Angel Reese breaks WNBA single-game and season rebounding records in Dream's win over Sparks

Angel Reese pulled down 26 rebounds for the Atlanta Dream in a 78-71 win over the Los Angeles Sparks on Monday night, breaking the WNBA's single-game rebounding record and, in the same game, setting a new mark for most rebounds in a single season. The performance came during the final stop of a four-game Western road trip that Atlanta completed without a loss.

Reese's 26 boards eclipsed the previous single-game standard of 24, set by Chamique Holdsclaw for the Washington Mystics on May 23, 2003. That record had stood for more than two decades before Monday's game at Los Angeles's arena, and it was recognized by Guinness World Records as the mark for most rebounds by an individual in a WNBA game. Reese's rebound total for the season also climbed to 458, passing the 451 gathered by Las Vegas Aces forward A'ja Wilson in 2024, which had been the league's single-season benchmark.

The numbers

Reese finished the night with 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting, three assists and three steals in 38 minutes, according to the official box score posted on WNBA.com. Eight of her 26 rebounds came on the offensive end, and she converted a basket with 13.9 seconds remaining to lock in her WNBA-leading 27th double-double of the season. Allisha Gray led Atlanta in scoring with 20 points, and Rhyne Howard added 18 points while passing 3,000 for her career. For Los Angeles, Nneka Ogwumike had a season-high 27 points and 16 rebounds, and Cameron Brink recorded a season-high five blocks in the loss, which dropped the Sparks to 13-25.

• Single-game rebounding record: 26, breaking Chamique Holdsclaw's 24 (Washington Mystics, May 23, 2003)
• Single-season rebounding record: 458 and counting, breaking A'ja Wilson's 451 (Las Vegas Aces, 2024)

How Reese got here

Rebounding has been the defining trait of Reese's professional career since she entered the league as the No. 7 overall pick out of LSU in 2024. As a rookie with the Chicago Sky that year, she pulled down 446 rebounds before a wrist injury ended her season early — at the time the most ever gathered by a first-year player and a mark that briefly put her within reach of the season record before Wilson broke it later that year. Reese was traded to Atlanta ahead of the 2026 season as part of a rebuilding effort around second-year head coach Karl Smesko, who has built the Dream's identity on rebounding and disruptive defense. Monday's game was Reese's fifth 20-rebound performance of the season, and she entered it already leading the league in rebounding for a third consecutive year, at roughly 12 per game.

The record she broke had a notable pedigree of its own. Holdsclaw was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 WNBA draft, was named Rookie of the Year that season, made six All-Star teams and was the league's scoring and rebounding champion in 2002 before winning the rebounding title again in 2003, the year of her record-setting 24-board game. She played 11 WNBA seasons after starring at the University of Tennessee, where she helped the Lady Vols win three consecutive national championships under Pat Summitt from 1996 to 1998. Holdsclaw's record fell barely ten days after she was formally inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as part of its 2026 class, alongside Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne, at a ceremony in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The win was Atlanta's fourth straight and capped a perfect four-game trip through the Western Conference. The Dream, who had already clinched their fourth consecutive playoff berth earlier this month with a win over the Phoenix Mercury, improved to 25-13 and moved into sole possession of fourth place in the standings, with six games remaining in the regular season.

Who this affects

The record shift moves both Holdsclaw and Wilson out of the top spot in categories they had held for years. Holdsclaw, a Hall of Famer whose 24-rebound game came in just her fifth WNBA season, had held the single-game mark since before most current WNBA players were born. Wilson, the reigning MVP-caliber center for Las Vegas, set the season rebounding record just two years ago and is still active, meaning the record could change hands again before Reese's is truly settled. For the Dream, the record-setting night reinforces a roster built to control the boards; for the Sparks, it extends a difficult season in which the team has struggled on both ends of the floor despite Ogwumike's continued production.

What people are saying

Reese, who shot just 4-of-14 from the field, attributed part of her rebounding haul to her own missed shots.

"Tonight I couldn't hit anything, so I knew I was going to be able to get them on the rebounding side," Reese said after the game.

She later described her overall approach to the glass in a separate postgame interview, telling former WNBA player and broadcaster Tina Charles, "Anything that goes up is mine. You just have to have that mindset." Teammate Allisha Gray, reacting to the final rebounding total, said of Reese's night, "That's just a talent. I'm just in awe watching her rebound." The league confirmed the box-score totals through its official statistics, and both marks were reported independently by ESPN's game coverage and the CBS Sports recap of the win, along with a wire account distributed by the Associated Press.

What happens next

The 2026 season, the WNBA's 30th, expanded to 44 games per team with the addition of two new franchises, the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo, pushing the league to a record 330 total games this year. That larger schedule now works in Reese's favor: with six games left, she has more runway than in past seasons to extend her own new rebounding record. The league is set to pause from Aug. 30 through Sept. 16 so players can compete in the FIBA Women's World Cup in Germany, then resume its final stretch of regular-season games on Sept. 17 before the schedule closes on Sept. 24. Atlanta's remaining slate includes a game before the break and then four games after it resumes, against the Connecticut Sun, the Chicago Sky and the New York Liberty twice, according to the league's official calendar of 2026 key dates, as the Dream look to lock down playoff seeding. The postseason begins Sept. 27. Her career page on WNBA.com lists her among the league's active rebounding leaders, a distinction she has now converted into two of the sport's most enduring statistical marks, while the Sparks, mathematically eliminated from postseason contention, play out the remainder of their schedule.