ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Wings clinched a WNBA playoff berth Tuesday night, beating the Portland Fire 96-78 at College Park Center to lock up a top-eight finish in the 2026 standings. Dallas is headed to the postseason for the first time since 2023 and for the sixth time since the franchise relocated to North Texas in 2016.
The win moved the Wings to 23-16, a team record for wins in a season. Two more victories over the final five games would give Dallas the highest winning percentage in team history.
Paige Bueckers finished with 22 points and 11 assists on 8-of-15 shooting, her 23rd game of at least 20 points this season. Jessica Shepard added 21 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists. Arike Ogunbowale scored 17, Awak Kuier had 12 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 blocks, and Alanna Smith scored 10 as all five Dallas starters reached double figures. Bueckers and Ogunbowale each made three of the Wings’ 11 3-pointers.
Portland never led and trailed by as many as 26. Bridget Carleton and Karlie Samuelson scored 14 apiece for the Fire, who dropped to 15-23 and were eliminated from playoff contention by the result. Emily Engstler had 12 points and a career-high 15 rebounds.
Bueckers is going to the playoffs for the first time in her career. Dallas lost five of six games earlier in August before winning three in a row to reach Tuesday.
“It means a lot just in terms of all that we’ve overcome throughout this season and how we did it together and how much we love and appreciate each other, how connected we are,” Bueckers said. “We really have fun coming to work together. So honestly, as far as we can extend this season, that’s what we want to do.”
“Obviously you look at the other side of it and want to continue to keep building from there and don’t want to get complacent with just clinching the playoffs, but we want to make a run and make a deep run,” Bueckers continued. “So that’s the next thing moving forward, but to stop and smell the roses sometimes it feels good.”
Dallas Wings Go From Worst Record In The WNBA To The Postseason
Dallas went 10-34 in 2025 and finished with the worst record in the league. The Wings are the third team since 2016 to follow the WNBA’s worst record with a playoff berth, after Phoenix in 2022-2023 and New York in 2020-2021. Since 1997, 11 teams have qualified for the postseason a year after finishing with the league’s worst record.
The turnaround stands at plus-13 wins with five games left on the schedule. The WNBA record for a single-season turnaround is plus-16.
Ogunbowale was on the Wings’ 2023 playoff team, the last Dallas group to reach the postseason. She re-signed with the franchise in the offseason, when Dallas added Smith, Shepard, and Alysha Clark in free agency and drafted Azzi Fudd first overall.
“It’s been a minute. We’ve just been trying to figure it out,” Ogunbowale said. “But I think just preseason, free agency, the draft, it was a different feeling coming into Dallas. And with the coaches, they got it right with the coaches for sure.”
“Obviously we had a little dip, it happens, but we figured it out and hopefully we keep getting better,” Ogunbowale continued. “We don’t want to just make playoffs. We want to make a run.”
José Fernández Reaches The Playoffs In His First WNBA Season
Wings coach José Fernández was hired Oct. 28, 2025. He is the 38th first-year head coach in WNBA history to secure a playoff bid and the third in the last two seasons, after Atlanta’s Karl Smesko and Golden State’s Natalie Nakase both did it in 2025.
Smesko holds the win-differential record for a first-year head coach at plus-15, set from 2024 to 2025. Fernández, who said he spent 25 years as a college head coach before taking the Dallas job, said the staff has not cheated the group on preparation on any single day this season
“You want to stay in the process and not always think about the result, right? Or what’s the final outcome going to look like,” Fernandez said. “But the one thing that we talked about was what do we have to do to get to the playoffs and be a top eight, right? Because once you get into the playoffs, now anything can happen. You can play for a championship.”
“It’s great that we did it on our own terms, right? That we didn’t have to wait for somebody else to lose or not win tonight,” Fernandez continued. “We did it at the right time.”
Awak Kuier Posts 12 Points, 12 Rebounds, And 5 Blocks
Kuier set a Dallas Wings blocks record in the Aug. 20 win over the Indiana Fever. She entered Tuesday averaging 1.4 blocks in 17.2 minutes per game, the most blocks per game on the roster.
Kuier is in her second stint with the Wings after two seasons in Europe. Her minutes have climbed since Fudd, the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft, was ruled out for the rest of the season following a knee procedure. Fernandez moved Kuier into the starting lineup in Fudd’s absence and has played her at both forward spots. Kuier said the role has come with the trust of the coaching staff.
“I think just understanding what the coaches want from me,” Kuier said. “They want me to be more tougher and protect the rim, and I felt like I took that personally and felt like I had to do better in that.”
Dallas Wings Seeding And Remaining Schedule
The Wings can mathematically finish anywhere from second to eighth. The first round is a best-of-three series in a 1-1-1 format, and the higher seed hosts Game 1 and Game 3 if a third game is necessary.
Dallas went 2-1 this season against the Las Vegas Aces, the Fever, and the New York Liberty. The Wings were 1-2 against the Washington Mystics, 0-4 against the Minnesota Lynx, 0-3 against the Golden State Valkyries, and 0-3 against the Atlanta Dream.
All five remaining opponents have been eliminated from playoff contention. Dallas hosts the Connecticut Sun on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. CT at College Park Center. Tip-off was pushed back 30 minutes after the game was picked up by WFAA, the ABC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth, and it will also air on KFAA and on WNBA League Pass out of market.
Sunday’s game is the last before the World Cup break. Play resumes Sept. 17, when the Wings host the Los Angeles Sparks at 7 p.m. CT, followed by the Phoenix Mercury on Sept. 19, a rematch in Phoenix on Sept. 21, and a finale at the Seattle Storm on Sept. 23.
Playoff tickets are not yet on sale. The Wings are taking registrations for notifications when postseason tickets become available.
