Ogunbowale Drops WNBA Playoff-Record 45 Points, Forces Game 3 Against Golden State

ARLINGTON, Texas, The Dallas Wings were three seconds from going home when Arike Ogunbowale caught a pass on the left baseline, dribbled toward the corner and let it fly. The shot was off-balance. She didn't care. Nothing but net.

That 3-pointer with 4.1 seconds left tied Game 2 at 93 and sent the Wings to overtime. What followed was a WNBA playoff-record 45 points, a 108-100 win over the Golden State Valkyries, and a winner-take-all Game 3 set for Friday in San Francisco. The Associated Press confirmed the record, reporting on the performance out of College Park Center.

Let's be precise about what she did, because the numbers deserve it. According to reporting from CBS Sports, Ogunbowale finished 12 of 23 from the field, 5 of 8 from three, and 16 of 18 from the foul line. She added seven rebounds and four assists. She scored 22 points in the fourth quarter and overtime combined, 11 in each. That's not a hot stretch. That's a closing argument.

The previous WNBA playoff scoring record was 42 points, according to CBS Sports, done three times, most recently by Napheesa Collier. Ogunbowale didn't just nudge past it. She also became, per CBS Sports, the first player in WNBA history to score 40 points in a winning effort while facing elimination. It's the seventh time in league history any player has hit 40 in a playoff game.

She nearly doubled her own previous playoff high. According to the AP, her prior postseason best was 24 points. She passed that mark with a mid-fourth-quarter 3. Her personal regular-season best of 41 fell in the same sequence.

The Wings needed every one of those points, because Paige Bueckers had nothing going. The Golden State perimeter defense smothered her all night, and Bueckers finished 3 of 13 from the field, including an air ball on a 3 with Dallas trailing by three. Bueckers still managed the pass that found Ogunbowale on the game-tying corner shot, which, credit where it's due. The Dallas Morning News reported Wings coach Jose Fernandez said postgame: "For us to do what we did today without Paige having the type of game that she always has offensively for us, and come out with a win, it's huge."

In overtime, after things got chippy, Ogunbowale and Golden State's Tiffany Hayes had to be separated. Both drew flagrant fouls. Each made both free throws. The Valkyries never scored again after that, going 2 of 12 from the floor in the extra period, per the AP.

Ogunbowale told reporters postgame, as quoted by the Dallas Morning News: "We felt like we got pushed around out there." If that's what she looks like getting pushed around, you don't want to see her with a grudge.

Game 1 was a blowout in San Francisco's favor. Game 2 was settled by the oldest kind of basketball story: a guard who doesn't accept that the game's over until the buzzer sounds. The series goes to Friday. Golden State's got home court. Dallas has got the player who scored 11 points in the fourth quarter and 11 more in overtime on the road to keeping a season alive.

That's the kind of arithmetic that tends to matter.

Sources cited:
- Associated Press via US News (https://www.usnews.com/news/sports/articles/2026-10-01/ogunbowale-scores-wnba-playoff-record-45-as-wings-win-in-ot-to-force-deciding-game-with-valkyries)
- CBS Sports (https://www.cbssports.com/wnba/news/wnba-playoffs-winners-and-losers-dream-mystics-wings-valkyries/)
- Dallas Morning News (https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/wings/article/dallas-wings-valkyries-arike-ogunbowale-playoffs-22456323.php)