Angel Reese leads Atlanta Dream into WNBA finals with 85-83 win in Brooklyn

Angel Reese scored a team-high 22 points to lead the Atlanta Dream to an 85-83 victory over the New York Liberty at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Friday, completing a three-game sweep and sending Atlanta to the WNBA finals for the first time since 2013.

The 24-year-old had 18 points before half-time, including a pair of three-pointers, and helped eliminate the 2024 champions on their home floor.

Reese has endured years of public ridicule, with critics circulating clips of missed layups and likening her footwork to "Bambi on ice", while deriding her rebounding celebrations with the term "mebounds". Right-wing culture warriors turned one of the WNBA’s most naturally gifted rebounders into a punchline for some observers. Her career has been measured against Caitlin Clark’s from the time both became household names, and Reese reached the WNBA finals before Clark.

Exactly 364 days earlier she had posted a prediction on social media: "Manifesting the finals." After the game she said: "I manifested this when I came to Atlanta. I knew what I was getting. The finals. The finals." She added: "I was watching the finals from home for the last two years and kept saying, just give me one playoff game," and: "I manifest a lot of things and think it’s important to speak positively into your life and your team, but this is all God. I’m thankful and blessed to be here and won’t take it for granted."

Reese arrived in Atlanta in an offseason trade from the Chicago Sky and said she had found more than a new basketball home. She described the club’s faith practices, saying: "We have a praying group; eight of our twelve players go to chapel, and we take that seriously," and added: "It’s a blessing to be around the girls in that locker room."

She acknowledged ongoing offensive limitations, saying: "For me, it’s really hard for me to not wan to rush success." Reese recalled a shooting drill under coach Karl Smesko in which he stopped the exercise until she made the required shot, leaving teammates waiting and increasing her frustration. Smesko remembered the episode, explaining that Atlanta had undertaken substantial changes to Reese’s offensive game. He warned her that the adjustments would not feel natural immediately, but that the work would begin to pay off as the season progressed.

The victory came without injured leading scorer Allisha Gray, whose absence placed additional demands on Reese and Atlanta’s depleted rotation. Reese said she had promised Gray: "This is what you brought me here for. I got your back. You got my back," and added: "And I’m glad to have her back for the finals."

For much of her first two seasons Reese had been cast as a modern-day Dennis Rodman — a generational rebounder and complementary piece — but this season she is increasingly viewed as a player around whom a championship contender can be constructed. She spoke about her mother, Angel Webb Reese, who raised her and her brother with help from their grandparents, saying: "She’s really proud because she knows the dark moments that I’ve been through," and: "I can pick up the phone at three in the morning, call her crying, and she’s just been there for me." Of her mother she said: "Support me, show up, and love me, and I’ll give you the world," and: "She’s not very hard on me, but she’s very loving, and she’s very caring."

For Reese, who spent her first two seasons hoping for even a single playoff appearance, the prospect of playing for a championship remains almost surreal; she said: "I knew I belonged here and wanted to help this team do whatever it took – not just get out of the first round or semi-finals, but make the finals and win a championship." Atlanta will face the Golden State Valkyries in a best-of-seven finals beginning on 17 October and Reese added: "The job isn’t done. We’re happy, but not satisfied."