Shock WNBA champs, dethrone Monarchs

DETROIT – Katie Smith has won Olympic gold, an American Basketball League title and scored 5,000 points in the pros.

Entering this season, though, her Hall of Fame resume lacked one crucial element: a WNBA championship.

You can check that one off.

Smith scored 17 points and had two crucial baskets in the fourth quarter of Game 5 Saturday to seal the Detroit Shock’s decisive 80-75 victory over the defending champion Sacramento Monarchs. It was Detroit’s second WNBA title in four years.

Deanna Nolan was the finals MVP after a 24-point performance, but it was Smith who got all the attention after the game.

“This one is special,” said Smith, who scored in double figures in four of the five games. “When you are younger, you think you’ll get chance after chance after chance, but now I know that’s not how it works.”

Smith hurled the ball high in the air as time expired and the party was on at Joe Louis Arena, where the announced crowd of more than 19,000 was the second-highest total in the history of the finals.

“Katie’s a great, great player and she did just what we expected her to do,” Shock coach Bill Laimbeer said. “She could have easily been the MVP, too.”

Sacramento, for a half at least, looked like it would win two titles in a row. It held the lead for the entire second quarter and took a 44-36 halftime advantage on Kara Lawson’s running jumper with 1 second remaining.

But Nolan scored 10 points during a game-changing 18-3 run to open the second half and the Shock never trailed again.

“I’m really angry and upset with the way we played,” said Sacramento’s Nicole Powell. “Detroit is a good team, but when you give a team those transition shots in the final game of the series, it’s very disappointing.”