ARLINGTON, Texas — The Chicago Sky traveled south to face the Dallas Wings in their first game of the 2024 WNBA season on Wednesday night. Chicago fell 87-79 in Teresa Weatherspoon and Angel Reese's team debuts. The Sky had a promising showing, but have plenty of work to do. Weatherspoon, Marina Mabrey, and Elizabeth Williams revealed three key adjustments the team needs in preparation for their rematch on Saturday.
The Sky must focus their efforts on the boards and team defense
The Sky competed well early on, but their first glaring issue was losing the battle on the boards. Dallas outrebounded Chicago 42-37. Teresa Weatherspoon acknowledged the Wings' rebounding skill and spoke on the importance of Chicago's need to increase their efforts.
“This is what they do. They're very, very good at offensive rebounding and position themselves when the ball goes up…We have to be better there. What's important is we have to gang rebound,” Weatherspoon said after the game.
Weatherspoon emphasized that the Sky must “gang rebound” to counter the Wings' size and skill on the boards. In other words, Chicago's guards must crash the boards in addition to their bigs boxing out opposing players.
Similarly, veteran center Elizabeth Williams said the Sky need to figure out ways to get loose balls and make things harder for the opposition. The Sky held things close in the fourth quarter until the final few minutes of the game, and loose balls were a big part of their slow-down. Their defense was the other part, as revealed by Williams.
“We didn't get a string of stops…That's what wins games, you know, getting consecutive stops regardless of what happens on offense. I think that hurt us and frustrated us a little bit,” Williams said.
Chicago can improve their late-game resistance. Speaking of improvement, Coach Weatherspoon and Marina Mabrey gave eye-opening insight into the team's offensive showing and learning process as a whole.
Chemistry and continued learning will be vital for Chicago
Marina Mabrey had a standout night for Chicago. She led the team with 19 points, nine rebounds, and three assists. She displayed her stout scoring ability from the game's start and feels like the team's offensive chemistry is promising.
“If you look at the game as a whole, I feel like we played together, and we were moving the ball trying to find open mismatches. But we failed to do that at the end, and that hurt us. So just trying to string together a little bit more togetherness and a little bit more discipline offensively,” Mabrey said.
Weatherspoon echoed Mabrey's sentiments.
“That's just gaining experience of knowing where the ball must go [whose hands it should be in]. It's just learning right now. We did some really good things that we're gonna build from, but also we're going to go to the drawing board, take a look at the film [and] see where we have to make our adjustments,” Weatherspoon said.
The first-year Sky coach recognized some great things her team did on Wednesday night and feels they will get where they need to within time. In addition to Weatherspoon's coaching debut, Angel Reese started her WNBA career. The former LSU star amassed 12 points and eight rebounds.
Teresa Weatherspoon feels good about the improvement Reese and the rest of the team can make going forward.
“For everybody, it's a learning process…knowing what they can do and what they can't do. Our girls went out and competed tonight. We just came up a little bit short because of the things we're learning down the stretch. You learn how to win. And that's where we are, learning how to win,” Weatherspoon added.
Things look promising for Angel Reese and the Sky despite their debut loss. They will get a chance at redemption in another Wings matchup on May 18th.
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