ATLANTA -- Late Wednesday morning, hours before 17,099 fans packed a sold-out State Farm Arena to watch Angel Reese rattle off 21 points, 12 rebounds, three assists, three steals and two 3-pointers to help fuel the Atlanta Dream to an emphatic 97-71 victory and a 2-1 series lead over the Golden State Valkyries in the 2026 WNBA Finals, Dream assistant coach LaToya Sanders sat in comparative silence before shootaround and tried to find the words to describe what makes Reese so special.
"There's this confidence that just can't be taught. It's just in her. You don't have to pull it out of her. You don't have to motivate her. She has her built-in motivation for herself, Sanders told CBS Sports.
"She has that ultimate confidence, but she also takes the time to instill that in her teammates. Somebody could be shooting bad or just had a turnover or whatever. Like she's gonna go to them and she's gonna motivate them and she's gonna continue to tell them that they're the best person on the planet. She takes that confidence in herself and tries to spread it."
In Game 2 of the series on Monday night, Reese laid down a 30-point, 16-rebound virtuoso performance that almost single-handedly lifted the Dream to a 79-65 victory in front of a hostile Ballhalla crowd in San Francisco. All of Reese's individual talents were also on full display in Game 3 in front of celebrities such as Kerry Washington, Monica, Cam Newton and Reese's college coach Kim Mulkey, who teamed with Reese to win the 2023 NCAA national championship at LSU.
The biggest difference? In Game 3, she had help; five Dream players scored in double figures and the team shot 49.3% from the field and 40.9% from long range. In person, what stood out the most was exactly what Sanders talked about -- not just Reese's confidence, but the way she wielded it.
LET'S. GO! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/E3d9J8Ja1K
— Atlanta Dream (@AtlantaDream) October 22, 2026
You could see her use her confidence to crash the boards and fight for rebounds and jump balls early in the game when buckets were hard to come by for both teams. You could see the confidence transfer to her teammate Naz Hillmon, who hit back-to-back 3-pointers late in the first quarter that brought the crowd to its feet; then to rookie Isobel Borlase as she nailed a pullup jumper early in the second; over to 15-year-veteran DeWanna Bonner, who came alive off the bench after halftime to help give the Dream breathing room; and to Rhyne Howard, who put an exclamation mark on Atlanta's third-quarter prowess with a block late in the frame that absolutely brought the house down.
Reese's confidence sucked the life out of the Valkyries, then ricocheted across every corner of the arena, exploding in the fourth quarter as the crowd swag surfed in celebration, the reality of a 2-1 lead in the Finals washing over them. State Farm Arena originally wasn't going to host the Finals games because of prior scheduling arrangements, but Reese's popularity gave the Dream, the WNBA and the Atlanta Hawks the confidence that if they moved things around, the fans would show up. And so they did.
"Angel shows up in every game," Hillmon, who finished the game with 15 points, said postgame. "Some people only show up in big games, but she's consistent with that, and she brings her teammates along. And I think that's exactly what happened today from the beginning of the game. Then we even had a little bit of a low third quarter, and who was there getting a stop, getting a stop transition? It was Angel."
In her first two seasons in the league, Reese established herself as a perennial All-Star and one of the best rebounders the WNBA has ever seen. But after being traded from the Chicago Sky to the Dream in April, she has blossomed in all aspects. With the help of coach Karl Smesko, Reese became the Defensive Player of the Year, expanded her offensive range to the 3-point line and drastically improved her finishing ability. Along the way, she became a true leader, with both her actions and her words.
"In the past, she might not have been in a position where people take what she says into account. But, you know, we're here. We give the space for everybody to have something to say," Howard, the Dream's No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft, told CBS Sports late Wednesday night in the bowels of State Farm.
Howard -- who had 16 points, four rebounds, and five steals in Game 3, becoming the first player in WNBA history with five or more steals in back-to-back Finals games -- said that Reese has been a spark for every player on the team, herself included.
"There's nothing that's gonna cure her spirit, and we all love that," Howard said. "Whether she's having a rough game herself or not, she's going to continue to pour into us as we are into her. But I think there's a lot of things about her that are contagious, not just her confidence. Her mentality, her approach to the game. Obviously, it's her first Finals, it's her first postseason appearance, but she's a champion already, and so we're still leaning on her as she is on us."
The Dream are now just two games away from winning the first WNBA title in franchise history, and Reese is 80 minutes away from being named the unanimous Finals MVP and launching her already-soaring starpower and influence into the next stratosphere.
As defeated as the Valkyries looked and sounded after Game 3, winning two more games will not be an easy task; Golden State has had the best defense in the league all season long and, starting in Game 4 in Atlanta on Saturday, will do everything in their power to wrestle back control of the series and lift the trophy.
But Reese is confident that when the final buzzer sounds, the Valkyries won't be successful.
"I just want to be able to come in every day and just pour into everybody, bring the energy, bring the morale, because I think it's contagious," Reese said postgame.
"When you have a mentality that started from me, where I'm hype all the time and bringing the confidence into everybody, like, y'all not taking this from us. And that's, in my heart, I'm not letting you take this from us. And I think it becomes contagious within the team. They feel that confidence, too. So that's kind of been my mindset throughout the entire season, just being able to want it more than anybody else."
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