Postgame Notebook - Storm 74, Connecticut 60
Storm Brings WNBA Title Home
Like the entire season, the Seattle Storm's 74-60 Game 3 victory to bring home the franchise's first WNBA Championship and the first pro sports championship in Seattle in a quarter-century was fittingly a team effort.
In Game 3, the stars in the first half were not All-Stars Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson, but Storm originals. Centers Kamila Vodichkova and Simone Edwards, the only players left on the roster from the inaugural 2000 season, so often overlooked as the Storm marched to the championship, reminded everyone of their importance in the Storm's development from 6-26 laughingstocks to WNBA Champions.
GAME SUMMARY | |
Player of the Game: Betty Lennox. Lennox started slowly, but, beginning to end, this was her series as she made the Sun pay for focusing on Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson defensively. Lennox scored 14 of her game-high 23 points in the second half. Reserve of the Game: Simone Edwards. The Storm original had one of her best games of the season when fellow original Kamila Vodichkova had early foul trouble, scoring six points and grabbing four rebounds and providing invaluable energy. Play of the Night: Too many to count. But mostly, the Sun dribbling out the clock as time ran out on the Storm’s first championship. Turning point: Tully Bevilaqua’s three with 12:46 to play started the 8-0 run and pushed momentum firmly to the Storm. |
“It changed the pace of the game,” Donovan said of Vodichkova's effort. “They had to step up and guard Kamila, and it changed what we could do offensively.”
Shortly into the second half, Edwards and Vodichkova turned the game over to the Storm's underrated defense and Finals MVP Betty Lennox.
Storm Coach Anne Donovan loves to think of herself as a defensive coach, to the point where she seemed mildly disappointed to hear that, by the league's offensive efficiency ratings (calculated based on points per 100 possessions), she's coached the best offensive team in the WNBA the last three years (2002 in Charlotte, 2003 and 2004 with the Storm).
So Donovan had to appreciate the Championship-caliber defense being played by her team in the second half of Game 3. After Nykesha Sales hit two free throws to pull the Sun within five, 51-46, the Storm dug in defensively and held the Sun without a field goal for an incredible 11 minutes and three seconds and scoreless for over four and a half minutes.
“In the second half, we sped up, played aggressive defense (almost too aggressive because we got quick fouls), but we put the pressure on them,” Donovan said. “24 points in the second half, and we brought their field-goal percentage way down [5-for-23 in the second half, 21.7%], that was our focus. I know nobody wants to talk about defense when you’re in the media, but that’s all we talk about in the locker room.”
All the offense the Storm needed was provided by Lennox, who entered the amalgam of time and space known only as "the zone" for the second straight game. In the second half, Lennox scored 14 of the Storm’s 37 points, shooting 5-for-8 from the field and 4-for-5 from the free-throw line.
“Me, Betty Lennox?” Lennox said in the post-game press conference. “This celebration? Not only this celebration, the award that I just got? I can’t believe it. Me? Everything that I’ve been through, so many teams that I’ve been on, so many situations that I’ve been in, so many bad raps on Betty Lennox? I’m speechless. I’m speechless right about now.”
When Connecticut Coach Mike Thibault sent in little-used rookie guard Candace Futrell with 1:40 to play and the Storm leading 72-56, what fans had suspected for some time was confirmed. The game was over, the Storm WNBA Champions.
14 seconds later, Donovan greeted first Bird and Jackson and then Vodichkova and Sam to the bench with hugs and the celebration was officially on in Seattle.
As the clock ticked down to zero, the Storm's roster gathered at the center of the court while the coaches, including Donovan, who became the first woman to coach a WNBA team - or any major professional team, for that matter - to a championship. Seconds later, red, green and gold confetti began falling from the rafters of KeyArena as the players re-gathered on the platform for the trophy presentation and the Key continued to descend into madness.
After Lennox scored a game-high 23 points, finishing the series with an average of 22.3 points per game, her presentation as Finals MVP was something of a foregone conclusion. But every player standing on the platform with Lennox, all the way down to little-used rookies Trina Frierson and Michelle Greco, deserved credit for their share of making the Storm Champions.
Again, a vociferous sellout crowd of 17,702 at KeyArena helped the Storm start well. On the strength of 11 surprising points from Vodichkova in the first ten minutes, the Storm opened up a 26-14 lead by the 10:17 mark. But after that, the Storm would miss 14 straight shots as the Sun tightened up on defense to get back into the game with a 15-3 run to tie the game on an Asjha Jones putback with 3:11 left in the half.
Jones was also fouled, the third of the half on Vodichkova. With 10.1 seconds left in the half, Jackson picked up her third foul. Slightly over two minutes into the second half, Vodichkova was called for her fourth foul, forcing Donovan to remove her hottest player from the game. But Seattle survived the foul trouble.
The Storm charged out of the locker room quickly, scoring the first six points of the second half, but Sales answered with a three-point play. The Sun rallied, but the Storm still scored 14 points in the first 4:02 of the second half to extend the lead as large as nine once again. The key was Bird, who rallied after going scoreless in the fist half to score eight points in the stretch.
Then, the defense kicked in, and the Seattle Storm completed a path to the championship that began over five months ago at The Furtado Center.
Palmer Ailing
While Connecticut forward Wendy Palmer started despite a strained right shoulder that forced her out of Game 2, she played just seven minutes in the first half and just two after halftime. Palmer's replacement, third-year forward Jones, helped keep the Sun in the game. Jones scored 10 points on 5-for-7 shooting in the first half and finished with 12 points in 25 minutes.
Keep it Rocking
To veteran attendees of basketball games at KeyArena, tonight might have been the loudest they'd ever heard the Key thunder. For a second straight game, the Storm boasted a sellout crowd of 17,702, but tonight's group seemed even louder than was Sunday's crowd. Reporters who escaped the din in the media room at halftime reported that their ears were still ringing from the noise.
“The home court made the difference tonight for them,” Thibault said. “Obviously, they’re very talented. Their talent made a difference. But I would like to be playing in the same circumstances at some point some day again on our court.”
Perhaps the most active of the fans was Sonics and Storm Chairman Howard Schultz, who occupied his usual seat courtside after having to miss Game 2. Schultz, who said earlier this month, “I can't apologize for feeling the way fans feel at times,” was animated throughout, furiously protesting a foul call during the second half and leaping up and down in excitement when the Sun took a 20-second timeout with the Storm up 16 and a little over six minutes to play.
And None
The Sun managed the rarity in the first half of having two three-point play opportunities on the same possession - and converting neither of them. McWilliams-Franklin scored and was fouled by Vodichkova, but missed the free throw. A poor box out allowed Jones to sneak in for the offensive rebound. She quickly scored a layup and was also fouled by Vodichkova - but missed the free throw.
Winners in Defeat
We would be remiss if we did not congratulate the Connecticut Sun on an outstanding season. Widely picked to finish last in the Eastern Conference, the Sun instead fought its way all the way to Game 3 of the WNBA Finals and gave the Storm an incredible run in this series.
During the Minnesota series, Donovan talked about how the sting of losing would at first be all the Lynx could feel, but after a while they would be able to reflect on their accomplishments and look back on the season with pride. So too with the Sun, which has set itself up as the team to beat in the Eastern Conference behind rookie point guard Lindsay Whalen and a deep starting lineup.
