By Mazvita Maraire Posted on

Turnovers, cold shooting doom Storm in 102 to 77 loss to Aces

Storm Head   Coach Noelle Quinn was looking for a fast start from her players against the WNBA’s hottest team. It was a tough ask. The  Las Vegas  Aces entered  Sunday Night’s WNBA  First Round playoff game on a 16-game win streak.  With the home crowd cheering them on, it was the Aces who started out on the front foot and bolted to a  22-10 first-quarter lead.  Aja  Wilson’s hot hand led the Aces with eight points. The Aces shot 60% from the field. The Storm shot 23 % from the field and was led by  Nneka Ogwumike’s five points. To add to their misery the Storm had four turnovers in the quarter.

EXPLOSIVE SECOND QUARTER

The Aces’ hot shooting hand cooled in the second quarter when they made eight of 17 shots from the field.  Wilson continued her dominance and scored another eight points to bring her first-half total to 16 points.  The Storm shooting struggles continued. The struggles were due to the Aces’ aggressive defense, which kept the Storm from executing their favored transition game. The Aces clogged the middle of the paint and forced the Storm to shoot from the perimeter. The half ended with  Vegas  holding a comfortable 45-25 lead  

“ You can’t score 12,13 points in the first half  on the road against the team who is red hot. We turned a ball over to start the game and that kind of set the tone for what we did offensively, not a lot of pace, not a lot of intentionality with attacking their switches,’ Said Storm head coach Noelle Quinn

ACES’ HOT HAND CONTINUES

The Aces’ hot shooting continued in the third quarter and put the game away with determined defense. Vegas made 11 of 18 field goals with Jackie Young scoring a team high 12 points. Gabby Williams’ layup with 4:48 left in the third quarter cut the Aces’ lead to 17 points and gave the Storm some hope, but it was temporary. The Aces outscored the Storm  18-11 to finish the quarter with a 76-52 lead. The Aces continued to attack the basket in the fourth quarter and outscored the Storm 26 to 25 for the 102 to 77 win.

 GAME TWO REBOUND

Down one game in a three-game series, the Storm are now returning home in a do-or-die situation. If the Storm is to win on Tuesday and  send the series back to Vegas, they will need to balance a sense of urgency and patience on offense.

“ The patience is understanding playoff basketball that thing becomes possession by possession and understanding and execution and how we can, do that. It is take a beat and look and surveying the floor, “ said  Quinn.  “These are the things, you know, we had a day to look at it and improve from it. 
The urgency is more of an energy thing. It is more of a mindset thing. I don’t think that our pace was where we needed to be, looked at halftime, we were a single digit digits and fast break points, and our deflections were super low. 
So defensive activity was not indicative of who we really are, and then our, you know, fast break points, getting generating turnovers are easy baskets wasn’t up to par. “

POST GAME NOTES

KEY STATS OF THE GAME 

  • Seattle’s bench scored 36 points, the most in Storm franchise history in a postseason game. 
  • The Storm’s 11 trips to the line are tied for the lowest number of free throws attempted in the team’s postseason history. 
  • Storm reserves Dominique Malonga and Erica Wheeler had at least 10 points each, which is just the fourth time in Storm postseason history that two reserves have notched at least double digits in scoring. 

STORM HIGHLIGHTS 

  • Gabby Williams finished with 16 points, 3 rebounds and 1 steal. She scored her 100th postseason point and passed Janell Burse for 12th on the Storm’s postseason scoring list (89). 
  • Nneka Ogwumike added 11 points, 8 rebounds and 3 assists. She grabbed her 300th career rebound and moved into No. 19 on the WNBA’s all-time postseason defensive rebounds list with 208. 
  • Skylar Diggins went 2-for-3 from deep and ended with 12 points, all of which she put in during the third quarter. 
  • Dominique Malonga came off the bench for 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 steals and became the second youngest player to make her postseason debut in WNBA history at 19 years and 302 days. She became the first rookie in Storm franchise history to record a double-double in teh postseason and teh 11th rookie in league history to do so.

ACES HIGHLIGHTS 

  • A’ja Wilson led Las Vegas with 29 points and Jackie Young added 18.

Discover more from Cascadiasports.net

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply