Wings vs. Fire: Jessica Shepard's Triple-Double Holds Off a Late Portland Charge in 101-97 Win

Bridget Carleton had the look with 3.4 seconds left, her team down two after scoring seven straight points in the span of 42 seconds, and 17,206 people at Moda Center waiting to see what happened next. It rimmed out. Maddy Siegrist came down with the rebound and made both free throws with 0.7 left, and a game that had turned genuinely terrifying for Dallas finally ended.

The Dallas Wings beat the Portland Fire 101-97 on Wednesday night in their final game before the All-Star break, and Jessica Shepard was the reason they had a lead left to protect. She finished with 18 points, 15 rebounds and 10 assists for her fifth career triple-double and her league-best fourth of the season.

A Slow Start and a Very Fast Third

Dallas opened like a team playing its third game in four days. Portland raced to a 15-8 lead, and the Wings needed a 10-0 run, including Siegrist's tying three and a go-ahead three from Paige Bueckers, just to lead 18-17 after one. The second quarter went back and forth. Dallas pushed the lead to 40-35 with under two minutes to go, and then Portland took over, scoring 10 straight points across the break. Carla Leite's late layup made it 42-40 Fire at halftime.

The third quarter is why Dallas won this game. The Wings went for 36 points, matching their season high for a quarter, on 62.5 percent shooting. They assisted on 13 of their 15 baskets in the period, and Arike Ogunbowale went 6 of 7 from the floor for 15 points, her highest-scoring quarter of the season. Shepard had six assists in those 10 minutes alone, tying her career best for a single quarter. It was 76-69 going to the fourth, and the Wings had led since the 7:38 mark.

The Fire Would Not Go Quietly

Bueckers' third three of the game made it 83-73 with 8:05 left, Shepard pushed it to 12 at 85-73, and for most teams that would be the cue to start looking ahead to All-Star weekend. Portland didn't get the message. Dallas still led 91-81 with 3:10 to go when the Fire ripped off seven straight, with two Leite free throws, a Megan DiLeo layup and a Karlie Samuelson three making it 91-88 at the 2:34 mark.

Azzi Fudd and Bueckers then hit the shots that felt like the end. Fudd's 26-footer off a Shepard pass, which also delivered assist No. 10, made it 96-90. Bueckers' 26-foot step-back with 1:21 left made it 99-90. Then came the part Dallas fans will remember with their hands over their eyes: Carleton's three at 1:14, DiLeo's running layup at 37.7, and Samuelson's steal and basket at 32.0, all of which made it 99-97. Bueckers missed on the next trip, Carleton's shot wouldn't drop, and Siegrist closed it out at the line.

Everything, Everywhere, Shepard

Shepard's line is the headline, but how she got it is what stands out. She shot 7 of 11, went 4 of 4 at the line, grabbed six offensive rebounds and ran the offense like a point guard for long stretches. Her two free throws at 2:20 stopped Portland's first big surge. The Wings note that her career total of five is second on the WNBA's all-time list.

Ogunbowale led all scorers with 24 on just 12 shots, including 3 of 5 from three, with six assists. Bueckers added 21 points and five assists, and her availability was a storyline all its own: she'd collided with Nneka Ogwumike on Sunday, missed Monday's game and was listed as questionable, then started anyway. The Wings say it was her 11th game this year with 20 points and five assists or more, the second-highest total in the WNBA. Siegrist came off the bench for 14 points and five rebounds, and Fudd scored 11 with three threes.

Portland's scoring was remarkably well distributed. DiLeo led with 21 on 9-of-13 shooting, Carleton had 18, Frieda Buhner scored 15 on 5-of-6 shooting off the bench, and Leite had 12 points and 11 assists. Samuelson (3 of 3, 10 points) and Serah Williams (4 of 4, eight points) barely missed a thing. The Fire also lost Sarah Ashlee Barker early. She hit the floor hard under the basket in the first quarter, appeared to injure her left knee and did not come back.

Ten Minutes of Passing

Portland outscored Dallas in the first half, 42-40, and in the fourth quarter, 28-25. The Fire shot better from the field. They had a bigger night in the paint. All of it came undone in one stretch where the Wings moved the ball like a teaching video and the Fire couldn't keep up. Portland lost that quarter by nine and the game by four, and that's the whole story in one line of math.

The Numbers That Explain It

• 13 of 15: Dallas baskets that were assisted in the third quarter, one off the team record for assists in a quarter.
• 35-22: Dallas on the boards, which fed a 16-4 edge in second-chance points.
• 57 vs. 49: Field goal percentage, Fire over Wings. Portland also won the paint 48-32 and still lost.
• 22-10: Portland's edge in points off turnovers, a big reason this one got so close.
• 5-0: Dallas this season when it scores 100 or more.

Heading Into the Break

Dallas goes to the All-Star break at 18-9, 10-5 on the road, with seven wins in its last eight games. This also was a nice bounce-back after Monday's 99-98 home loss to the Liberty snapped a six-game winning streak, and it evened the season series with Portland at 1-1 after an 84-83 loss here in June. Bueckers and Shepard are All-Star Game starters, Fudd is in the 3-Point Contest and Shepard is also in Shooting Stars. Dallas returns to host Atlanta on July 29.

Portland falls to 11-16 and 6-7 at home with a second straight loss. Before the game, the fans honored Carleton for making the 3-Point Contest, which gave that last shot one more cruel little twist.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

There's a movie about a person who needs to be in every universe at the same time in order to keep everything from collapsing, and it's a fair description of what Shepard did on Wednesday. She was the rebounder, the passer, the finisher, the free-throw shooter who stopped the bleeding and the one who fed the three that got Dallas out of trouble. It took all of that to hold off a Portland team that refused to fade. Three Wings now head to Chicago for All-Star weekend, and all three have a very good reason to take a nap on the flight.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game notes from the Dallas Wings. Context as reported by the Associated Press.