Paige Bueckers gets double-double in return to Minnesota, but losses pile up for Dallas Wings

Minneapolis – Less than a minute remained on the clock when Paige Bueckers hero the ball in his hands in a sand of the whole family. In the third WNBA game of his professional career, Bueckers was shooting and driblating in a place where he played as a high school student and university athlete. His star was born less than 10 miles from the Target Center in St. Louis Park and Hopkins High School. She knows how the ball bounces on this floor and is intimately familiar with how cheers and angry echoes the walls here.

While his wings of Dallas lost for five points, Bueckers turned and pulled the ball to his left side and began his drip. She launched around a screen, and salsaly three defenders of Minnesota Lynx had their eyes fixed on it. In a tight game like this, few would have blamed the rookie for going to Gloria while playing in front of innumerable friends and family had buyers of purchase to make a long or driven to the teeth of the defense.

But Bueckers, the general selection number 1 in the WNBA draft this year of Uconn, is much more emarter than that. It can have only three games in the professional career, and it can be only 23 years old, but the native of Minnesota of 6 feet sees the game as an experienced veteran. And so, she had two options. Myisha Hines-Eels was rolling to the edge and seemed to have a short advantage in Napheesa Collier, who let Hines, everything went to cut a driving lane for Bueckers, or could give him the light of Ogunbowale, who was open. Instead of challenging Collier, the defensive player of the reigning year, Bueckers fueled his rear track partner.

Ogunbowale caught the pass, gathered and fired in a seemingly unique Flud movement and the ball fell damage through the network. A suite on the opposite side of the sand, full of relatives and friends of Bueckers dressed in the Wings team, roared.

Dallas now followed only two points with 39.1 remaining seconds. A victory seemed within reach.

“Only I have the ball in my hands a little more, trying to create plays for my teammates, for me, and just reading what the defense is giving,” Bueckers said after the game. “Many times, we are only doing the right game as a team, so whatever that right game in that possession, that is what we are looking for.”

Unfortunately, Collier sank two free throws to put the game on ice for Lynx in its native opening, winning 85-81. But the ten cents of Bueckers in the last minute of the contest was significantly because he assured his first double as a professional, giving him 10 assists and 12 points in his welcome game.

“It’s crazy to say that I play in this floor on all three levels … I’ve never let Minnesota go,” Bueckers said. “But honestly, if I am real, I am not thinking about that at all when I am playing, I am only at the present moment.”

Mitchell Northam / Sb Nation

It is one of the first main milestones that Bueckers has achieved in the promising career, and that will probably remember for a while.

“You try to put everything in perspective. To see all the girls and people in the stands and you realize, that was you, as 10 or 15 years ago,” Bueckers said. “So, you never take it for granted, how blessed we are to be able to play in this league, play at this level and be in this organization. Extremely grateful, and try to reflect that each one who takes him wherever you go.”

Those who know Bueckers better, although everyone agrees on one thing: this is not a player who is so concerned about statistics, honors or individual praise. Shey to win, and she has chicken to win, and Shey to win at the highest level. That is why few people saw her happier than when she was cut in a network in Tampa, Florida, approximately a month after taking Uconn to a national championship. That is why when Genoiemma Genoate replaced her for the floor for the last time in the final game like a Husky, the tears flowed the corners of her eyes while hugging the former Uconn coach in an emotional hug.

It was an obvious duration, the press conference after the game that loses has difficult in the Bueckers. While I was in uniform for UConn, the Huskies never lost consecutive games, much less three in a row. Devils, Uconn only lost three games throughout the season in this last campaign.

Among the reporters who asked questions, Ogunbowale pointed out the box score in front of it, pointing out different numbers. The Bueckers looked at him, the unimported responses to his teammate. The only piece of data that imported, the final score, was in favor of the wings.

“Back home is really great, and it’s a great experience,” Bueckers said. “But what we are trying to build and what we are trying to do in the game is more important.”

Mitchell Northam / Sb Nation

People have asked Bueckers in recent weeks what has been the most difficult adjustment of the university to the professional game. It is a common question that rookies and one that Bueckers has answered. But the real answer may have nothing to do with what it is and is not able to do on the court. It is still an intelligent pin, an intelligent defender, a solid shooter and someone who plays with burning competitiveness.

The difference between playing in Storrs, Connecticut and Dallas, Texas, is that Bueckers has to deal with the loss of chitte. And it doesn’t seem that that will change soon.

Dallas, until now, looks like a disarticulated team. In addition to writing Bueckers, many new faces brought to put in Ogunbowale, Ogunbowale. The wings do not play a traditional center, but opt ​​for an alignment that mainly presents three front guards and two. They have a first -year chief coach and a first -year general manager. It is an early and small sample size, but the wings are located at the bottom of the league in most statistical categories.

Nor is it clear if Ogunbowale and Bueckers can be a viable and successful pairing of the rear track. Through three games, the former Notre Dame Guard is shooting race jumps from the floor (30.4) and from the range of 3 points (25.1).

All this is to say, things can get worse for Dallas before improving. And it will be worth watching if Bueckers can play continuously well as the losses accumulate.

“One day at the same time. That is the motto with which I go,” Bueckers said. “Solo, every day, I am trying to grow and improve. As a team and as an organization, we have the same mentality.”

Mitchell Northam / Sb Nation

On Wednesday night, in their native state, the Bueckers fulfilled Deion Sanders’ prophecy of how to look good leads to play well. He appeared to the Target Center and walked through the intestines of the Arena in a attire created by Harlem Brave’s iconic fashion designer. The adjustment, complete with a custom zip jacket, is the product of an association with Sherwin-Williams to highlight its most lonely color of 2025: Radiant Lilac SW 0074. The painting manufacturer calls it a self-expression and color. “

It is an adequate and appropriate description that buyers lead the campaign to highlight the color. Because the season for her might not be about victories and losses. It could be only about your test for all that is intended for stardom in the WNBA, which is a team that can build a championship list that contests, and can be the best player on the floor.

“I think Paige is going to be really good,” Collier said about a fellow student from Uconn. “She is a three -level scorer, she is a great pin. You know, the rookie years are really difficult, so I would say there will be ups and downs. But from what I have seen, it remains aggressive.”

This season it could be that Bueckers maintain your confidence, no matter how far the wings fall in the classification, and it could be that Bueckers completely expresses the type of player that is and can be.