Loyd and Magbegor combine for 37 but Seattle scoreless stretch leads to tough loss
SEATTLE – The shots were there from everywhere. Inside. Outside. Driving to the basket. Second chances.
But during a devastating dry spell on Thursday night, those shots went everywhere but through the hoop for the Seattle Storm.
After a productive scoring burst gave them a one-point lead late in the third quarter, the Storm came up empty on their next 22 tries, and the Indiana Fever took advantage by ringing up 17 straight points, taking command on the way to an 80-68 victory in Climate Pledge Arena.
Seattle’s dry spell spanned 10 minutes, 23 seconds, from the 4:11 mark of the third quarter, when a Kia Nurse 3-pointer produced a 59-58 lead, until 3:48 remained in the fourth, when Jordan Horston finally ended it with a lay-in, but by which time the Fever were still up by 14.
Jewell Loyd led the Storm with 19 points, but hit just 5 of 21. Ezi Magbegor added 18 on 7-of-14 from the floor, including 2 of 4 from long range..
Seattle (3-9) finished the night at just 29.7 percent shooting, hitting 22-of-74.
“We couldn’t hit a shot. You can’t win games hitting 30 percent from the floor,” head coach Noelle Quinn said. “I thought out defensive activity was fine, creating turnovers, making them take contested shots. But we couldn’t hit a shot.”.
Kelsey Mitchell poured in 25 points for the Fever (5-7), getting 21 of those from 3-point range, as she hit 7 of 11 behind the arc. NaLyssa Smith added 12 and made it a double-double with 14 rebounds. Star rookie Aliyah Boston, who came in averaging 16 points per game on 66.4 percent shooting from the field, was limited to nine, thanks largely to a solid defensive effort from Seattle’s Mercedes Russell. Boston hit 3 of 8, just her second sub-.500 night in 12 games.
Despite missing their last seven shots of the third quarter, the Storm were still very much within reach, down just 67-59 heading into the final 10 minutes.
The defense kept Seattle in it by coming up with stops or forcing turnovers through the first six minutes of the fourth. In fact, by the time Horston’s lay-in finally got the Storm back on the board, the Fever had tacked on just eight more points of their own. But that was still enough for a 14-point bulge.
“There’s no magical play that you can draw up,” Quinn said. “At the end of the day, we had open looks, we’ve got to make our lay-ups, we’ve got to knock down our shots. We got 74 shots. We didn’t turn the ball over today. It’s just a matter of doing it and executing.”
The Storm put together a 9-0 run bridging the first and second quarters, turning a 23-17 deficit onto a 26-23 lead. Indiana then racked up the next seven points, part of a 15-6 surge for a 38-32 advantage midway through the second quarter.
Seattle was within two points as the half was winding down. The Fever’s Boston beat the buzzer on a lay-in, for a 48-44 lead at the break.
Indiana had a 58-53 lead near the midpoint of the third quarter when the Storm put up six straight to edge ahead, with a traditional three-point play from Loyd, and then Nurse’s trey from the right of the lane off a feed from Loyd.
But that was all for the next 10-plus minutes.
“There was a point in the game where we got over the hump up 59-58. But from there, not good things happened,” Quinn said. “Rebounding was an issue, and the things that brought us success, we were not doing.”
BY THE NUMBERS
–The Storm had just 10 turnovers, tying for their second-lowest total of the season. They yielded just seven points off of those turnovers.
–At the other end, Seattle converted 20 Indiana turnovers into 16 points.
—Ezi Magbegor’s 18 points was her 10th double-digit night in 12 games.
— Ivana Dojkic finished with 11 points, putting her in double figures for the fifth time in the past six games.
— Led by NaLyssa Smith’s 14 and 11 from Aliyah Boston, Indiana dominated the boards, 47-29.