Angel Reese is coming into her own as a playmaker, and the Sky’s guards are finally knocking down shots. It’s a good combination — an essential one, in fact.
The Sky don’t have a superstar who can carry the team night after night, or guards who consistently break down defenders off the dribble. Instead, they’ve leaned into a different vision: build around their prized sophomore by spacing the floor with shooters.
Finally, it’s starting to work.
After a brutal loss to the Mercury on June 21 — a low point in the season, when the Sky had just two wins — the coaches lit into the team. The effort wasn’t there, they said. Not even close. In the seven games since, the Sky have looked like a different group.
And crucially, they’re leading the league in three-point percentage during that stretch, hitting 8.6 threes per game.
“It helps when you’re knocking down shots,” coach Tyler Marsh said simply.
It also helps when your star finds her rhythm. Reese has embraced a bigger role: pushing in transition and attacking weaker posts off the dribble. Her 3.8 assists per game rank third among all forwards in the league.
That didn’t come overnight.
“Last year I struggled with kicking it out when I had two bigs on me,” Reese said. “This year I’ve been able to kick it out and know I have great shooters around me.”
For a while, though, the shooters weren’t holding up their end of the bargain. The Sky ranked 11th out of 13 teams in three-point percentage (30.5%) through the first 12 games. Kia Nurse, the starting shooting guard, hit just 26.5% of her attempts in May.
Reese, meanwhile, was showing flashes of the playmaker Marsh had envisioned — the one he’d seen on film from her high school and Maryland days, when she played more like a wing. But the turnovers were piling up, clouding the vision.
Then came the breakthrough: a triple-double against the Sun. Since then, Reese has turned flash into trend, averaging 17.4 points, 16.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists over the last seven games.
“The development has been understanding where she fits within the offense,” Marsh said. “We’ve put her in so many different areas that she hasn’t necessarily been used to.”
The shooters have found their groove alongside her — led not by a splashy offseason addition, but by someone who’d been waiting for her shot.
Enter Rachel Banham. The 10-year vet has spent most of her career as a shooting guard off the bench. But after injuries and weeks of lineup tinkering, she ended up as the starting point guard. She has kept turnovers low while shooting a blistering 45% from three on 6.3 attempts per game.
“I’m just rolling with the punches,” Banham said after another solid game against the Wings on Wednesday.
Credit to Nurse, too. She has responded well to being moved to the bench, shooting 43.8% from deep on 4.6 attempts in far fewer minutes.
The experiment hasn’t gone exactly to plan, but now it’s showing legs. And maybe even some untapped potential.
The one player who hadn’t quite joined the shooting party was Allen. She stood out in the early ugly weeks, then disappeared from the offense. So her 5-for-7 performance from three against the Wings was a very welcome sign.
“It’s always fun to hit a couple of shots,” Allen said afterward. “I really needed it for myself.”
The Sky needed it, too. But if this new identity is going to hold, there’s one more piece to figure out: Kamilla Cardoso, who just returned from a dominant run with Brazil at the FIBA AmeriCup.
If the Sky can fold her in without losing what they’ve built, they might have a foundation — not just a hot streak — on their hands.
