Whitcomb drains six three-pointers, Horston earns first career double-double in key road win
PHOENIX – Jordan Horston went double-double. And the Seattle Storm went double-digit.
Rookie forward Horston, in just her eighth professional game, logged 13 points and a career high 14 rebounds on Tuesday night, and the Storm led from wire to wire in rolling past the Phoenix Mercury inside The Footprint Center, 83-69.
Sami Whitcomb came off the bench for a season-high 18 points, all of them from behind the 3-point arc, from where she shot 6-of-10.
Horston’s total was just one point shy of tying her career high and was her fourth-straight game with 10 or more.
Jewell Loyd added 17 points. Rookie guard Ivana Djokić, in her first start of the year, poured in a career-high 14 points. But she didn’t stop there. In 28 minutes of action, she also tied her career highs of four assists, two rebounds, two steals, and one blocked shot.
The Storm has, on occasion, had four rookies on the court. But this was the first time two of them were in the starting lineup. Horston’s first start came on Sunday against the Washington Mystics.
Along with its second game of scoring in the 80s, the defense for Seattle (2-6) also came up big. After allowing an average of 95 points in an 0-4 start, it has yielded an average of just 68.5 in splitting its past four, with two those opponents (Los Angeles last Tuesday night and now Phoenix) kept below 70.
That same defense also kept Diana Taurasi off the scoreboard. She came in averaging 17.4 per game, but went 0-for-6 from the field in 22:39. It was just the third time Taurasi has gone without a point when playing at least 20 minutes.
The Storm scored the first four points of the game, never trailed, and were never tied. By the midpoint of the first quarter, they were already up 16-5, the first time this season they had led by more than nine.
Once they established that command, they never let Phoenix get closer than five the rest of the night, when it was 23-18 at the end of the opening period. That was the most first-quarter points for Seattle this year. The previous high was 21 on May 26 against Dallas.
The Storm then rang up the first 12 points of the second quarter, making it 35-18 and went into halftime with a 50-36 advantage. That was their highest-scoring first half.
Phoenix (2-6) came within nine points at 55-46 with 6:32 remaining in the third. Seattle answered with eight points in a row, including a pair of Whitcomb treys, and was never seriously threatened again.
Horston secured her double-double when she rebounded a missed 3-pointer by the Mercury’s Sug Sutton with 2:20 left in the third quarter. Her rebound total of 14 was five more than the nine she grabbed last Friday against Washington. She became just the second Storm rookie to tally 13+ points and 14+ rebounds in a game after Breanna Stewart did so twice during her rookie campaign.
Ezi Magbegor, along with her nine points and seven rebounds, came up with three more blocked shots. She now has at least three blocks for the past six games in a row, the only Storm player ever to do that.
Led by Whitcomb’s six treys, the Storm were 12-of-30 from downtown. That was their most attempts this season, their second-highest number of makes (13 at Los Angeles on June 3) and, at 40.0 percent, their second-highest percentage (52.0 at L.A. on 13-of-25).
Tuesday’s victory snapped a pair of three-game losing streaks against Phoenix: one in the overall series, and the other in Phoenix.
Sophie Cunningham led the Mercury with 21 points. Brittney Griner had just two points in 9 minutes, 21 seconds of action. She left the game with 6:02 left in the first half with what appeared to be a minor injury, and did not return.
UP NEXT
The Storm continues a three-game road trip on Thursday in Las Vegas, tipping off at 7:00 p.m. on Fox 13 and Prime Video.
—— StormBasketball.com ——