8.2.2023
Loyd tallies 31 to pace Seattle
SEATTLE – Just as they have in their first two games against each other this season, Seattle’s Jewell Loyd and Dallas’ Arike Ogunbowale found the basket for plenty of points..
However, by the end of the night, Ogunbowale’s Wings found it for a few more..
Loyd poured in 31 — her WNBA-best eighth game this season of 30-plus – but Ogunbowale countered with 27, leading Dallas to a 76-65 victory against the Storm on Wednesday in Climate Pledge Arena.
In the three Seattle-Dallas games this season, Loyd has scored 30, 39, and 31. Ogunbowale has had 26, 41, and 27.
Ezi Magbegor added 14 points and nine rebounds for Seattle (6-20), which saw its first winning streak of the season halted at two. Magbegor’s point total included the 1,000th of her career, that one coming on a two-footer straight in front that she lifted over the rim and into the net with 6:43 left in the first quarter.
Magbegor is the 14th player to score 1,000 in a Storm uniform and the fourth-youngest player in league history to reach 1,000 points and 150 blocked shots.
Dallas (15-11) scored the first five points of the game – all by Ogunbowale – and led all the way except for an 18-18 tie late in the opening period. That was the opposite of Seattle’s 109-103 victory on June 17 in Dallas when the lead changed hands 18 times.
As has been the case since returning to action from the All-Star break, the Storm delivered a solid defensive performance. Dallas came in averaging 86.2 points per game, and was kept 10 points below that. Seattle, in its six games to begin the second half of the season, is allowing just 74.2 points per game, third-lowest total in the league..
The Storm also limited Dallas to just 36.4 percent shooting from the field (28 of 77). In those same six games, opponents are hitting just 40.1% against Seattle, lowest in the league.
But two of the Wings’ strengths are second-chance points and converting turnovers into baskets. On Wednesday, they netted 16 second-chance tallies and 15 points off 18 turnovers. They won the boards, 44-30, including 17-5 at the offensive end. Seattle had just four second-chance points.
“We weren’t very good in those areas today,” Storm coach Noelle Quinn said. “If we weren’t going to do those things, we weren’t going to have success today.”
The Storm was down 70-55 early in the fourth quarter, but went on a 10-4 scoring run to get within single digits at 74-65 with 3:08 left. But they then went scoreless the rest of the way.
They had gotten even closer in the third quarter at 52-44. Dallas answered with an 11-2 surge for its biggest lead of the night at 63-46.
“Our offense sputtered out and we weren’t getting good looks,” Quinn said of that decisive Wings stretch. “Satou (Sabally) was blowing up all of our stuff. She’s such a physical presence defensively. We weren’t very sharp at getting to the paint, and just had a hard time executing offensively.”
Even so, the Storm kept things within reach with their defensive performance.
“That’s a winnable game to hold a high-octane offense to 76,” Quinn said. “Despite all those things happening, it shows progress.”
Loyd got 15 of her points behind the arc on 5-of-9 shooting from there (11-of-28 overall). The five makes leave her just one short of her team-record 84, which she set last year.
Sabally added 18 points and nine rebounds for the Wings, who have won nine of their past 12.