CHICAGO — Teresa Weatherspoon channeled her ’90s playing days as the Chicago Sky head coach led the group with less than a minute remaining in a tie against the Indiana Fever on Sunday. Weatherspoon instructed his team to clear the right side, position their power forward and wait patiently to get on the ball until they had established their position.
Chicago’s Angel Reese fought to deep seal against Fever forward NaLyssa Smith, very lightly used her right arm to get past her opponent and gently tipped in a left layup to give the Sky the lead. Play design like this with the game on the line would have seemed more appropriate 25 years ago, when Weatherspoon was a star point guard for the New York Liberty, but then again, Reese proves to be anything but a conventional rookie as a new face of Le ciel.
Reese took over down the stretch to earn a season-defining victory, 88-87, for Chicago over Indiana. On paper, this game was nothing special as a midseason matchup between two sub-.500 teams, but the celebrities who dotted the stands (Jason Sudeikis, Jalen Brunson, Chance the Rapper and Sheryl Swoopes were there , to name a few). ) and the bright lights of ESPN’s national broadcast told a different story.
Reese finished the game with 25 points and 16 rebounds on 8-of-12 shooting from the floor and 9-of-11 shooting from the foul line. In a massive spotlight game, she delivered the best performance of her career and proved definitively that her scrappy dog style translates to the highest level in the world.
“I tried to take my time today, finish around the basket,” Reese said after the game. “I’m getting points and being more efficient, so I just keep trying to improve every game.”
Each chapter of Reese’s rivalry with fellow rookie Caitlin Clark has become must-see TV, and this one delivered once again. Reese first rose to prominence as Clark’s foil in the 2023 national championship game, openly mocking Iowa’s face and casting herself as a villain in Clark’s hero’s journey. Since then, Reese has been called horrible things in public, but what she’s also learned is that a lot of people identify with the bad girl.
Reese is a legit celebrity off the field. She attended the Met Gala, appeared in a music video with Cardi B and has nearly a million more Instagram followers than Clark. Despite her incredible success at LSU, there was still serious skepticism about her game’s ability to translate to the pros as she fell midway through the first round to No. 7 in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Reese’s game just doesn’t have much precedent in the modern era. His skill set is all heart, hustle and brawn in an era where power forwards are expected to play on the perimeter and three-way shots. Reese almost never shoots further than 10 feet. Instead, she attacks the offensive glass with relentless aggression, throws her body at opponents in the paint to generate free throws, and tends to attempt some of the most awkward waist-high finishes you’ve ever seen.
Reese is such a throwback in terms of playing style that she considers him a true original: a player not big enough to play five-man nor skilled enough to shoot from the outside, but who still succeeds by working harder than anyone else. another on the ground. It may not always be pretty, but Reese’s engine never takes possession, and it’s starting to yield great results.
With just under seven minutes left in the fourth quarter, Smith hit a difficult hook shot on Reese and immediately made the “too small” taunt. The bucket extended Indiana’s lead to 12 points and appeared to put the Fever on the brink of their fifth straight victory. That’s when Reese decided she wasn’t going to let the Sky lose. On the next possession, Reese drove the ball from the arc and finished with an and-one over Smith to start Chicago’s run:
A minute later, Reese set up multiple screens to open up a hard roller to the rim where she converted another bucket.
A few possessions later, it was Reese again, this time grabbing an offensive rebound out of Smith’s hands and finishing it for another and-one.
Chicago held on until the end, and the Sky finally picked up a victory over Clark and the Fever this season on their third try. Reese ran over and hugged Swoopes in the stands after the game, then she dropped a quote to Holly Rowe on the ESPN broadcast.
“I’m a dog,” Reese told ESPN reporter Holly Rowe after the game. “You can’t teach that.”
With just 15 games in her career, Reese is starting to look like a legitimate WNBA star. She leads the league in offensive rebounds, she is second in total rebounds per game, fourth in free throw attempts and eighth in steals. Her 13.2 points per game ranks second among all rookies after Clark.
There has been a lot of talk about Reese needing to improve his finishing, but his scoring efficiency is starting to get closer to league average. Reese now has a 49 percent true shooting rate, with a league average of 53.3 percent — and that’s despite a stretch where she couldn’t do anything to open the month. Over his last six games, Reese is averaging 15.8 points and 14 rebounds on 51.5% shooting.
An underrated aspect of his rookie season was his touch at the free throw line. After being a career 70.4 percent free throw shooter in college, Reese drains 76 percent of her free throws — an important skill when only three players in the league get to the foul line more often than her .
Although Reese is quite sincere and physical on the field, she seems like a real girl off the field, worthy of her nickname “Barbie.” Reese is constantly smiling and laughing and praising her coaching staff and teammates. She would never admit it, but getting a win against Clark is probably very special to her.
“I think it’s one of the most important moments right now, and we just keep going,” Reese said of the newfound attention on the WNBA after the game. “I think both teams did an incredible job tonight putting on a show. It was fun. I had a great time, I’m sure the other team had a great time. I’m just happy we won tonight.
Reese wasn’t supposed to be this good at 22 in the best league in the world. She’s far from a finished product, but she’s already producing at a high level without the benefit of an offseason after her dominant career at LSU.
The Sky are still in the early stages of a total rebuild after their 2021 WNBA championship. Reese and fellow rookie Kamilla Cardoso form the foundation of this team as an old-school front court with tons of toughness and no shooting. The Sky take fewer threes than any team in the league and are 10th in a 12-team league in three-point percentage. The Reese/Cardoso duo presents obvious team-building challenges, but Chicago is already starting to figure it out. If they eventually manage to find a true point guard to set the table for the bigs and add more perimeter shooting and athleticism on the wings, watch out.
Reese feels like he’s swimming against modern trends with his playstyle, but it’s already proving effective. She’s simply playing too hard to fail.