Storm Wraps up Regular Season with Big Win in Phoenix

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Seattle Storm

Storm Wraps up Regular Season with Big Win in Phoenix

September 20, 2024 - Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA)
Seattle Storm News Release


PHOENIX - On the night the regular season came to a close, the Seattle Storm got off to their best start.

And they're not finished yet.

Nneka Ogwumike scored 10 of her 24 points during the first quarter, Mercedes Russell had 10 of her 14, and the Storm racked up 35 points through the opening 10 minutes on the way to a wire-to-wire 89-70 rout of the Phoenix Mercury inside The Footprint Center.

Seattle (25-15) wound up with six players in double figures as it recorded the most regular-season wins since the 2018 team went 26-8 on the way to the franchise's third WNBA title.

Already locked into the No. 5 playoff seed even before Thursday's tip-off, the Storm heads straight to Nevada to begin its best-of-3 first-round series against two-time defending champion Las Vegas. As the No. 4 seed, the Aces will host Game 1 on Sunday at 7:00 p.m. and Game 2 on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. If Seattle wins at least one of those contests to send the series back to Climate Pledge Arena for a decisive Game 3, that will be next Thursday, Sept. 26. The tip-off time for that one has not yet been announced.

On Thursday, the Storm wound up with six players in double figures, including all five starters. Skylar Diggins-Smith added 14 points, Sami Whitcomb tallied 11, and Gabby Williams tossed in 10. For the third straight game, they were without leading scorer Jewell Loyd (knee) and leading rebounder Ezi Magbegor (concussion).

Joyner Holmes came off the bench for a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds. It was her first of the season and the second of her career. The first one came during her 2020 rookie campaign with the New York Liberty.

The Storm has struggled to get off to a fast start for a good portion of the season. But that seemingly was all forgotten on Thursday. They put the first 10 points of the game on the board, half of those by Ogwumike. The Mercury (19-21), who missed their first four shots, finally broke through with a 3-pointer by Diana Taurasi in what very well might have been her final regular-season home game.

But Seattle kept pouring in the shots. Up 12-3, Williams swished a 3-pointer from the top of the key to make it 15-3, and the margin never dipped below double-digits the rest of the night. At 19-9, the Storm ran off the next 14 in a row for a 24-point bulge at 33-9.

They finished the quarter up 35-14, their highest-scoring quarter of the year and matching the highest quarter in the entire league. (Indiana had 35 in the opening period at Atlanta on June 21.) Seattle shot 68 percent (15-of-22), including 5-of-10 behind the arc.

That cooled down considerably during the second quarter when the Storm went the first 4:25 without a point, missing five straight shots as Phoenix climbed back into it. Williams finally ended the dry spell with a turnaround 13-footer on the left side of the lane.

The Mercury got as close as 10 at 41-31 with 2:36 to go before halftime. But Seattle kept them off the scoreboard the rest of the way and took a 43-31 lead into the break.

Through most of the third quarter, the lead stayed in the teens before the Storm bulked it back up to 23 at 65-42. By the fourth, Whitcomb was the only starter from either team who was in action until Taurasi came back in for a final curtain call with 3:16 to play, heading back to the bench for good at the 3:05 mark.

When she stepped onto the court, her first move was to find Seattle guard Nika Mühl to congratulate the fellow Connecticut alum on her first WNBA points. But with 4:40 to go, she came up with a steal and took it all the way for a lay-in. Storm players leaped off the bench, then surrounded Muhl when she came over at the next media timeout.

ONE RECORD SET ... AND ANOTHER JUST MISSED

The Storm went 6-of-8 at the free throw line on Thursday, just enough to secure a new team record for success at the line. They wound up hitting 603-of-718 for a percentage of 83.98. Their previous record was 83.95.

The league's leading team in steals all season, Seattle swiped it five times from the Mercury for a final season total of 372, one shy of the WNBA record 373 set by the 2009 Indiana Fever.

BY THE NUMBERS

--Seattle shot 44.9% for the night, hitting 35-of-78. That included season highs for makes (13) and attempts (36) from downtown. They limited Phoenix to 38.1% (24-of-63), with just 6-of-26 (26.1%) behind the arc.

--The Storm had a 41-33 advantage on the boards. They did not allow the Mercury to get a rebound until 2:54 remained in the first quarter, by which time Seattle already had nine.

--Of those 35 baskets, 27 were assisted. Williams and Diggins-Smith had six each, and Mühl tied her career high with three, matching the total she had against Phoenix on Sept. 7 in Seattle.

--That makes it 20-plus assists in 24 of the 40 games, including five of the last six and 20 of the last 24.

--The season series went to the Storm, 3-1. It's the sixth time in the past seven seasons they have taken the series.

--Along with her 11 points, Whitcomb had season highs of eight rebounds and five assists.

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