Seattle, WA – Lessons continue to be learned for the Seattle Storm, as some growing pains remain prevalent in their third straight loss, falling today to the New York Liberty. Many of the issues that have plagued the Storm were present in this game, from overall lack of paint presence, while issues such as turnovers that had been better as of late were a factor in why Seattle wasn’t able to get back within striking distance of this game. These lessons learned and growing pains experienced will surely help the Storm in the long run, but the frustrations felt from them are visible in the current moment.
Following the opening tipoff for this game, the Storm missed four shots as the Liberty began to build their lead. Seattle’s inability to hit these shots to open the game was a bad start on its own for this game, but also foreshadowed the short of struggles that hindered the Storm’s chances at winning this game. Seattle’s poor shooting tonight was a big factor in their inability to go toe-to-toe with New York, who got production from all five of their starters with little help from their bench. Even the top scoring players for the Storm today, Jewell Loyd and Ezi Magbegor, didn’t have efficient nights from the field while the Seattle bench failed to add scoring outside of Sami Whitcomb, who was also inefficient. Of the many areas of issue in this game for the Storm, shooting and getting consistent scoring from numerous faces in the lineup remains a problem that still hasn’t been solved by Seattle.
“I think we’re growing; I think we’re better than we were at the beginning of the season. For a team like us who are still trying to figure things out, that’s where you want to be,” Jewell Loyd, Seattle Storm shooting guard, on if she thinks the team is in a rut.
Coming out of the halftime break with a deficit of 17, the Storm were in a tough position given the uphill battle they faced in terms of points and talent that they were up against. The push didn’t start immediately for Seattle, as New York pushed their lead up to as much as 22 after Sabrina Ionescu’s three-pointer with 7:24 left in the third quarter. It was after that shot, that the Storm started to dig themselves out of their own hole as Kia Nurse and Jewell Loyd hit three-pointers and Seattle started to get to the free throw line. Even with the shots from beyond the arch and some solid defensive effort to slow down the Liberty for a bit, the Storm weren’t able to go on a run big enough to overcome the double-digit deficit.
“It is quite difficult. I think we’ve proven, as the season has gone on, that we can get ourselves back into games. But that’s not what we want to do, we want to start well, we want to be able to compete with teams from the jump ball and not have to play catch up,” Ezi Magbegor, Seattle Storm center, on having to try to come back from a big deficit.
Today’s loss to the Liberty was the last home game that the Storm will have played prior to the WNBA All-Star break. Seattle doesn’t return home to Climate Pledge Arena until July 20th, hitting the road for three games during that span. Before they get to that point though, the Storm begin their road trip on Thursday, July 6th when they battle the Connecticut Sun with a tipoff time of 4PM PST. That game will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video and will be just the sixth road game that Seattle will have played this season so far.
