Seattle Storm Continues to Surge

Seattle Storm Continues to Surge

The league-leading Seattle Storm continues to sizzle as they defeated the Tulsa Shock in a dominating fashion, 75-59, Monday in Seattle, to bag their 20th win of the season against just two defeats.

MVP front-runner Lauren Jackson led the surging Storm with her 16 points and nine rebounds, while Svetlana Abrosimova had a surprising night scoring 15 points. The Russian forward sank five 3-pointers, all in the second quarter, which fuelled a 12-3 run for Seattle that gave them the lead.

"They are extremely aggressive on the ball, so as long as we change the sides of the floor, make the extra pass it's wide open," Abrosimova said. "When you hit one or two you feel it happen and your teammates start looking for you so it gets really easy after that."

Swin Cash added 10 points and Lecoe Willingham had nine points and ten rebounds for the Seattle Storm, which are now on a 11th-straight winning streak.

"It's been all about defense and rebounding and we started off the season OK, playing really well on the defensive end and we've kind of let off," said Sue Bird, who led his team in assists with six.

"Tonight we were really focused on it and we didn't start off that great in terms of rebounding and giving them a lot of easy looks."

Shanna Crossley led the Shock in scoring with her 19 points but her team continues to struggle and has now tasted their 19th defeat of the season. They were outrebounded badly, 43-25, by the Seattle Storm.

"We're not a big team and the rebounding kills us," Shock head coach Nolan Richardson said. "On one possession, they were getting three or four shots. When you get that many shots on one possession, you're going to nail some of them and that makes it very difficult for us."

In the other WNBA game of the day, Angel McCoughtry erupted in the second half tallying 19 of her 28 points in the second half, helping the Atlanta Dream snap their four-game losing skid with an 82-75 win against the New York Liberty.

"I was starting to see that look of doubt on girls' faces. I couldn't let us lose again. We had to win." said McCoughtry who also grabbed game-high ten rebounds and dished out six assists.

Iziane Castro Marques chipped in 21 points, while Erika Desouza added 14 points and ten rebounds for the Dream, which reclaimed the second spot in the Eastern Conference race behind Indiana.

Cappie Pondexter had an outstanding night, finishing the game with 26 points and six assists, but her team remains at the bottom at the pack in the East (11-11).

"We kind of lost it the final 5 minutes. We made some mistakes and had a couple of turnovers, which led to transition baskets for them. That's what they're good at." Pondexter said.

Complete WNBA Results (Monday - July 26, 2010)

• New York Liberty 75 - Atlanta Dream 82
• Tulsa Shock 59 - Seattle Storm 75