The Atlanta Dream took Game 1 of their first-round series 92-77 over the Washington Mystics on Sunday at State Farm Arena, and the veteran they picked up a month ago was the reason the whole thing had a spine. DeWanna Bonner signed with Atlanta on Aug. 27. By late September she was the one dictating terms in a playoff opener. That is not a normal arc for a late-season addition.
The No. 4 seed against the No. 5 is supposed to be the coin-flip series of the bracket, the one where seeding tells you nothing and nerves tell you everything. Fifteen points is not a coin flip. Atlanta took charge, Bonner set the tone, and the rest of the roster followed her lead rather than the other way around, which is the hardest thing to ask of a group that only recently learned her voice.
Here is what I keep circling back to. Bonner has championship rings from a different decade, won with Phoenix in 2009 and again in 2014, and the thing about players who have been to the end of the season more than once is that they do not get loud in October, they get precise. Late-signing veterans usually get handed a role. She got handed the game.
Washington now heads home with the burden of a first-round series that has gotten awfully short awfully fast. Game 2 is Wednesday night in Washington, 7:10 ET, and the Mystics get their crowd, their floor, and a chance to make this a real fight instead of a formality. Their job is simple to say and brutal to do: make Atlanta's offense uncomfortable early, before Bonner settles into the same rhythm she found Sunday.
Around the rest of the opening weekend, Golden State announced itself with a franchise-record scoring night against Dallas, so the playoff field is not exactly easing in.
What I am watching Wednesday: whether Washington can drag this series into the mud, and whether a 39-year-old who joined a team in late August can carry a second straight game on her back.