McCoughtry scores record 42 to lead Dream to finals

ATLANTA – Angel McCoughtry needed a few minutes to let it all sink in.

The second-year Dream star set a new league playoff scoring record and helped Atlanta make the WNBA finals for the first time.

McCoughtry had 42 points to win a high-scoring duel with Cappie Pondexter as the Dream beat the New York Liberty 105-93 on Tuesday night to complete their unlikely march to the league finals.

Perhaps overwhelmed by it all, McCoughtry at first claimed the Eastern Conference finals clincher “was just another game.”

Just another game? McCoughtry couldn’t leave that as her signoff on the biggest night of her two-year professional career.

“I take it back,” McCoughtry said when asked again. “This was different.”

McCoughtry, the 2009 WNBA rookie of the year, has scored more than 20 points in Atlanta’s four straight playoff wins.

“Angel McCoughtry just really showed how good she is going to be and what a bright star she is already,” said New York coach Anne Donovan.

Atlanta, a third-year expansion franchise which set a league record with 30 losses only two years ago, will face the Western Conference champion Seattle Storm in the WNBA finals. The best-of-5 series begins Sunday in Seattle.

The Dream, the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, swept Washington in the first round before also winning two straight over the Liberty in the conference finals.

Atlanta players jumped on the scorer’s table and streamers fell from the Philips Arena rook after the final buzzer.

“I really enjoyed it,” McCoughtry said. “The atmosphere has been great. This is what you play for.”

McCoughtry surpassed the 41 points that Tamika Whitmore scored against Detroit while she played for Indiana in 2006.

Pondexter led New York with 36 points.