Ford leads Shock to win

Cheryl Ford pulled down a postseason-record 23 rebounds and scored 11 points Thursday night as the Detroit Shock beat the Connecticut Sun 70-59 in Game 1 of the WNBA Eastern Conference final in Auburn Hills, Mich.

Connecticut, which was outscored 22-10 in the fourth quarter, needs to win the final two games at home to advance to its third straight WNBA Finals. Detroit is trying to get back to the championship round for the first time since winning the 2002 title.

Ford broke Lisa Leslie’s postseason rebounding record of 18 late in the third quarter, then broke her own overall franchise record of 22 in the fourth. The league record for rebounds in a game is 24 by Chamique Holdsclaw.

Deanna Nolan led all scorers with 21 points, while Katie Smith added 17 and Plenette Pierson had 11 off the bench.

Connecticut, which was missing leading scorer Katie Douglas to a foot injury, got 13 points each from Lindsay Whalen and Erin Phillips.

Nykesha Sales, who went 1 for 17 from the floor in the first-round win over Washington, missed five of her six shots against Detroit.

Monarchs 64, Sparks 61: At Sacramento, Calif., Yolanda Griffith scored 18 points and hit the go-ahead layup with 10.3 seconds left in Sacramento’s comeback win over Los Angeles in Game 1 of the WNBA’s Western Conference finals.

Nicole Powell scored 17 points and Kara Lawson hit a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 48 seconds left for the defending league champion Monarchs, who rallied from a nine-point deficit in the third quarter of their fourth straight trip to the conference finals.

Lisa Leslie had just seven points on 3-of-13 shooting for Los Angeles, which led throughout the second half until Powell hit her third 3-pointer with 4:17 left to tie it at 51. Chamique Holdsclaw sat out with a foot injury, leaving the Sparks without their second-leading scorer essentially for the third straight game.