ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Wings won six straight earlier this summer. Now they have lost three in a row and five of six entering Wednesday night’s game against the Toronto Tempo.
Before the game, Paige Bueckers told USA Sports that Dallas is trying to stay together through the first extended rough patch of its season.
The Wings are 19-14 and have also been dealing with injuries. Jessica Shepard is out against Toronto with a right ankle injury, and Azzi Fudd will miss her third straight game with a right knee injury. Alysha Clark was upgraded to available after missing the previous two.
“That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to stay grounded. We’re trying to stay present, and we’re trying to stay positive,” Bueckers said. “Every team hits a rough patch throughout a 44-game long season before the playoffs, and it’s about how you respond to it and how you are resilient through it and how you just respond to a challenge.”
Paige Bueckers: ‘The Only Way Is Through’
The five losses have not all looked the same. Dallas lost 82-81 to the Atlanta Dream on July 29 and 81-75 at the Washington Mystics on July 31 before beating the Connecticut Sun 83-63 on Aug. 2. The Wings then lost 96-92 at Washington, 94-76 at home against the Golden State Valkyries, and 103-90 at Minnesota.
Two of the five losses came by one possession, while the last two were by double figures.
That stretch followed a six-game winning streak from July 2-19. Dallas won at Connecticut, Toronto and New York, beat Toronto again in Montreal, then defeated Chicago and Los Angeles. Four of those six wins came away from College Park Center.
That six-game run is what Bueckers referenced when discussing how the Wings are handling the losses now.
“So everybody was happy. Everything was glitz and glam when we won six in a row, had tough wins on the road, tough wins in the fourth quarter,” Bueckers said. “But how are you when you’re losing? Do you still show up to work with passion, with joy, with a fire, with an intensity, with the same focus that you had when you were losing to get through it?”
“Like the only way is through. The only ones that can help us out of this is us,” Bueckers continued. “So we’re trying to stay together, stay positive, trying to get better every single day.”
Dallas Wings Remain In Position To Move Up
Dallas has lost ground in the standings during the slide, but the Wings remain closer to moving up than falling out of a playoff spot.
They enter Wednesday a half-game behind Washington for seventh and one game behind the New York Liberty for sixth. Ninth-place Portland Fire is six games back of Dallas.
Bueckers has averaged 20.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 5.8 assists this season while shooting 51.1% from the field. She entered Wednesday seventh in the WNBA in scoring and eighth in assists.
Bueckers had 23 points, 4 rebounds, 8 assists, and 3 steals Sunday at Minnesota. Aziaha James added a season-high 19 points and 6 rebounds off the bench.
Paige Bueckers Doesn’t Want Dallas To Settle For 19 Wins
The Wings have already made a significant jump from the previous two seasons. Dallas finished 10-34 in 2025 after going 9-31 in 2024.
Bueckers doesn’t want that improvement to become the standard for what is enough this season.
“I mean, I can’t get complacent with the 19 wins that we have,” Bueckers said. “We understand, like, we had 10 last year, 10 or 9 the year before.”
“But we want to continue to keep getting better and not get complacent with the 19 wins,” Bueckers continued.
Dallas gets a chance to respond against a Toronto team that enters Wednesday 10-22 in its expansion season and on a nine-game losing streak. The Tempo have allowed at least 90 points in eight straight games and have been outscored by 17.2 points per game during the skid.
Marina Mabrey leads Toronto at 20.7 points per game and scored 36 in Monday’s 107-95 loss at Atlanta. Kiki Rice added 18 points.
Dallas is 2-0 against Toronto this season. The Wings won 89-76 on July 5 before a 108-95 victory five days later at Bell Centre in Montreal in front of a WNBA-record 20,996 fans. Bueckers scored a season-high 34 points with 6 rebounds and 6 assists in the second meeting.
Wednesday’s game tips off at 7 p.m. CT at College Park Center and airs nationally on USA Network and locally on KFAA. Dallas is 9-6 at home this season and visits the Indiana Fever on Friday.
