Storm complete season sweep of Mercury with win on “Rivalry Night”
By Bella Munson, edited by Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA - The Seattle Storm have struggled to win games this season, with a 9-21 record, but Sunday afternoon they managed to complete the four-game season sweep of the Phoenix Mercury. It was a strong team performance that earned Seattle the victory and the home crowd at Climate Pledge Arena could not have been happier.
Pregame sights and scenes ahead of tipoff between the Phoenix Mercury and Seattle Storm (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Phoenix opened the game with the same play as almost every other game, getting the ball immediately to Brittney Griner who scored the two. They hit their first several shots with little resistance and had an early seven point lead. The double team on Griner took several possessions to get on track. Several times she was able to assist Brianna Turner, who is terrific at moving without the ball, out of the double.
It took a little bit of time but with roughly two and half minutes left in the first quarter the Storm took the lead while Phoenix had only bench players on the floor. Jewell Loyd was critical in this run, converting multiple and-one opportunities, finishing the quarter with 14 of her team’s 25 points.
Loyd continued her hot streak into the second quarter, finishing the half with a massive 23 points on 75% shooting. With a ten-point, and growing, lead Loyd was able to rest while her teammates played themselves into the game. One player who took advantage of this playing time was Kia Nurse. More on that in a moment.
The Storm started the half with a 51-35 point lead but struggled in the third quarter. They began the quarter with three turnovers in a row and the offense was too stagnant. With 5:43 left in that third quarter Phoenix started on a 13-0 run to tie the game at 57 with 2:13 left. With Loyd ice cold and scoreless since her massive first half, Ezi Magbegor came to the rescue with multiple driving layups.
After the tie Seattle never looked back. Magbegor kickstarted Seattle’s own 13-0 run into the fourth quarter and from there their lead never dropped below seven as they were able to close out the victory.
Defense
While the Mercury’s Sophie Cunningham was able to score a game-high 25 points Seattle’s defense severely limited their biggest scorers. The WNBA’s lone 10,000 point scorer, Diana Taurasi only hit two or her ten shots for a total five points. Brittney Griner was able to score 12 but that is significantly less than her previous game and it was done so inefficiently, taking 15 shots to get those 12.
After the game Loyd talked about the defensive gameplan.
“Just being active, making sure that we understood the play calls. You know, with Diana, she just needs one glimpse of the rim and she’s hot. So for us it was making sure that we stay connected on her, make it a little bit difficult. And then for BG I mean, post players executed the scheme perfectly knowing when to double… just being active hands, you know, pressure on the passer as well. So a lot of that’s just understanding when to go and you know, you can live with BG taking fadeaways.”
Head coach Noelle Quinn also emphasized the importance of and praised her team’s defense. “Through the offensive low, our defense never lacked. So that's a sign of some maturity and some progress for us when we can sustain because our defense is actually super focused and locked in,” Quinn said post-game.
Seattle Storm shooting guard Jewell Loyd looked back to herself in this game, scoring 23 points in the first half (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Jewell Loyd continues to amaze
Yes, Loyd had an absolutely massive first half of the game and then did not score again until a free throw in the final minute of the game. Her teammates stepped up their scoring and she still found ways to affect the game, she said so herself afterwards.
“I have all the confidence in everyone on the team. And regardless of me scoring or not I know that I’m able to be a screener. I know I can still play defense, I’m still involved. And I know I’m relying on everyone else. Everyone else steps up.”
Loyd is right, obviously, but it’s worth remembering that she is not just a top scorer in this league but a top defender. But because she is such a fantastic scorer she will draw defense with her anywhere and everywhere so her screening is particularly effective. A perfect example of this is Ezi’s bucket that untied the game in the third quarter as Loyd’s screen helped open up her driving lane and forced the switch, giving Ezi a huge mismatch to take advantage of.
Agressive Ezi
Ezi Magbegor celebrated her 24th birthday with an important, and efficient, 17 points, plus three blocks, two steals, and seven rebounds.
Those 17 points don’t happen without the aggressiveness she played with. Six of her eight field goals came from layups resulting from aggressive drives or cuts to the basket.
When I asked Ezi after the game about this aggressiveness and whether it resulted from something she saw in this game or if it is something she is trying to do more generally Loyd began jokingly staring her down.
When I asked Ezi after the game about this aggressiveness and whether it resulted from something she saw in this game or if it is something she is trying to do more generally Loyd began jokingly staring her down.
“Jewell is looking at me because she tells me every game to be aggressive… I think it’s something you know, obviously, that I should have been, could have been doing, all season but I think it comes from my teammates. Just Jewell being able to set screens or just the spacing that’s been created on the floor. I think it’s just credit to my teammates, for you know, being able to put me in those positions to just be aggressive and be confident.”
Loyd emplored Magbegor to give herself some credit but ever the selfless and quiet player the Australian said okay without elaborating or giving herself anymore credit. If she won’t give herself credit we will. A fantastic player who continues to show how important she is to the future of this franchise.
Seattle Storm center Ezi Magbegor poured in 17 points in this game, the same day as her 24th birthday. (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Bench play + rebounding
Seattle demonstrated balanced scoring in this game as every Storm player who saw the floor on recorded at least two points. In particular, Seattle’s bench outscored the Mercury’s bench, 28-7.
Seattle also largely controlled the glass with 38 rebounds, compared to Phoenix’s 31.
Mercedes Russell and Kia Nurse specifically
Lets start with Mercedes Russell. She was always going to be important in this matchup because she is the closest in size to Griner but she had a fantastic game and it is worth highlighting because she is continuing to get more consistent.
Coming in off the bench she pulled down a game-high ten rebounds and added eight points. But not all of her impact shows up on the stat sheet. Part of what made her performance so good was her decision making. When to pass, when to shoot, when to drive to the basket, when to screen, when to cut without the ball. All these things got herself buckets as well as her teammates. My personal favorite example of this came with roughly four minutes left in the second quarter when she used a pumpfake to let the guard fly by, drove a couple feet, and then stopped still a little ways from the basket, banking her floater off the glass to avoid Griner getting the block.
Magbegor praised her fellow post player after the game saying, “when she comes on, she knows, and reads the game so well… I love and I think we all love just having her on the floor, being able to facilitate being able to just be such a big post presence as well, which is, I think, what we need, so she's not just a one dimensional player. I think that's really, that's really important to us.”
Noelle Quinn made sure to remind media after the game, “Mercedes, she's a champion. I know, she's young, but she knows what it takes to play at a level and sustain at a level.”
But why have this performance been coming from Russell more consistently now? Quinn thinks, while confidence is a factor, it is mainly her preparation.
“I think she has been super focused on her extra workouts, what she’s doing in pre-practice, what she’s doing active practice, her extra conditioning, her weight room stuff like that is you know, what is helping this.”
The Seattle Storm got valuable contributions off the bench from center Mercedes Russell and forward Kia Nurse (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Kia Nurse also had a huge game off the bench. She scored ten points against her former team for her first double-digit scoring effort since July 6. Early in the game she was getting good open looks but they were not falling. Coach could’ve taken her out but, as always, she played with energy particularly on the defensive end and that allowed her to stay on the floor long enough for her offense to get going.
The key with Nurse is that she made good decisions in addition to her 10 points, 5 rebounds, and one assist. She only turned the ball over once and reads the game in a way she knows that when her shot, particularly her three-pointer, is not falling she can drive to the basket and making things happen.
Coach Quinn is happy to keep Nurse, and Russell, in the game when they are bringing that energy saying, “games like this where they're both rolling, I'm going to continue to keep them on the floor and I thought they both did an amazing job, at just staying poised, staying locked into the scout and executing very well.”
Turnovers still an issue
I don’t want to belabor this point because this was such an exciting win for this home crowd but we can’t totally ignore that Seattle had 16 turnovers in this game while Phoenix had half as many. Nine of those turnovers came in Seattle’s struggle of a third quarter and led to them being scored on and letting Phoenix get back in the game. It’s not what you want and that was the one negative that head coach Noelle Quinn acknowledged after the game.
Up next
We know this team is building for the future and Sunday they took “a lot of steps in the right direction. Obviously we still want to take care of our turnovers, but I thought our rebounds were what we're good at, that we were back to shooting three ball at a high clip. I thought again, we weathered a lot of storms, we stuck together in those times where we had some lulls. So a lot of really good things today.”
The Storm have won five of their last seven games and will look to continue their winning ways—perhaps hoping for a late playoff push—when the Minnesota Lynx come to town on August 18.