The Atlanta Dream Are Getting Drowsy

A man goes to the doctor and says, Doctor! Doctor! It hurts when I do this. The doctor replies, Then stop doing that. To some extent, the solution to the Atlanta Dream's recent woes is for them to play well instead of playing poorly, and head coach Karl Smesko isn't panicking. I don't think it's anything drastic. It's just a play here, a play there, a call here, a call there, he said after Atlanta's 88-83 loss to Golden State on Saturday, his team's fifth straight loss. I think as soon as we have one game where we shoot it the way we normally shoot it, I think then we'll be through the struggles that we're seeing right now. I won't pretend this circular logic is especially satisfying, but it's true that a coach can only do so much when their team is shooting the way Atlanta is right now. Across those five losses, the Dream shot 26 percent from three and just 38.4 percent from the field—not what you want. It was a bit of a surprise that the team won't have any players starting in the All-Star Game later this month, but the snub has not exactly powered the team's wing duo to greatness. Allisha Gray is shooting 16 percent from three and 35.2 percent from the field in this losing stretch. Rhyne Howard, a stout defender, found herself on the wrong end of a couple of Gabby Williams masterclasses in the past couple weeks. Smesko might feel calm because he knows the team isn't in its fully realized form yet. Brionna Jones, expected to start at center, has been out recovering from knee surgery she had before the start of the season. We'll soon find out how much of Atlanta's problems are due to plain incompleteness: Jones was a full participant in Tuesday's Dream practice.