Wings vs. Mercury: Paige Bueckers Pours In Season-High 31 Points as Dallas Never Trails in 85-70 Win

Arike Ogunbowale went 1-of-9 on Thursday night. Maddy Siegrist didn't score at all. The Dallas Wings never trailed anyway, because Paige Bueckers had 24 points by halftime and was not especially interested in sharing the evening.

Bueckers finished with a season-high 31 on 14-of-20 shooting, Jessica Shepard flirted with a triple-double at 17 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, and the Wings handled the Phoenix Mercury 85-70 in front of a sold-out College Park Center. There wasn't a single lead change. The only suspense came late, and Li Yueru took care of that.

A Lead That Never Went Away

Dallas came out with an 11-4 run that forced a Phoenix timeout barely four and a half minutes in. The Mercury did push back, getting within 21-20, but Bueckers buried a 3 with 35 seconds left in the first to make it 24-20. She had 11 points by then, which turned out to be her warmup.

Phoenix hung around into the second and was down just 30-28 with 5:52 left in the half. Then the Wings scored six straight out of a media timeout, and Bueckers started picking at the Mercury from everywhere. She scored 13 in the quarter and went 11-of-14 from the field in the half, ending with a 3 that made it 45-33 with 54.2 seconds to go. Phoenix scored the last three points, and it was 45-36 at the break.

The third was when this stopped being a contest. Dallas opened with a 10-4 run for a 55-40 lead, got as far as 66-44, and won the quarter 25-16 with Shepard doing a lot of the work. It was 70-52 going into the fourth, and Dallas could start thinking about Saturday.

The Turning Point: Nine and a Half Minutes of Nope

Pick the moment Phoenix was down 30-28. From there until the Mercury called timeout at 6:13 of the third, Dallas outscored them 25-12. That's the game. A two-point deficit became 15 in under 10 minutes of game clock, and Phoenix's offense, which finished at 39% from the field, never found an answer for what the Wings were doing around the rim.

The fourth had one small wrinkle. Azzi Fudd's 3 off a Bueckers pass made it 80-61 at 4:48. Dallas then sat its star, and the Mercury rattled off nine straight. Monique Akoa Makani scored the first four, Kahleah Copper hit a 3, DeWanna Bonner finished a running layup, and suddenly it was 80-70 with 1:28 left. An offensive foul on Phoenix's next trip killed the momentum, and Li's three-point play with 42.5 seconds left, her first points of the night, put the lid on. JJ Quinerly's pull-up, her first bucket of the season, was a nice bit of dessert.

Main Character Energy

Bueckers shot 70% and added six rebounds, five assists and a steal in 32 minutes. This was the third 30-point game of her career and her first since she set the rookie scoring record with 44 against Los Angeles last season. It was also the 17th 30-point game anywhere in the WNBA this year, so she's got some company on that list, and she passed 900 career points in 48 games, tying Elena Delle Donne for sixth-fastest in league history. The Wings' notes add one more oddly specific nugget: 14 made shots, 31 points, six boards and five assists on 70% shooting is a regular-season line previously reached only by A'ja Wilson, Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.

Shepard might have been the best player on the floor who wasn't Bueckers. She went 7-of-8 from the field, had no turnovers, finished plus-20 and logged double-double No. 26 of her career, her seventh this season. Fudd was the other piece, with 17 points, a career-high four assists, a career-high-tying three blocks and a team-best plus-21. Aziaha James scored seven off the bench and had three steals, including a dive on a loose ball in the fourth that turned into a Shepard layup and a 75-56 lead. That's the kind of play you make when you're up 17 and nobody asked.

Phoenix's best night came from Lexi Held, who had 17 off the bench on 6-of-10 shooting and was the only Mercury player with a positive plus-minus, at plus-1. Copper scored 13 on 3-of-10 shooting. Alyssa Thomas piled up 10 assists and nine rebounds with six points, though she also gave it away six times. Bonner added nine points, seven rebounds and three steals.

Stats That Matter

• 50 to 22: Dallas' edge in the paint, with the 50 a season high. This was the whole game plan and Phoenix never stopped it.
• 23-of-51: What the rest of the Wings shot when Bueckers wasn't the one letting it go, a fine number that looks a lot better next to her 14-of-20.
• 23 to 10: Points off turnovers in Dallas' favor, even though the Wings had 18 giveaways to Phoenix's 16.
• 4-of-18: Dallas from 3-point range. Phoenix went 6-of-18 and lost by 15 anyway.

What It Means

Dallas is 8-4, 4-2 at home and 3-1 in Commissioner's Cup play. It's a nice bounce back from a 100-76 loss at Minnesota two nights earlier, and it means the Wings have won five of their last six. They did this without Odyssey Sims, who missed a second straight game with a left ankle injury, and with Awak Kuier back after missing three games with a wrist injury. Next up is a trip to Portland on Saturday.

Phoenix is 4-10 and 3-6 on the road, with two straight losses and a 2-3 mark in the Cup. The Mercury begin a three-game homestand on Saturday against Los Angeles, and they could use the home cooking.

The Open-Book Test

Most teams don't survive a 1-of-9 night from Ogunbowale and a scoreless one from Siegrist. Dallas barely noticed. Bueckers played Thursday like somebody who'd been handed the answer key before the exam, and the Mercury spent 40 minutes wondering who let her keep it.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press and the Dallas Wings' recap.