Wings vs. Liberty: Jessica Shepard Becomes Second WNBA Player With Three Triple-Doubles in a Season

There have been three triple-doubles in the WNBA this season. Jessica Shepard has all of them.

The latest came Tuesday night at Barclays Center, where she put up 22 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists and the Dallas Wings left with an 88-77 win over the New York Liberty. The final piece dropped with 3:12 left, when she found Paige Bueckers for a three that made it 82-70 and put Shepard in rarefied company: in WNBA history, only Alyssa Thomas had ever posted three triple-doubles in a season before her. Other teams are out here trying to find one player who can do that even once. Dallas has a forward hoarding the league's entire supply like Infinity Stones.

A Quarter the Liberty Would Like Back

New York started well enough. The Liberty took a 20-18 lead out of the first quarter, scored the first five points of the second and went up 25-18. A sold-out Brooklyn crowd of 17,532 was comfortable. That lasted right up until 8:25 of the second quarter, when Dallas began a 19-0 run that ended with the Wings up 37-25 at the 4:10 mark.

The numbers from that frame belong in a hazmat bag. Dallas won it 29-11, shooting 12 of 20 while New York went 2 of 15. The Liberty didn't score at all from the 9:23 mark until the 3:49 mark, and Breanna Stewart's lay-in with 2:26 left was only the team's second field goal of the period. By halftime it was 47-31. Stewart had four of New York's 10 field goals in the half. Everybody else on the roster combined to go 6 of 27.

The Liberty did come out swinging in the third. New York rattled off 10 straight during a push that cut the gap to 52-47, and for a minute or so Barclays remembered how to be loud. Then Dallas scored nine in a row to make it 61-47, and the air went right back out. It was 69-54 after three. A fourth-quarter flurry got New York within seven at 73-66, but Dallas had an answer every time it needed one.

Shepard's Night, and the Forward Next to Her

Let's run through what Shepard actually did here. She went 11 of 16 from the field, setting a career high in made shots, and she played 37 minutes without attempting a single three or free throw. All 22 of her points came on two-point baskets, which feels like a magic trick in 2026 basketball. Twelve rebounds cleaned up the glass. Eleven assists ran the offense, with Bueckers, Fudd and everybody else eating off her reads. That's her fourth career triple-double, tying Sabrina Ionescu for second-most behind Thomas, and Ionescu had to watch it from the other side of the floor. According to the Wings, Shepard is also tied with Ionescu atop the league's all-time list for 20-point triple-doubles with three.

If Shepard was the headline, Awak Kuier was the best subplot. She had 10 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists and three blocks, and made 3 of 4 from deep. That was her first career double-double, and the rebounds, assists and threes were all career bests. She came within three assists of giving Dallas two triple-doubles in the same game, which would have been downright rude.

Bueckers had 15 points, seven rebounds and six assists on a tough 5-of-15 shooting night, and a game-best plus-15 anyway. Rookie Azzi Fudd scored 12, including two late buckets off Kuier and Shepard feeds that kept New York at arm's length. Arike Ogunbowale went 3 of 8 for eight, and the Wings barely noticed.

New York's stars did what they could. Stewart was fantastic, with 29 points and nine rebounds on 10-of-16 shooting, and she took 11 free throws. Jonquel Jones added 17 points and 12 rebounds. Ionescu had 14 on 5-of-15 shooting. But the Liberty bench managed nine points, and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton and Marine Johannes combined to go 2 of 12.

Nineteen Straight Is a Long Time

Basketball is a game of runs, sure, but 19 unanswered points inside of four and a half minutes is not a run. It's a hostile takeover. New York led by seven when it started. When it ended, the Wings led by 12 and had taken the game's whole emotional temperature with them. Dallas outscored New York 70-52 from that 25-18 hole to the buzzer. The Liberty got within five once, in the third quarter, and never closer. For a team with Stewart, Jones and Ionescu, that's a stunning thing to read, and it started with a defense that simply refused to give up a clean look for more than five minutes.

Stats That Matter

• 29 of 35: Dallas field goals that were assisted. New York had 16 assists on 26 makes.
• 12 of 12: The Wings at the free-throw line. No wasted trips.
• 21-9: Dallas in bench points, with Alanna Smith and Odyssey Sims scoring eight each.
• 18-9: Points off turnovers, also in the Wings' favor.
• 5 of 26: New York from three. Dallas wasn't exactly hot at 6 of 23, but it didn't need to be.

What It Means

Dallas is 14-8 with three straight wins and five in its last seven. The road record is the eye-popper: at 8-5, the Wings already have more road wins than the six they totaled across the past two seasons. This was also their second win in Brooklyn this year after a 91-76 game in May, the first time since moving to North Texas that they've beaten the Liberty twice on the road in one season. Next is a Friday game against Toronto, to be played in Montreal.

New York falls to 13-9 and 7-5 at home, with its two-game winning streak snapped. A trip to Minnesota on Saturday won't make things any easier.

Collect Them All

Thomas got to this club first, and there's no shame in being second to her. But the funniest part of Tuesday is the league-wide count. Three triple-doubles have been recorded in the WNBA this season, and they all belong to one person wearing a Wings jersey. She's not leading the category. At this point, she is the category.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press. Team notes from the Dallas Wings' game recap.