The Atlanta Dream have officially secured the No. 4 seed in the 2026 WNBA playoffs after defeating the New York Liberty for the second time in three days. But while the Dream are preparing for the postseason, one moment from the two-game series is still making noise.
Former Dream player and six-time WNBA All-Star Chamique Holdsclaw has sent a blunt message to Leonie Fiebich after her comments following an earlier exchange involving Angel Reese .
Holdsclaw, while speaking on USA Sports, brought up the back-and-forth between Reese and Fiebich before addressing the Liberty forward directly.
"Let's talk about something we discussed before the game, a little banter back and forth, Angel and Fiebich. Fiebich, this is a lesson. If you're going to talk the talk, you got to walk the walk.
"You wind up with a big doughnut. You can't do that. I'm a hooper. Like, you got to come and produce. You got to keep that in the back of your mind. And hopefully this fuels her and fuels her team as they approach the playoffs," Holdsclaw said .
The situation began on Monday, when Atlanta defeated New York 95-84. Reese finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds as the Dream handed the Liberty another important loss late in the regular season.
After the game, Reese spoke about the Liberty's demanding schedule. New York had played the previous night and also had several players returning from the FIBA Women's World Cup. According to Reese, the fatigue was visible. She felt Atlanta had taken advantage of it during the game.
Fiebich acknowledged that the Liberty had faced a difficult schedule, but she did not want to use it as an excuse. The Liberty forward made it clear that the team needed to deal with the circumstances and move forward.
She also warned that the physicality would increase and said the Liberty would play through it. Most importantly, she ended her response with a confident promise that New York would "win the next one."
"Obviously, back-to-back is always hard, especially since we have more than half of the team coming off the World Cup, right?"
"It's hard, but not an excuse. Physicality is going to go up, so we just got to play through it. We're going to take on the challenge. They can feel good about the win. It's good, cool for us. We're gonna win the next one," Fiebich told reporters, as per Myles Ehrlich .
The problem for Fiebich was that the Liberty did not get the result she was talking about. When Atlanta and New York met again on Wednesday, the Dream came away with an 83-65 win. The result secured Atlanta the No. 4 seed and home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
It's a rough stretch for the Liberty right now. They dropped two straight to Atlanta and are now staring down a tough first-round playoff matchup against the top-seeded Minnesota Lynx .
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network .
