Seattle defense holds New York below scoring averages, but offense has trouble matching

NEW YORK –  Only once on Thursday night did the Seattle Storm allow New York to put together an extended scoring run.

But once was enough for the WNBA-leading Liberty.

New York put 12 straight points on the board bridging the third and fourth quarters, building an 11-point lead, and went on to beat the Storm inside the Barclays Center, 77-70.

Skylar Diggins-Smith, who has taken her performance up several notches since the month-long break for the Olympics, continued that trend for the Storm (20-14). She pumped in 21 points and logged six assists, four rebounds, two blocks and two steals. It was her seventh 20-point game of the season.

Gabby Williams, coming off a season-high 11 points on Tuesday’s 74-61 victory at Connecticut, came up even bigger on Thursday with 17 points on 8-of-13 shooting, plus five assists and four rebounds. Ezi Magbegor added 13 points and a team-leading seven boards.

The 12-0 burst for New York (28-6) was part of a larger 17-2 run that turned a 55-51 deficit at the 4:06 mark of the third quarter into a 68-57 lead with 8:41 left in the game. Chipping in five points of that was Breanna Stewart, who didn’t hit her first field goal until the 44-second mark of the third quarter, but then went on to score 10 points in the fourth on the way to a final total of 14.

Betnijah Laney-Hamilton had seven of those points for the Liberty and wound up with 18.

Neither team ever had a double-digit advantage during the back-and-forth first half, which ended with New York up by just four at 40-36.

Tied at 48-48 midway through the third quarter, the Storm put together a 7-3 surge on a lay-in by Magbegor, a 3-pointer by Diggins-Smith, and a pair of free throws by Williams. The second of those free throws gave her 1,000 career points and gave Seattle the 55-51 lead.

But through the next 7:08 to finish that quarter and start the fourth, the only points for the Storm came off a driving lay-in by Jewell Loyd with 1:21 to go in the third.

The margin never got closer than five during the fourth quarter.

BY THE NUMBERS

— Diggins-Smith hit 4-of-7 from 3-point range. It marked her first game with three or more three-pointers since July 22, 2022, when she was with Phoenix and drained three against the Storm.

— As a team, the Storm were 6-of-20 behind the arc. But the Liberty were 12-of-27.

— Overall, Seattle shot 42.9% (30-of 70) and limited New York to 38.6% (27-of-70).

— Seattle grabbed 33 rebounds on Thursday. Last Friday at home against New York, it had just 17.

— Magbegor had four blocked shots, including the 250^th of her career. She finished the game with 252. Just 23 days after turning 25 years old, she is the third-youngest player to reach 250 blocks.

— With her six assists, Diggins-Smith now has 216 for the season. She is now just five away from tying Sue Bird’s single-season record of 221, set first in 2003 and matched in 2018.

UP NEXT

The Storm returns home to face Phoenix on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. (Fox 13+ / Prime Video Washington / NBA TV). Both teams are playoff-bound, as the Mercury clinched a spot on Wednesday night.

—— StormBasketball.com ——