Eight wins, thirty-one losses, and two separate 11-game skids
That is Seattle’s season. So when the Storm host the Sparks on Sunday, the target is almost quaint: win two in a row. They have pulled it off twice since April.
Wednesday gave them the first half of the equation. Flau’jae Johnson dropped 20 in a 90-78 win over the Toronto Tempo. Dominique Malonga went for 18 and seven boards, Jade Melbourne filled the sheet with 16 points, seven assists and six rebounds, and Awa Fam and Zia Cooke each chipped in 10 off the bench.
Natisha Hiedeman sits out a fourth straight game with a left shoulder problem. She leads the team in assists at 4.8 and averages 15.4 points, so the rookies have been covering ground that is not really theirs to cover.
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One win in 18 tries against the West
Seattle field one of the youngest rosters in the league, and the conference record reads like it. That single victory came on July 6 in Los Angeles, Johnson scoring 23 in an 82-64 rout that has not been repeated.
“We’re just trying to keep getting better,” the rookie said. “We know we’re not playing to reach the playoffs. There’s not going to be any miracle. But we do know we can improve. By the end of the season, either we look back and say we didn’t grow at all, or we see everything we’ve had to get through.”
The Sparks arrive with Ogwumike in farewell form
Los Angeles (14-25) beat Washington 88-82 on Friday. Nneka Ogwumike, who has confirmed this is her final season, put up 24 points, five assists, four rebounds and four steals. Rae Burrell scored 12 of her 15 in the fourth quarter alone.
“At no point did we stop sticking together,” Burrell said. “Once we were all on the same page, aggressive on defense, we made our adjustments. We knew where we were struggling. We fixed it on the fly, and the result showed after that.”
Malonga has been the one Seattle keep coming back to in the second half of games. Sunday will show whether a rookie frontcourt can handle Ogwumike twice in one summer.
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