Angel Reese is on a heater.
She's not on a heater like a deadeye perimeter shooter can get on, such as her All-Star teammate Rhyne Howard. He's not dominating the midrange or even dropping in floaters like Breanna Stewart. Her numbers are not, in and of themselves, a staggering sight to behold.
Yet Reese has been making shots more consistently than at any other point in her young career. It is a significant reason why the Atlanta Dream have gone undefeated in the playoffs thus far, sweeping both the Washington Mystics and the New York Liberty.
And if Reese continues this hot streak, the Dream will win the champiosnhip.
Reese quietly struggled most of the year
On August 17th, basketball analytics account "automaticnba" posted a table of the "worst WNBA finishers" this season. It calculated the points a player adds to their team based on their efficiency and usage on shots at the rim -- whether that be cuts, drives, putbacks, tips, etc.
The best finishers in the league include superstars like Olivia Miles, Aliyah Boston and A'ja Wilson, as well as complementary stars such as Jessica Shepard and Natasha Howard. They added upwards of 50-60 points to their teams' ability to win over the course of the season through August 17th.
The flip side to the board is the worst WNBA finishers, the players who fail to add value when they are shooting close to the basket. This list unsurprisingly was filled not with stars but with rookies and role players. They needed enough shot attempts to build up negative value, but if they missed enough of these high-quality looks, it added up.
The player who stood out on the list, however, was the one ranked No. 1: Angel Reese. Her volume of shots at the rim was high, and she missed significantly more shots than you would expect given the location of those shots. In other words, she was bad at finishing, by this metric the worst in the league -- by far!
Worst (most detrimental) finishers. https://t.co/TaIY5NPE31 pic.twitter.com/4VFvXH4FzF
— Automatic (@automaticnba) August 17, 2026
Reese was a monster on the offensive glass all season, but when she got the ball, she was often throwing it back up and missing. Sometimes, she would get that rebound as well, tipping and tapping and leaping and clanking the ball off the rim and backboard. It took a lot of value away that had been added back in with her defense and rebounding.
As the Dream began the stretch run of the season, however, and then marched through the playoffs, they have been helped mightily by one thing: Reese has turned it around as a scorer since that point.
Angel Reese is on fire
Since that table was posted, Reese has taken huge strides as a finisher and as a shooter. She is shooting 66.4 percent at the rim, a mark that is not elite but is above average. When you generate as many shots at the rim as she does, that becomes a strong positive.
She is also hitting shots from other areas on the court. Reese is not an accurate 3-point shooter, hitting only 18.9 percent from deep for her career. In these playoffs, however, Reese's first time in the postseason, she is hitting a strong 38.5 percent from deep.
Free throws are the same, if not as drastic. Reese hit only 72.1 percent from the line this season, a respectable number for a big but nothing special. In the playoffs, Reese has maintained her volume of shots while hitting 87.1 percent, an elite number for a big.
Add it all up, and the Defensive Player of the Year has been one of the better offensive players in the league over the last two months. In the postseason, Reese is averaging 18 points, 3.6 offensive rebounds and two assists per game while shooting 43.3 percent from the field and 38.5 percent from deep.
Will Reese continue to be Rhyne Howard from deep? Probably not. Will she knock down all of her free-throws? Probably not. She didn't suddenly become a different player in the middle of August.
That doesn't mean her hot streak will necessarily end. Against a stout Golden State Valkyries defense, outside shooting and consistent finishing would go a long ways toward propelling the Dream's offense forward. And when one of the best defensive players in the league is also pouring it in efficiently on the other end? Watch out.
If Angel Reese continues shooting like this in the WNBA Finals, the Atlanta Dream will win the title.
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