The Atlanta Dream’s offense is sputtering

The Atlanta Dream were hoping to build on the best season in franchise history. Instead, they’ve fallen back to the WNBA’s basement.

This is not how the Atlanta Dream hoped to start their season. After a surprising campaign that saw them top 20 wins for just the second time in franchise history, landing on a franchise record 23 and the best record in the Eastern Conference, the Dream have started just 2-5. Their offensive rating and per 100 possession point differential are both last in the league and even their vaunted defense has taken a step back.

The knee injury that has kept Angel McCoughtry off the floor since last August was always going to ratchet up the level of difficulty for Atlanta but they still have last season’s leading scorer, Tiffany Hayes, and were hoping new addition Nia Coffey would be able to add a boost finishing around the basket and getting herself to the free throw line.

Hayes is still working through a lingering ankle injury that was suffered just before the season began. She’s looked better of late, averaging 19.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game over her last three, shooting 42.6 percent from the field and 35.7 percent from the 3-point line, but that is somewhat propped up by the 28 points on 15 shots that she hung on the Fever.

Hayes is relentless attacking the basket and Atlanta works to give her a headstart to build downhill momentum, often starting her on the wing and then sending her a down-screen to start a curl, or just letting her come to the center of the floor for a high-speed dribble handoff at the top of the key. However, she has been suffocated in the halfcourt. Fighting through any hesitancy or lingering pain from the injury Hayes is still been able to get into the paint almost any time she wants. The problem is that she’s usually finding a wall of four or even five defenders waiting for her when she gets there.

It would be easy to criticize Hayes for taking shots over multiple interior defenders but her dribble penetration is one of the few legitimate tools the Dream offense has to move the defense and create space, and there’s no guarantee that passing the ball is really going to lead to a better scoring opportunity.

You can see in the clips above that the Dream don’t do a great job of spacing out to the 3-point line, with several players usually drifting inside the arc and bringing their defenders a step or two closer to Hayes and the paint. The reason you’ll see so many Dream players inside the arc is that they don’t have many 3-point shooting options.

Renee Montgomery is the only veteran on the roster who made better than 30 percent of her 3-pointers last season (besides Nia Coffey, who had just five total attempts, and Alex Bentley, who clocked in at 30.6 percent). So far this season, Montgomery is shooting a healthy 37.8 percent on her 37 attempts. The rest of the team has hit 25-of-101 (24.7 percent). Rookie Maite Cazorla was an excellent outside shooter at Oregon but head coach Nicki Collen hasn’t been able to find many minutes for her so far.

Given that their halfcourt struggles are likely to persist, to some degree, until Hayes is fully healthy and McCoughtry is back in the lineup the Dream need to look for every marginal advantage they can to leverage easy offense. One place they haven’t been able to put it all together yet this year is turning their aggressive defensive possessions into easy offense. Assistant coach Darius Taylor spoke with Bria Felicien of High Post Hoops after practice last week, pointing out the disconnect between their offense and defense.

“The previous games, we’ve allowed missed shots to affect our energy on the defensive end. We have to create offense from our defense. But also energy from our defense. We’ll eventually start making shots, the percentages will catch up,” said Taylor.

Atlanta led the WNBA in points off turnovers last season, but they’ve dropped to the middle of the pack to start this year, scoring about two fewer points per game this way. They are turning opponents over on a slightly lower percentage of their possessions but also don’t seem to be running with the same intentionality. Their off-turnover possessions have been slightly faster this year but they’re producing far fewer points. You can see this especially with Hayes — she’s averaging just 1.6 fastbreak points per 100 possessions, down from 3.7 last season and 5.8 in 2017.

The Dream could also probably squeeze some offensive efficiency by running more off makes and misses, not just turnovers. Per Inpredictable, the Dream’s offensive possessions after an opponent attempts a shot have been around average in pace and near the bottom of the league in efficiency. It’s a tradeoff because increasing the general pace of the game may cost their defense some efficiency but given their offensive struggles, finding easy baskets seem like a bigger concern.

It’s still early in the season and there is time for the Dream to get themselves back into the playoff race. McCoughtry should return at some point and their shooting percentages should see some progression to the mean. But many of the challenges they are struggling with are systemic and the margin for error on offense is going to continue to be razor slim.