Wings vs. Sky: Jessica Shepard Posts the WNBA's First Triple-Double of the Season in a 99-89 Comeback

Rachel Banham finished a four-point play late in the first quarter, capping a 10-0 run, and the Chicago Sky were up 11 on Dallas in their first home game of the season. Three days after losing their leading scorer to a season-ending injury, the Sky had found about the best possible way to change the subject.

Then Jessica Shepard went to work. She piled up 18 points, 10 rebounds and a career-best 12 assists, the second triple-double of her career and the first in the WNBA this season. Arike Ogunbowale poured in 11 of her 23 in the fourth quarter, and the Dallas Wings came all the way back to beat the Chicago Sky 99-89 on Wednesday night. Six straight losses to Chicago, gone in one night.

From Eleven Down to the Best Quarter of the Year

Chicago's 22-11 lead came together fast, with those 10 straight points arriving in less than two minutes. It was 22-16 after one. Dallas kept chipping, using an 8-0 run in the second to turn a 32-22 deficit into 32-30, and by halftime the gap was down to 38-37. A team that had trailed by double figures had gone to the locker room within a single point without doing anything especially dramatic.

The drama came next. The Wings scored 34 in the third quarter, their highest-scoring period of the season, and the numbers behind it were silly: 11 of 16 from the field, 3 of 5 from deep and 9 of 11 at the foul line. Chicago scored 26 and lost ground anyway. Dallas took a 71-64 lead into the fourth, and from there it was a question of whether the Sky had one more push in them.

They did. Down 87-78 after two quick Paige Bueckers buckets, Chicago scored the next six, on Kamilla Cardoso's free throws, a Skylar Diggins floater and two more from the line by Natasha Cloud. With 2:32 left, it was a three-point game and the first home crowd of the Sky's season was back in it.

The Triple-Double Nobody Had to Force

The beautiful thing about Shepard's night is how little of it looked like stat hunting. She took just seven shots and made six of them. She took nine free throws, turned it over once and tied her season high in scoring almost by accident. In the third quarter alone, she had eight points, six rebounds and five assists, which is a respectable full game for plenty of players.

She was also the connective tissue for everyone else. Bueckers scored 24 on 11-of-19 shooting, slipping into the holes that Shepard's passing created. Ogunbowale had 23 with five assists, going 4 of 6 from 3 and 5 of 5 at the line. Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 pick, matched the career-high 12 she scored in Monday's 92-69 win over Washington, this time on 4-of-6 shooting and a perfect 2 of 2 from 3. Li Yueru's seven points don't jump off the page, but her nine rebounds and plus-18 in 20 minutes sure do.

Chicago had plenty of its own firepower. Cardoso was terrific, going 10 of 14 from the field for a season-high 24 points, with 11 rebounds and five assists. It was her second straight double-double and her third this season. Cloud added 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists and went 8 of 8 at the line. Diggins scored 15, Gabriela Jaquez had 12, and Banham had 10. The hole was Rickea Jackson, whose 18.0 points per game led the team. She sat out her first game since a season-ending ACL injury in Sunday's 86-79 win over Minnesota. A roster that loses that many points overnight has to find them somewhere, and for most of this game Chicago actually did.

The Answer

Cloud's two free throws at 2:32 were the last moment this felt up for grabs. Ogunbowale needed about 10 seconds to answer, drilling a 24-footer off a Bueckers pass at 2:22. Then Shepard found her, and Ogunbowale buried a 25-footer at 1:42 to make it 93-84. That one was pure spite. Bueckers scored at 57.9, and an 8-0 run had turned a three-point game into an 11-point game in under a minute and a half.

Banham hit a late 3, and Cardoso scored in the final seconds, but the Wings had already taken the air out of the place. Ogunbowale had 11 points in the period, and she had saved the two that mattered most for the moment Chicago could smell a comeback of its own.

Stats That Matter

• 34-26: The third quarter, Dallas's highest-scoring period of the season.
• 28-20: Dallas's assist edge. Shepard had 12 of them by herself.
• 9 of 21 vs. 5 of 21: Threes. Identical attempts, a 12-point difference, in a 10-point game.
• 6 of 7: Shepard from the field, on a night she could have shot more and chose not to.
• 48-38: Chicago's edge in the paint, most of it Cardoso's handiwork. It was not enough.

Where Everybody Stands

Dallas is now 3-2 with two straight wins and a 2-0 road record. The Wings head to Atlanta on Friday.

Chicago also sits at 3-2. All three of those wins came on the road, and the Sky are 0-1 at home now that they finally played there. They host Minnesota on Saturday and will have to keep figuring out life without Jackson, and that is going to take longer than one night.

The Showrunner

Bueckers and Ogunbowale get the poster, and they earned it on Wednesday. They combined for 47 points and hit nearly every shot that decided this game. But every great series has someone behind the scenes who makes the stars look like stars, and in Chicago that was the player who took seven shots. Twelve assists, 10 rebounds, 18 points and one turnover is not a stat line so much as a production credit. Shepard didn't need the camera. She ran the whole show anyway.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press.