Wings vs. Storm: Paige Bueckers Scores 27 as Dallas Wins in OT With WNBA-Record 48 Made Field Goals

By the time Aziaha James knocked down the last free throw with 1.6 seconds left, the Climate Pledge Arena scoreboard looked like a typo, and the record book needed a new entry. Nineteen lead changes. One overtime. A 37-point night that still wasn't enough.

Dallas won it 112-110 over the Seattle Storm on Monday night, and the Wings did it by making a WNBA-record 48 field goals. Paige Bueckers scored 27 and Azzi Fudd added a career-high 26, including the layup that decided a game in which nobody could keep a lead for more than a few minutes.

Runs on Top of Runs

This thing had the pacing of a TikTok feed: every 90 seconds, a completely different story. Dallas got an early 9-0 burst and led 26-19 after one, then added an 8-0 run for a 36-23 lead in the second. Seattle answered with 14 straight, and just like that, the Storm were up 37-36 on the way to a 42-40 halftime lead.

The third quarter did it all over again. Seattle went on an 8-0 run from a 44-44 tie. Dallas tied it at 59 with nine straight, fell behind again, then rattled off 10 in a row across the quarter break. The Wings led 67-66 heading to the fourth, a score that had taken an enormous amount of work to remain that boring.

Seattle looked like it had finally landed the knockout. Awa Fam hit a 3, Natisha Hiedeman hit another, and Hiedeman's pull-up with 1:24 left in regulation made it 94-88. Then Bueckers took the game away from everyone else. A 24-footer. A 25-footer. A Dominique Malonga layup put Seattle back up two with 20.2 seconds left, and Bueckers tied it again from 12 feet with 5.6 seconds to go. Those were the Wings' last eight points of regulation, and all of them were hers.

Overtime kept the same pulse. The lead changed hands 10 times in the extra five minutes, and neither team ever led by more than two. James opened the period with a layup. Fam answered a Bueckers step-back with a 25-footer. Bueckers hit her own 25-footer with 1:22 left for a 107-105 lead, Cooke put Seattle back ahead from 7 feet with 39.6 seconds to go, and Malonga drove for a 110-109 edge with 25.5 seconds left. Fudd answered at the other end, driving in with about 13 seconds to go for a 111-110 Dallas lead.

Bueckers, Fudd and the Bench Mob

Bueckers finished 12-of-23 with five rebounds and five assists, and she scored 17 of the Wings' final 24 points. Somewhere in that avalanche, she also reached 1,000 career points on the 10-foot pull-up that put Dallas up 109-108. She got there in 52 games, tying Elena Delle Donne for the fourth-fastest to the milestone in WNBA history.

Fudd was the more efficient half of the duo, going 11-of-17 with four steals and only one turnover in 42 minutes. James was just as important off the bench, posting 18 points, six rebounds and six assists without a single giveaway. Jessica Shepard nearly had a triple-double, with 14 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, and Li Yueru added 10. The wildest part is that Dallas did all of this with Arike Ogunbowale scoring four points on 1-of-5 shooting in 20 minutes.

The gut punch, if you're a Storm fan, is Malonga. She poured in a career-high 37 with 12 rebounds, going 14-of-24, and at 20 years and 219 days old, no player in league history has ever been younger at 200 career field goals. Hiedeman added 21 points and 11 assists. Fam was brilliant on 6-of-8 shooting, scoring 18 with 4-of-5 from deep. Zia Cooke came off the bench for 18, and Flau'jae Johnson chipped in 11 points and nine assists. Seattle shot 51 percent, scored 110 points and had 29 assists. Most nights, that's a win. This has not been most nights in Seattle.

The Steal

Fudd's layup put Dallas ahead, but Seattle still had 13 seconds and a building full of people who had seen Malonga score on nearly every important possession. One clean look could have flipped the lead an 11th time in the period. Instead Shepard took the ball away, and the Storm never got that look.

James went to the line and made one of two, which set the final margin. Shepard's steal won't get the same replay as Bueckers' back-to-back 3s, but it was the only stop that really counted in a game with almost none of them.

Stats That Matter

• 48-of-89: That's the WNBA-record made field-goal total, and it came at 54 percent.
• 39 vs. 26: Made 2-pointers, Dallas over Seattle. That 26-point edge just covered the 24 points Seattle gained from 3 and the line.
• 62-44: Dallas' advantage in the paint, the place the Wings went whenever the game got tight.
• 20-12 and 23-9: Dallas' edges in points off turnovers and fast-break points.
• 19-of-21 vs. 7-of-9: Seattle's free-throw advantage, 12 points that nearly stole it.

What It Means

Dallas improves to 11-6 and 5-4 on the road, with a second straight win after Saturday's 93-92 escape against Chicago. The Wings have now beaten Seattle twice this season, and they visit the Aces on Thursday.

The Storm fall to 3-15 and 2-7 at home. This was their 11th straight loss, a slide that goes all the way back to a May win over Washington. They host the Liberty on Thursday, which is not the kind of soft landing anyone would pick after a heartbreaker like this.

Everyone Cooked, Only One Team Ate

Bueckers got her 1,000. Malonga got her 37 and her age-record. Dallas got a line in the WNBA record book. Seattle got its highest point total of the season and another L for the pile. It was like an episode of The Bear: wildly skilled people, nonstop chaos, plates flying everywhere, and at the end of it, somebody still had to go home miserable.

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