ATLANTA — The Atlanta Dream led the league in rebounding last season.
Then they traded for one of the league’s premier rebounders, Angel Reese.
With Brionna Jones still recovering from right knee surgery, Reese has helped the Dream sustain their excellence on the boards this season.
The Dream average 37 boards per game, third in the league, and they lead the WNBA in rebound percentage at 54.2 percent.
Meanwhile, Reese leads the league in total rebounds, snatching 12.2 per game. She grabs an average of 2.2 more offensive boards per game than any other player.
Reese could be a problem for the Liberty on Thursday.
Jonquel Jones and Han Xu will bear the brunt of the responsibility for trying to minimize Reese’s impact.
Part of what makes Reese so elite is her awareness of angles, timing and floor placement.
“The hardest thing is that she plays so aggressively, right? And she creates a lot of contact — not in a bad way, but just the way she goes to the rim,” said Jones, who’s faced Reese six times in the WNBA over the past two seasons. “And I think the hardest thing as a defender is when you’re trying to stop her from scoring the bucket and then by the time you look up, you’re under the rim, and she’s in an advantageous position to be able to rebound. So I think those are rebounds that we have to kind of clean up a little bit and then just doing our work really early. She’s one of those players, if you don’t hit her first, she’s gonna hit you, so just kind of bringing that mindset and mentality at the beginning.”
Jones missed Monday’s game at Connecticut with a sudden illness, but is feeling better and practiced Wednesday.
When Jones was scratched, the Liberty tapped Han to make her first career start.
Han grabbed a season-high-tying six boards in Monday’s win.
Breanna Stewart led with nine rebounds, and Leonie Fiebich had seven.
It’ll take a team effort to try to win the possession battle against the Dream.
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“It’s gonna be a challenge,” coach Chris DeMarco said. “We’re gonna need all five to rebound and we want to be aggressive offensively on our own misses in the same way [the Dream are].”
Sabrina Ionescu is set to miss her seventh consecutive game because of a sore back.
The star guard has played in only one game this season.
She’s considered day to day with a back issue but stayed back on the Liberty’s two-game road trip so she could play 5-on-5 with the practice squad.
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