Defensive Player of the Year Angel Reese is a woman of many talents, but outside shooting has never been her game. With 40% roughly indicating an excellent 3-point shooter and 30% the benchmark for a passable shooter, Reese has shot under 20% her entire career on low volume. This is fine. She’s a defensive player first, and she scores primarily in the paint. Having a sharpshooting center to stretch out defenses is a luxury, not a necessity, and Reese more than makes up for it with elite defense and rebounding, and above-average playmaking for her position.
Nearly every player in the modern game takes three-point shots occasionally, even unskilled shooters. Sometimes you want to punish a defense for leaving you wide open; other times you might just want to prove you can do it. There’s generally no time for things like this in the playoffs, however, when every possession matters. For this reason, it might seem shocking that Angel Reese took EIGHT three-point attempts in a win-or-go-home finals game where the stakes could not be higher. For reference, this would be an above-average game for Caitlin Clark in three-point attempts. She managed to swish two of the eight attempts for an acceptable, but still not ideal, three-point efficiency.
On paper, this is absolute malpractice. The Dream have no shortage of elite three-point talent, and Reese’s skill set is better suited in the paint. There are no analytics that will tell you threes from a 19% three-point shooter are good shots and that you should take eight of them in a game. Except, of course, they won. In fact, they always win when Reese hits a three. That must mean something.
Basketball is not just a game of skill; it’s a mental battle. The gap in confidence between these two teams in the first half was not subtle. The Golden State players looked visibly frustrated and ready to throw in the towel well before the game was over, which led to Atlanta’s dominance in the first half. This is especially unfortunate for them, as they escaped the rut and made it close again in the second half (I’m choosing to imagine this was due to a next-level halftime pep talk from Natalie Nakase), but they weren’t able to dig themselves out of the hole dug in the first two quarters.
There is nothing that represents confidence more than mathematically poor three-point shooters taking shots because they’re feeling it. Also, nothing is more demoralizing than a mathematically poor three-point shooter hitting shots on you. As much as Golden State was noticeably frustrated with Rhyne Howard and Allisha Gray’s inability to miss, Angel Reese’s deep shots stung just that much more.
Angel Reese is the leader Atlanta needed
Attitude is a real thing, and it can move the needle. Angel Reese has faced controversy for being the first professional athlete to be confident in her own abilities (apparently). Previous incarnations of this Dream core, though very talented, have been occasionally passive and moody. In addition to her generational tangible skills, Reese injects joy, feistiness, and even a little audacity into the team. It’s a formula that wins championships.
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