Angel Reese Gets Brutally Honest After Cold Start vs. Caitlin Clark and the Fever

Angel Reese turned a brutal shooting start into one of the WNBA’s most talked-about moments of the weekend. During Sunday’s showdown between her Atlanta Dream and Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever, Reese missed her first six field-goal attempts before candidly admitting at halftime that she “was playing like s— in the beginning.” The Fever ultimately pulled out a 95-91 win, but Reese’s fiery honesty — paired with her role in a game-changing run — has made her the center of the basketball conversation.

Reese has been one of the WNBA’s most scrutinized and popular figures since entering the league, known as much for her rebounding dominance as for her up-and-down shooting efficiency. The Dream forward has battled cold stretches from the field throughout the season, including a rough 1-of-12 outing earlier this month, but she has consistently backed up those struggles with elite work on the glass. Sunday’s game against Indiana was no exception, and it once again put her competitive fire on full display in front of a national audience tuned in for another Clark-Reese chapter.

A Candid Halftime Reaction

Speaking with ESPN’s Holly Rowe at halftime, Reese didn’t sugarcoat her opening-half performance, in which she finished with just seven points on 3-of-10 shooting to go with nine rebounds. “I was playing like s— in the beginning, but it’s a game of runs,” Reese said. “You’ve got to put that in your back pocket just because you know you have teammates that have your back. Allisha Gray, Madina Okot, Rhyne Howard — they’re carrying us right now.” Reese credited her teammates for helping Atlanta erase an early deficit with a 17-4 run to close the first half, pushing the Dream into the locker room with a four-point lead despite her own struggles. Asked what changed after her cold start, Reese kept it simple: “Taking my time. Woosah. And just trusting my work.”

Her honesty resonated across social media, where fans and analysts alike praised the self-awareness rather than deflecting blame after a poor shooting stretch. It’s a pattern that has defined much of Reese’s young career — an athlete unafraid to call out her own performance while still trusting the process and her teammates to carry the load when her shot isn’t falling.

Fever Complete the Comeback, Playoff Race Tightens

Despite Atlanta’s strong finish to the first half, Indiana rallied behind Clark to secure a 95-91 victory, marking the Fever’s first win over the Dream this season after having dropped the previous two meetings between the clubs. The result carries real weight in the WNBA’s tightening playoff picture, with both teams jockeying for postseason positioning down the stretch. For fans following the latest line movement and matchups as the regular season winds down, live basketball odds continue to shift with every result like Sunday’s.

Atlanta entered the weekend looking to build on recent momentum, and the Dream’s series with Indiana has quickly become one of the more compelling rivalries of the season given the star power on both sides. Anyone wanting the full breakdown of how the two teams matched up entering Sunday’s game can revisit the Fever-Dream prediction published ahead of tip-off. With the loss, Atlanta will look to regroup quickly as the margin for error shrinks heading into the final stretch of the schedule, while Indiana’s win only reinforces the belief that this Fever roster has grown into a legitimate postseason threat behind Clark’s continued ascension.

For Reese, the night was another example of the rollercoaster nature of her sophomore campaign — a slow start met with a fiery response, a strong second-half push, and ultimately a result that didn’t go Atlanta’s way. But her willingness to own the bad stretch publicly, rather than hide from it, is exactly the kind of moment that keeps her among the most closely watched players in the league, win or lose.