Las Seattle Storm they are the lowest seed remaining in the postseason and came in looking to steal at least one of the first two games on the road against Las Vegas Acesthe highest seed, in the semi-finals of the WNBA.
Mission accomplished.
Jewell Loyd scored 26 points, including Seattle’s last six, and the Storm exceeded the Aces 76-73 on Sunday to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series in front of a Las Vegas playoff-record crowd of 9,944.
Lloyd hit a go-ahead free throw with 1:16 left, then a jump shot for a three-point lead with 34 seconds left before Storm cling to victory. He scored 10 of Seattle’s 16 points in the fourth quarter.
“It wasn’t just me, it was a team effort for sure,” Loyd said. “It helps when you have really good teammates… you believe in them, they believe in you. That is the most important thing for us, is that each one of us must have confidence in what we do and in what we can contribute to the team. That has been the key for us.”
Associated Press MVP Breanna Stewart had 24 points and six rebounds for the Stormseed fourth, while Tina Charles added 13 points and 18 rebounds, the franchise record in the playoffs.
“We knew this was going to be difficult. These games against Las Vegas have been tough throughout the regular season and seasons before, and we have a lot of respect for their players and what they do,” Stewart said. “We knew coming here to their home court obviously we wanted to try and steal one, we wanted to get one and get our momentum going in the right direction.”
Chelsea Gray scored 21 points for the Aces. Kelsey Plum added 20 but missed a 3-point attempt to tie it with 2.9 seconds left.
Jackie Young finished with 11 points, but the star of AcesA’ja Wilson, was limited to just eight on 3-for-10 shooting.
Seattle controlled much of the game, leading through the first 3 1/2 quarters after building a 12-point lead in the first half.
