Seattle, WA – The Seattle Storm were unable to extend their winning streak to a season-high of three games, as they fell in a hotly contest battle to the Minnesota Lynx in the first of two games that these teams will play in three days. Having won five of their last seven games, the Storm were unable to maintain their strong form of late as Seattle played sloppy all game long on the offensive end. As a result of their struggles on that end of the court, the Storm defense was only able to do so much to contain Minnesota’s stars such as Napheesa Collier and Kayla McBride.
The Storm began this game with plenty of energy, as center Ezi Magbegor got the scoring started for her team and her general activity was big for Seattle in the first quarter. While the Storm did have positives on offense, whether it was Magbegor’s general activity or rookie Jordan Horston getting involved early, there was general chaos from Seattle that the Lynx were able to take advantage of. The Storm have struggled with taking care of the basketball in recent weeks after somewhat shoring that issue up, and Minnesota was able to capitalize on that early and for the entirety of the game. At the end of the first half, both teams had committed the same number of turnovers with eight, but the Lynx had scored seven more points off those turnovers than the Storm did.
“First, our turnovers. It’s the points that they generated off of them, it’s very difficult to be in games, stay in games and not taking efficient shots on goal. It’s difficult to play an entire game without Ezi on the floor, an entire game with stretches, minutes of the game without her on the floor and the second half in particular, holding them to 32. Thought that there was better defensive effort, locked in a little bit better on McBride and Collier. Some good moments from Sami for sure. Some good defensive effort, defensive blacks in the second half, but third quarters stalled out in offense again. Not able execute, taking really tough shots and not being able to generate points,” Noelle Quinn, Seattle Storm head coach, on what went wrong in this loss.
Ahead of tonight’s contest, Seattle head coach Noelle Quinn had discussed how important this homestand was, as having the days to practice and preach the importance of avoiding stalling on offense is time that the Storm wouldn’t have if they were on the road. While working to improve on that, Seattle stumbled on the same issue in this contest as the Storm offensive attack hit a snag in the third quarter. Seattle only tallied eleven points in the frame, shooting a poor 27% from the field and turning the ball over four times. With their leading scorer in Jewell Loyd continuing to struggle from the field, Seattle was unable to find their footing and it dug them a deeper hole to try and scrape out of.
“No traps today. I think McBride was just in passing lanes and very aggressive in my opinion. Seeing this defense with Minnesota and her, lots of congestion, gaps, that makes it really difficult to find those lanes and get to the rim. Just one of those nights for Jewell, in my opinion,” Noelle Quinn, Seattle Storm head coach, on what she saw from Jewell Loyd’s tough night.
Following today’s loss to the Lynx, the Storm have wrapped up their four-game homestand and will head out on the road for a three-game trip that begins with a rematch against this same Minnesota team. These two teams will get back to action after a day off, which is just a travel day, when they meet at the Target Center on Sunday, August 20th with a tipoff time of 4PM PST. With a lot of positives to take from today’s game and obvious mistakes that need to be corrected, the Storm should have a gameplan prepared that has them in good position to knock off a Lynx team that currently sits as the three seed in the Western Conference.
