Arike Ogunbowale Knows It’s All About Buckets

The WNBA playoffs are not about intricate offensive sets, squeezing efficiency from your ninth and 10th players, or winning the game on the margins—at least not as much as they are about Real Hoops. Arike Ogunbowale taught the Golden State Valkyries that painful lesson Wednesday night, gouging their would-be smothering defense for a WNBA playoff-record 45 points and forcing her Dallas Wings through to a deciding Game 3 in the process.

That Ogunbowale had both the talent and temperament for this sort of explosion should never have been in doubt. She’s notched 41 before, and takes on the burden of volume scoring with a Waitersesque flair. It’s impressive, yes, though not always part of a winning formula, and subject to wild variance depending on whether Ogunbowale makes or misses the bad shots she can’t help but jack. This year, she’s taken a relative backseat as Paige Bueckers has spent her sophomore campaign with the ball in her hands. Game 1 was their season in miniature: Bueckers poured in a hyper-efficient 21 points, while Ogunbowale took only seven shots and wound up a game-worst minus-31. The Valks won by 24. Something had to change. It was Ogunbowale’s time.

Game 2 was fantastic, a 108-100 overtime win for the Wings in which Dallas posed serious questions about the championship viability of the top remaining seed, dictated the tempo, and overcame both a career-high 36 points from Gabby Williams and a 3-for-13 night from Bueckers. It was all because of Ogunbowale.