Eight shots. Eight makes. Four threes. Four free throws. Zero reasons to hang your head.
Atlanta Dream forward Naz Hillmon put together the kind of box score you check twice on Friday night — 24 points, career-high, not a single blemish from the field or the stripe. She went 8-for-8 from the floor, 4-for-4 from deep, and 4-for-4 at the line in a win over the Toronto Tempo. That is the full package. That is a clean receipt.
Kamilla Cardoso would like a word.
On June 26, the Chicago Sky center set a WNBA record for the most field goals in a single game without a miss — 13-for-13, good for 30 points. The asterisk? She went 4-for-6 from the free throw line. Two misfires. Close, but not spotless. Hillmon’s retort is sitting right there in the stat sheet: fewer shots, fewer points, but not a single imperfection anywhere on the page.
Sunday settles it in person. The Dream host the Sky in Atlanta at 4 p.m. ET on CBS, with both clubs chasing a third consecutive win. Hillmon versus Cardoso is the undercard that deserves top billing — two frontcourt players who just spent the week redefining what efficient scoring looks like, sharing a floor four days apart from their respective masterpieces.
The rest of Sunday’s slate offers its own candidates for a spotless night.
Brionna Jones, probable after making her season debut Friday for the Dream, went 9-for-10 from the field in a 23-point outing last season. One miss from her own entry in the perfect-game club.
Out in Arlington, the Los Angeles Sparks visit the Dallas Wings at 1 p.m. ET on ABC, and Nneka Ogwumike has history with this opponent. A decade ago, she went 12-for-12 from the field and 7-for-7 from the line — 32 flawless points — against the Wings during her MVP-winning 2016 campaign. The Sparks are trying to avoid a fourth straight loss, so a vintage Nneka night would arrive at the right time.
Dallas, meanwhile, rides a five-game winning streak and has no shortage of credible candidates. Paige Bueckers opened her season 8-for-10 against Indiana, with both misses from beyond the arc. Azzi Fudd already has an 8-for-9 game on her résumé this year, coming in Dallas’s mid-June blowout of Las Vegas. Awak Kueir and Maddy Siegrist have each authored perfect field-goal nights in prior seasons — though free-throw issues kept both from full spotlessness. Jessica Shepard has two perfect games from her Minnesota Lynx days and has gone 7-for-8 and 6-for-7 this season, but free-throw misses continue to dog her.
The nightcap sends the Connecticut Sun to Phoenix for a 7 p.m. ET tip on ESPN. Brittney Griner has two perfect field-goal games in her career — 5-for-5 as a rookie in 2013, 7-for-7 in 2019 — but went 6-for-12 on Friday. Her teammate Olivia Nelson-Ododa has shot perfectly from the field five times this season, including a 6-for-6, though missed free throws have spoiled every one of those outings.
The most intriguing name on the Phoenix side might be Natasha Mack, Griner’s former understudy, who went 7-for-7 from the field and 2-for-2 from the line in early June — a fully perfect game at real volume. Mack has been out since June 25 with a bone bruise in her foot but is probable to return Sunday. For a Mercury team on a five-game skid, her presence matters far more than her shooting percentage.
Hillmon set the bar Friday night. Cardoso set the record before that. Sunday gives both of them — and a half-dozen other candidates — the chance to clear it again.
