Seattle Storm continue inconsistent ways, lose to Mystics on road
The only thing the Storm are consistent at is being inconsistent.
The Storm fell 69-58 to the Washington Mystics on the road Saturday in front of a sellout crowd of 4,200 at CareFirst Arena.
Seattle has not managed to win more than one game in a row since July 6, losing four of their past seven games against sub-.500 teams. Games and opponents aside, the Storm are not even consistent quarter to quarter.
After a dominant 38-point win against the Chicago Sky on Thursday, it felt like maybe the team was trending upward and becoming worthy of its fourth-place league rank.
Seattle, well truthfully Nneka Ogwumike, came out strong in the first quarter, eager to prove that true. Ogwumike alone redeemed the Storm’s season-low 10 points in a first quarter, which happened during the team’s first appearance against the Mystics on Sunday.
Ogwumike had tallied nine of the team’s nine points at 5:35 into the game for a 9-8 Storm lead. She ended the quarter with 14 points on 4-for-6 shooting, matching the highest-scoring quarter by any Storm player this season. The 10-time All Star scored or assisted on all of the team’s first 16 points and 19 of the team’s 21 points in the first quarter, giving them a 21-16 lead heading into the second quarter.
The Mystics snapped back in the second quarter, holding Ogwumike to just four points (2-for-3 shooting). Washington went on a 12-2 run in the span of three minutes, with Mystics guard Sug Sutton accounting for half of those points. Washington had 24 points in the quarter and ended the half ahead, 40-35.
Washington kept the momentum, scoring 15 unanswered points to open the first five minutes of the third quarter. The Storm could not get a bucket, scoring just six points across the second half of the second quarter and the first half of the third quarter.
Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins were kept scoreless in the third, with Ogwumike shooting 0 for 3 and Diggins 0 for 4. The third quarter ended 60-45, matching the Storm’s season-low third-quarter scoring with just 10 points.
The All-Stars weren’t producing, so Storm head coach Noelle Quinn put her reserves to the test in the fourth quarter, despite a poor two-point performance from them in the first half.
While Diggins, Ogwumike and first-time All-Star Gabby Williams sat on the bench, the reserves brought a new surge of energy and went on a nine-point unanswered run over six minutes to cut the Storm’s deficit to 60-54.
Reserve center Dominique Malonga shined with six points in just over three minutes, after becoming the youngest player in WNBA history to record a double-double on Thursday (14 points and 10 rebounds). Guard Erica Wheeler added six points of her own in less than seven minutes.
Seattle was down 61-56 with three minutes left in the game, allowing the Mystics to score just one point off Kiki Iriafen’s free throw in seven minutes of play. The Storm, however, lost their stride, while Washington pushed for a late 7-2 run to secure the win, despite scoring just nine points in the fourth quarter.
The Storm’s 23 points in the second half matched a season-low.
Ogwumike ended with a team-high 18 points, all of which came in the first half, and five rebounds. Wheeler had 12 points and six assists, and Malonga had eight points and nine rebounds.