At the start of the Dallas Wings-Los Angeles Sparks match on Wednesday evening we did not immediately know that an all-timer was in the store. Paige Bueckers was a few hours away from setting up the WNBA Rookie Single game scoring record with 44 points on a maniacal 17-of-21 shooting line. She missed two midrange jumpers, a layout and a desperate Lefty Floater, all of whom almost came in. She made all her 3-point attempts and free, without a doubt, one of the greatest shooting displays of all time.
But there were early signs. With the score 3-0 Dallas, Bueckers pushes the ball along the screen and to the right, catches it up and 1-2 ‘in a leaning 3-pointer from the top of the key. Julie Allemand flies in and then out of her airspace. Splash.
Bueckers, a basketball pragmatist whose leading is conviction that the technically correct decision is the right one, is also one of the greatest shooters that is alive. She knows that more than 23.2 percent of her shots should come from three. So, although she has not made a shot yet, nor broken a sweat, Bueckers Dearica Hamby sees falling far below the bow and cans, which is certainly not her favorite look.
More.
Next time she catches the ball on the left elbow, with her back to Kelsey Plum, about 17 feet of the hoop. Bueckers, just like the rest of us, knows that she is long, while plum is not. She easily revolves around her left shoulder, fades and waves a sweater against a colleague no. 1 pick. Bueckers does not have to sign ‘too little’, the words blink practically over the head of Plum.
Good start of Paige Bueckers in this pic.twitter.com/kcjx2bmph8
– Steve Jones Jr. (@Stevejones20) August 21, 2025
A minute later, Bueckers curls a peanut screen. Although Hamby leaves the track to restore to the screener, our golden child does not control the job. She just pulls up and shoots.
Now I could cut and state this game in combination with the rand frequency of 12 percent of Bueckers. How much will her shot diet have to change to unlock real control? Is a fascinating question, but it is 3-of-3 and the ball has not touched the edge. Just smile. Exhale.
One spark of turnover later and Bueckers pushes it along the field in a two-to-two scenario. Rickea Jackson is waiting for her on the wing. That’s why we are here.
Kill.
Bueckers earns the heat check. It is staring. She pulls the ball out, slows the pace and 10 seconds later Haley Jones misses a fall of 10 feet. I breathe out, less enthusiastic. To root for Paige Bueckers, you have to accept that she is more cautious than you. This is not always easy.
You are Paige Bueckers, Do you think. You don’t have to pass the ball to Asiaha James because her defender might help, a little bit of your drive. You may even be right, but that is why she is Paige Bueckers and you are not.
Five months ago, prior to the fourth quarter of Uconn’s Elite Eight Matchup with USC, head coach Geno Auriemma begged ESPN’s Holly Rowe on the sidelines, looking for help, who begged his star player to take over the game.
UConn then won 78-64. Bueckers ended with 31 points, six assists, four steals and two blocks.
Lmaoooo, Geno believes that Holly Rowe might have to talk to Paige Bueckers to let her take over the game pic.twitter.com/luzx62qu3d
– CJ Fogler đŸ«¡ (@cjzero) March 29, 2025
You may think that Bueckers should shoot down every time. It is not the craziest attitude, given the poorly before juries of the wings that support the cast. But the murderous instinct is there.
It may surprise you to hear that, of the 105 WNBA players to appear this season in at least five “coupling” matches, the figures say that Bueckers is the most aggressive. She has taken 34 field targets and nine free throws in just 100 coupling possession, so that the fate of Dallas is placed in her own hands for a third of the time.
The fire always burns inside, but Bueckers is the most fascinating when it crawls into her eyes. And it does not always take to the link.
At the beginning of the second quarter, after Dallas changes a six -point lead in a seven -point deficit with Bueckers on the couch, she gets stuck on the sidelines, perhaps polluted if the ball takes care of the borders. Sparks Ball. Chris Koclanes, head coach of Dallas, gets a technical error and if Bueckers was not furious with the call (she was), the free point that was given to Los Angeles may be worse.
Shortly thereafter she pushes the ball over the right wing. Jackson meets her again. It is not entirely a quick break, with Cameron Brink and a few other sparks set for defense; Perhaps this is the challenge that Bueckers wants. Attack, stop, swish.
It will be real. She missed two shots during the break, but chooses and chooses her places, not willing to admit that every place is its place. She has 31 points by the start of the fourth quarter. Dallas is seven higher and she has only missed two shots. It has become real.
I miss it. I am already writing about Paige Bueckers – but only in theory. I write about one of the most versatile scoring prospects that the Wnba has ever seen, out of time to every cover in every action while seamlessly floating among them. Clip after clip, stat after stat. Let cover, fall, go left, go to the right. My brain is baked, eyes glazed; I take a walk.
Try to capture the moment and you might just miss it. Bueckers plays one of the great games that a Rookie has ever played in every sport, which may have authorized the best shooting performance ever. She gives everywhere by passing opportunities that we know she can see and takes her own photos.
YES.
The entire court is on fire while she ways around it, slips in parties and acknowledges that yes, this is what we all came to see. I glide through the door and drive into bed. I allow myself to cherish right now. It is all I thought it would be based, well:
Bueckers is hotter than hot and there is little that the already porous defense of the Sparks can do. But it’s not just the ball that goes through the net; The aforementioned scoring survey is impossible to miss.
Halfway through the fourth quarter she seals Allemand on the floor, but the access pass never comes. No problem. Bueckers runs from a peanut and nails a three from the right wing. Allemand is too exhausted for something other than an irritated sigh.
I am standing up when Bueckers founded footwork together and use combinations. There is little East-to-West Movement, only ahead to the edge. Yes, she is the dream of a coach, hyper -conscious about the coverage of the ball screen she is confronted and often uses to create open looks for others. But on Wednesday AzurĂ¡ Stevens is just another obstacle on the way to the edge:
Paige used these handling/footworkllers to get through AzurĂ¡ in ball screens and all the way to the edge was my favorite part of last night: pic.twitter.com/uwgzodzsxs
– Lucas Kaplan (@lucasklan_) August 21, 2025
Bueckers not only cooked in the pick-and-roll. She was not deterred by excavations or stunts from Sparks defenders, instead eating all the space for her. If it disappeared, she just became creative:
Paige plays through excavations, uh-oh pic.twitter.com/gswhvuwgrv
– Lucas Kaplan (@lucasklan_) August 21, 2025
There are 148 WNBA players who recorded for at least 100 minutes this season. For each PBP statistics, Bueckers has the lowest shot quality of every single, an expected effective field target of 43. That is probably to the attention; this model Do not take Touch -Time or Dribble Count and Dallas into account on her to pound the rock. That’s how good she is. Even she knows her bad photos are good.
She is on another scoring run, 13 straight points in the fourth quarter. The bet here is lower, but I can’t help it, but think of the immortal performance of LeBron James in the final of the Eastern Conference of 2007 against the Detroit Pistons. You know the one; He scores the last 25 points of his team. The young star, so talented that their selflessness is considered a defect and arrives in the way we want. You are the right game.
But Dallas loses on Wednesday. At the last possession of the wings, Koclanes chooses not to bring a screener for Bueckers; It is the correct call, no double teams allowed. She drives to the right and at least even gets Rae Burrell, if not a small step ahead.
Kill
Allemand is shifting to the paint, but is still outside because Bueckers exceeds the 3-point line and-She passed?
Asiaha James, a shooter of 29 percent 3-point, misses the corner three. Plum, who finds a way to take more photos than Bueckers, wins the game at De Zoemer. When do you forget who won this game? Probably earlier than Bueckers.
I’ll not do it. It is the perfect end.
These are the moments that you could instinctively mourn before they have passed – the first true I remember where I was Game in a career that promises to be full – and losing the wings because the teammates of Bueckers are getting 50 percentage points worse than they are. Because she trusts them anyway.
If we want our athletes to fail before they are not a new concept, but perhaps it is cruel to be desired at Bueckers, who spent a lot of Dallas’s 9-27 season with the frustration that you would expect from a winner of her caliber. Oh, well.
It is fair to ask questions about the ultimate ceiling of Bueckers, to ask you how her approach can change in the coming seasons, or it should not be done at all. Is that a sparkling 2.5: 1 assist-to-stupid ratio a bit at Sparkling? Does her shot diet give the defense at Playoff level a plan, no matter how meaningless it can be?
But I don’t care, not yet. Her 44-point epic is a reminder of what we all know: it will be fine. Yes, we can always want more from Paige Bueckers. But don’t forget to enjoy the show.
She makes it fairly easy.
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