Breanna Stewart tallies season-high 35 points and adds 10 rebounds
SEATTLE – She got a framed U.S. Olympic jersey. She was given a commemorative retirement ring with her name, the familiar No. 10, and the years of all four Seattle Storm WNBA championships inscribed on it.
She received ovation after ovation before, during and after a hard-fought contest against Western Conference leader Las Vegas.
The only thing Sue Bird didn’t get on Sunday afternoon was the one thing she wanted most:
A win.
Breanna Stewart poured in a season-high 35 points, but A’ja Wilson countered with 29 for Vegas, and the Aces clung to a narrow lead from the second quarter onward, finally closing out an 88-81 victory in Climate Pledge Arena.
A franchise-record crowd of 18,100 fans – it was sold out nearly two weeks in advance – came out to fete Bird in her final regular-season home game.
Bird led the team out of the tunnel and onto the court for warm-ups. The Olympics presentation, which also included Stewart, Jewell Loyd, Tina Charles, and former coach Dan Hughes, was followed by a video tribute featuring several familiar names, including Stewart, Loyd, former Storm star Swin Cash, Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, and former Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, among others. Then came the retirement ring.
She was visibly emotional during it all, and as she headed back to warm-ups, Bird formed a heart with her thumbs and index fingers and saluted the fans.
Bird, who wound up with nine points and six assists, got into the action almost immediately, draining a 15-footer from the left of the lane to give Seattle (20-13) an early 7-4 lead. The Storm stretched it out to 10-6 before going into an 0-for-5 dry spell that spanned 4 minutes, 55 seconds.
The Aces (23-10) rang up seven straight points during that time to take a 13-10 lead. Wilson accounted for four of those, part of her 11 points in the opening quarter.
Seattle managed just one more lead the rest of the day, going up 23-22 on a 3-pointer by Tina Charles with 8:15 left in the second quarter. Las Vegas ran off eight of the next 10 points to go in front, 30-25.
The Storm was always within reach. Down 39-32 with 2:52 left before halftime, they went on an 11-5 scoring run, cutting it to just one by the break at 44-43
Las Vegas went up by five to start the third quarter. Seven times during that period, Seattle got within one possession; seven times, the Aces had an answer. They equaled their largest lead of seven points at 70-63 on a turnaround 15-footer by Wilson to open the fourth quarter.
The Storm clawed back again. A lay-in by Bird on an assist from Stewart after Stewart stole the ball in backcourt, then a 3-pointer by Stewart off a feed from Gabby Williams cut it to 70-68 with 7:06 still on the clock.
Vegas rang up the next seven points for its largest advantage of the day, 77-68, with 5:06 to go. The closest Seattle came after that was five.
While Stewart recorded her fourth double-double of the season (she also had 10 rebounds) and her second straight game in the 30s, and Charles came within one rebound of a double-double (19 points, nine boards), Jewell Loyd was limited to a season-low one point – that coming on a technical foul free throw with 5:08 left in the third quarter. Loyd took just six shots.