PHOENIX – Didn’t matter whether it was the Japan Time Zone on Sunday or the Mountain Time Zone on Thursday.
The Seattle Storm’s three basketball gold medal Olympians were in their own zone for the inaugural WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship game.
Breanna Stewart scored 17 points – with 15 of those during the first quarter, Jewell Loyd added 16, and Sue Bird chipped in 10 to go along with five assists as the Storm routed the Connecticut Sun to capture the Cup inside the Footprint Center, 79-57.
The Storm, who built a league-leading 16-5 record prior to the month-long break for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, never trailed, and were tied only once – that at 11-11 just beyond the midpoint of the first quarter after Connecticut put together a 7-0 run.
Seattle responded with eight straight points to go up 19-11, and it was never closer than five after that, the last time at 32-27 with 4:50 left in the second quarter.
When Bird buried a 3-pointer just before the buzzer to end the half, it put the Storm up by 11 at 46-35, and the margin stayed in double-digits the rest of the way.
Seattle rang up the first eight points of the third quarter, expanding the advantage to 19 at 54-35 as the Sun went through a scoring drought of nearly four minutes.
It grew to 28 by the end of the third at 68-40 as Seattle limited Connecticut to just five points on 2-of-15 shooting during that quarter. The final 10 minutes were played entirely with reserves for both teams
Stewart was nearly unstoppable during the first quarter, hitting 5 of 6 from the field – with 3 of 3 from behind the 3-point arc. In fact, there was no sign at all of any jet lag among the trio of Olympians as they accounted for 22 of the Storm’s 28 first-quarter points.
In fact, the opening basket of the game was a 3-pointer by Bird. Then it was a pull-up jumper by Loyd, a putback by Stewart, and a lay-in by Loyd for 9-4 lead.
Along with her 17 points, Stewart had four rebounds, three assists, three blocked shots, and four steals. Altogether, the gold medal trio totaled 43 points, eight boards, 11 assists, three blocks (all by Stewart), seven steals, and hit 16 of 25 (64 percent) from the field.
While Seattle had five of its players in Tokyo for the Olympics (Ezi Magbegor and Stephanie Talbot played for Australia), Connecticut’s entire roster was coming off a month of extended rest and practice time.
But aside from the seven-point spurt to forge the 11-11 tie, and a six-pointer to cut a the Storm’s 32-21 lead to 32-27, the Sun never got on track. Their best-shooting quarter was the fourth at 7 of 15, but that was long after the game had been decided.
DeWanna Bonner and Natisha Hiedeman had 11 points apiece for Connecticut. Jonquel Jones, who came in averaging a double-double of 21 points and 11 rebounds, was limited to just 10 points on 5-of-15 shooting in 28 minutes, and grabbed 11 boards.
FILLING THE CUP WITH NOTES
— The victory earned each Storm player $30,000 from the $500,000 prize pool.
— Seattle reached the title contest by going 8-2 in Cup qualifying games – the first home contest against each of its five Western Conference opponents. The Storm swept Dallas, Los Angeles, and Minnesota, and split with Las Vegas and Phoenix. Connecticut, which entered the Olympic break with the league’s third-best record at 17-6, went 9-1 against its five Eastern Conference opponents, the only loss coming to Chicago.
— Keeping Jonquel Jones in check was no small feat. When the teams met in Everett on May 25 – a 90-87 Storm overtime victory – Jones went for 28 points on 10-of-19 shooting and pulled down 13 rebounds. She missed the rematch in Connecticut on June 13, as she was playing for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the EuroBasket Tournament. Seattle rolled to an 89-66 victory in that one.
–The Storm got 36 of their points in the paint against a Sun team that allows a league-low 29.3.
UP NEXT
Seattle begins the 11-game home stretch of the regular season on Sunday in Chicago. Tip-off is at 1:00 p.m. on ABC (Channel 4). It will the opener of a five-game road trip.