And according to analyst Sabrina Merchant, that could be a major problem for a team that has already made a habit of turning games into late-game battles.

“It’s really hard when you’re missing the person you’ve deployed as your perimeter stopper,” Merchant said in the August 17 episode of No Offseason. “Obviously, the Dallas margin ends up getting bigger, but they’re kind of gutting it out. They’re obviously figuring out a way to win games. I’m always of the belief that the clutch gene isn’t really – it flips really quickly.

“It’s not something you just have, and you keep it forever and ever, unless you’re like Chris Paul, I guess, but even that didn’t always work in the playoffs. So, you just got to be wary of playing so many close games because, as Becky Hammond loves to say, the worm will turn.”

Merchant’s biggest concern is that Dallas can no longer afford to rely on late-game execution to bail it out. Azzi Fudd was not only providing a reliable perimeter scoring option but had also become someone the Wings could deploy against opposing guards. She was averaging a team-high 1.7 steals per game. So, without her, every close game becomes a little more difficult to control, which was evident as the Wings lost four of their five games without her.

The Wings currently sit in eighth place in the WNBA standings, with just eight regular-season games left to play before the playoffs begin. So, their upcoming matchups will decide their fate and whether they can make it to the next level. But Dallas has already shown that they struggle without Fudd, and even the one game they won was very close.

So with the rookie now officially done for the season, Paige Bueckers will have to shoulder even more responsibility. The Wings need her to create offense, dictate the pace and consistently generate quality looks as the team adjusts to having less perimeter support.

Jessica Shepard could also become increasingly important.

The Wings still have a path to the playoffs, but Merchant’s warning puts their situation into perspective. Close-game heroics can only carry a team so far. With Fudd’s season over, Dallas now has eight games to find a more reliable way to win before that “worm” finally turns.