Angel Reese pulled down 26 rebounds Monday night, the most any player has grabbed in a single game in WNBA history, as the Atlanta Dream closed out a perfect four-game West Coast trip with a 78-71 win over the Los Angeles Sparks at Crypto.com Arena. The mark broke a record that had stood since 2003, and it came on a night when Reese's outside shot barely worked at all.
Reese finished with 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting, but she made up for the misses on the glass, hauling in 8 offensive and 18 defensive rebounds to go with 3 assists and 3 steals in 38 minutes, according to the official box score. Allisha Gray led Atlanta with 20 points, Rhyne Howard added 18, and Naz Hillmon chipped in 12 as the Dream improved to 25-13, the best record in the Eastern Conference. For Los Angeles, Nneka Ogwumike had 27 points and 16 rebounds, Dearica Hamby scored 15, and Cameron Brink added 15 points, eight rebounds and five blocks as the Sparks fell to 13-25.
A record more than two decades in the making
The previous single-game rebounding record, 24, had belonged to Chamique Holdsclaw since May 2003, when she grabbed that many for the Washington Mystics. Reese's 26th board did more than reset the single-game mark: it also pushed her season rebounding total to 458 with six regular-season games still to play, surpassing the single-season record of 451 that A'ja Wilson set for the Las Vegas Aces in 2024 — a record Wilson had taken from Reese herself, who set the prior mark of 446 as a rookie in 2024.
The full sweep of Atlanta's road trip underscored how central Reese has become to a Dream team built around size and physicality inside. Over the four games, she averaged 20.8 points and 15 rebounds while shooting 57.9 percent from the field, a stretch that, as ESPN detailed, culminated in her best statistical night of the season. Atlanta had already clinched its fourth consecutive playoff berth earlier in the week, and Monday's win kept the Dream in position for home-court advantage as the regular season winds down.
Reese, who shot just 4 of 14 from the field, said afterward that her rebounding focus was partly a response to her shooting struggles.
"Last time I was here, I didn't miss any shots. Tonight I couldn't hit anything, so I knew I was going to be able to get them on the rebounding side."
Angel Reese, Atlanta Dream forward
Dream coach Karl Smesko credited the growth in Reese's game over the course of the road trip rather than treating the record as an isolated performance.
"Angel's been remarkable on this trip. You can see her getting better each month."
Karl Smesko, Atlanta Dream head coach
Reese, the No. 7 overall pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft, spent her first two seasons with the Chicago Sky before Atlanta acquired her in an April trade. She has built her career on rebounding rather than scoring efficiency, and Monday's performance fit that profile: it was her 27th double-double of the season. The 24-rebound mark she broke had been one of the WNBA's longest-standing individual records, dating to a league with far fewer teams and a slower pace than today's.
What comes next
Atlanta returns home to close its regular season with a firm grip on the top playoff seed in the East, while Los Angeles, 17.5 games back in the Western Conference, has little left to play for beyond evaluating young pieces such as Brink down the stretch. The loss extended a rough season for a Sparks team still trying to build around its recent draft classes.
For Reese, six games remain to pad both rebounding records further, and the Dream will need her interior presence if they hope to make a deeper playoff push than in recent years. Atlanta has lost in the first round in each of the past three postseasons, and a healthy, dominant version of its newly acquired rebounder gives the team its clearest path yet to breaking through.
