Wings, Dream enter pivotal matchup chasing final playoff spot

Battling through lackluster seasons, the Atlanta Dream and Dallas Wings still have postseason aspirations ahead of their matchup in College Park, Ga., on Friday.

Atlanta (11-22) will enter Friday tied with the Chicago Sky in the standings, but the Sky hold the tiebreaker for the eighth and final playoff spot. Dallas (9-24) is just two games behind the Sky.

Following a month-long Olympic break, the Dream had won three straight games but have since dropped five of six. Most recently, Atlanta fell at the Phoenix Mercury 74-66 on Tuesday in a game the Dream never led.

Rhyne Howard's 31 points and Tina Charles' 12-point, 12-rebound double-double weren't enough as Atlanta dropped to 5-12 on the road.

"It was a special game from Rhyne," Dream coach Tanisha Wright said. "The ability to make shots and keep us afloat at times was really special. But it was a tale of two halves. We didn't start the way we needed and we had to expend a lot of energy in the second half trying to make our way back, but we have to have short-term memory. We have to go home, refocus and regroup and go get Dallas."

Howard leads the team with 16.7 points per game, followed by Allisha Gray (15.7) and Charles (14.8).

The Wings, who have split a pair of games with Atlanta this season, enter on a two-game skid. Before that, Dallas had won a season-best three games in a row.

The Wings will look to bounce back from Tuesday's 90-86 home loss to the Washington Mystics. Trailing by 15 with just over three minutes left, Dallas mounted a furious rally -- scoring the game's final 11 points -- but fell short.

"We kicked it up in the second half, but we did start too slow," Wings coach Latricia Trammell said. "We've got to come into the first quarter and really establish ourselves from here on out."

Dallas boasted the league's second-leading scorer entering Thursday in Arike Ogunbowale at 22.6 points per game. Ogunbowale also led the league in 3-pointers made per game (3.1) as well as steals (2.3) entering Thursday.

--Field Level Media