Seattle, WA – The close games continue to slip away from the Seattle Storm in their 2023 season, as even without the league’s leading scorer in Jewell Loyd they hung around with the Washington Mystics. Storm center Ezi Magbegor brought the offensive aggression early and often, tallying a career high 24 points, and no one star shone brightest for Washington to give Seattle a fighting chance. Rebounding and second chance points continue to be points of emphasis for the team, as those departments may ultimately have been the different in this contest. Considering how close of a battle this was, the Storm have a solid chance of winning on Sunday when the teams meet again.
“Not having Jewell was a big loss, I think we definitely felt her presence still. During the game, she’s very talkative, throughout the game, at halftime, before the game. Even though she wasn’t on the court with us, we definitely still felt her. felt so sorry. But it was definitely next one up. And I think we did a great job of playing together as a team tonight and you know, like I’ve said previously, I think we just get better and better every game timing. Just building that chemistry really helped,” Ezi Magbegor, Seattle Storm center, on playing without Jewell Loyd.
With shooting guard and the leading scorer in the WNBA sidelined as Jewell Loyd was held out with a foot injury, Seattle was essentially written off before tipoff. The Storm didn’t care, as the game was close throughout, beginning in the first quarter. The Mystics appeared to begin to pull away as they got inside often, but the Seattle defense started to click and force Washington into mistakes and missed shots. With their defense getting back to basics, the Storm bench found a spark and ran with it as names like Arella Guirantes, Ivana Dojkic, and Jade Melbourne all chipped in to make this a three-point game after ten minutes. With their bench out-performing their starters point wise, Seattle continues to display that when the pieces of the puzzle fully get put in place, they’ll be dangerous in their new era.
The defensive effort continued to keep Seattle in this one through the first five minutes of the second quarter, before things went south. The final five minutes before the halftime break saw the Mystics go on a 19-5 run where the Storm had numerous missed shots, fouls, and turnovers. It can certainly be viewed as a “growing” quarter for the young team that continues to get acclimated with their roles and playing with each other, but in the present, it was a stretch that pit Seattle in a 14-point hole at the halfway point of the game.
“I feel like we tightened up on our defense in the second half. We played really hard, i felt like we gave the effort. We just gotta clean up on some things, we’re gonna watch film and we’ll clean that up, then we’ll see them Sunday. I feel like everybody on the team gave their all, I felt like everybody was pulling for each other. I feel like the effort was there, we’re gonna figure it out,” Jordan Horston, Seattle Storm forward, on the team’s defensive adjustments.
In crunch time, the Storm remained competitive but couldn’t bring the game to a tie, let alone complete their comeback effort. The first three minutes of the fourth saw a tough defensive showing from both sides before the Mystics began to take advantage of Storm mistakes. Turnovers, fouls, and missed shots came back to bite Seattle down the home stretch despite some big made shots that kept them within striking distance. With less than three minutes left, the Storm were down by six-points with the ball. Seattle missed their next three shots before a Tiana Hawkins layup made it a three-possession game that the Storm couldn’t recover from. Washington pulled away, and took the first of two games that the teams will play this weekend.
The Storm will remain at home, their sixth in the first seven games, and face these Washington Mystics once again on Sunday, June 11th with a tipoff time of 12PM PST. Following the gritty and tight contest, Seattle will look to get their party started with a victory as after the game, the Storm will raise Sue Bird’s iconic and now retired #10 jersey to the rafters of Climate Pledge Arena. Seattle’s winningest athlete with four WNBA Championships, it’s the weekend of Bird as prior to this game a copy of the banner was raised atop the Space Needle and a mural of the legend was unveiled within the city.
