The Chicago Sky have put together a string of its best games of the season on either side of the WNBA All-Star break but will have to take things to an even higher plane when they square off against the Atlanta Dream on Friday in a key matchup at McCamish Pavilion in the campus of Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
The Sky head to Atlanta off a rousing 92-91 win at Dallas on Tuesday in which reserve forward Cheyenne Parker scored on a putback with 5.3 seconds left to clinch the victory. Chicago led by as many as 24 points in the second quarter but gave all that cushion back and more, trailing by four points with 2:29 remaining.
Allie Quigley led the Sky (10-17) in the win over Dallas with 22 points while Parker poured in a career-high-tying 20 points including the game-winning basket. Diamond DeShields added 15, Courtney Vandersloot hit for 12 points and recorded 14 assists, and Gabby Williams scored 10 for Chicago, which has won three of its past four games.
On Tuesday night, Vandersloot became the first WNBA player to dish out 50 assists across four consecutive games.
"I have the best point guard in the league," Parker said about Vandersloot. "She just knows how to find the open player, and I just happened to be the open player a lot tonight. And she got me the ball."
Meanwhile, the Dream had its franchise-record eight-game winning streak snapped on Tuesday, losing 86-71 to Washington at home. It was Atlanta's first defeat since falling to Seattle 95-86 on July 6.
Tiffany Hayes scored 18 points for the Dream, which shot just 36 percent from the floor and hit in only 3 of their 22 shots from beyond the arc. Elizabeth Williams had 13 points and nine rebounds for Atlanta (16-10). in the loss, and Angel McCoughtry added 12 points.
The Dream remain in second place in the WNBA standings, four games behind first-place Seattle. Defensive-minded Atlanta had held opponents to an average of just 71 points in their previous three games.
The play of point guard Renee Montgomery has been a key to the Dream's recent surge.
"When you're younger you have so many goals and a lot of them are individual -- now I want to be sure that we make the playoffs," said Montgomery, who had 8 points in the lost Tuesday to Washington. "I want to get one of those bye spots. So just my approach to the game, controlling the team, is different. My goals are team oriented. My thing is, 'Let's make sure we got this right.' I want to win."
Hayes was named Eastern Conference Player of the Month in Wednesday.
Behind Hayes, Atlanta posted a 9-2 mark in July. She ranked third among Eastern Conference players in scoring (17.6 points per game) to go with 3.7 rebounds and 2.9 assists per outing.
Hayes also ranked sixth in field-goal percentage (50.7) and free-throw percentage (87.2) and 10th in 3-point percentage (38.5) among East players. She scored in double figures in each of her 11 games.
The two teams have split their games this season, with both winning at home.
