After having one of the worst offensive showings of the season in Thursday’s loss to the Connecticut Sun, the Seattle Storm kept pace with the one of the top teams in the WNBA in the New York Liberty in an 80-76 road loss Saturday.
But the WNBA’s leading scorer, Jewell Loyd, walked gingerly off the court with a left ankle sprain in the fourth quarter and did not return. She scored 14 points on 3-of-17 shooting.
Storm coach Noelle Quinn said that Loyd didn’t seem like she was in too much pain while in the locker room postgame.
“Right now, it’s a sprained ankle,” Quinn said. “It’s too early to determine what the prognosis is.”
Loyd, the Storm’s veteran leader, is averaging 25.6 points per game and was selected for the All-Star Game.
“She was super positive,” Quinn said. “… I don’t think it was as bad, but we’ll see by tomorrow morning. Up to this point she was fine.”
An 8-0 run saw the Storm take the lead after a high arcing shot off the top of the backboard by Loyd tied the game at 22-22 early in the second quarter. They took the lead on the next possession after she sank a pair of free throws.
“Our team just continued to rally,” Quinn said. “We were working hard. We were being physical. We were getting extra possessions because we were crashing hard. … A lot of those were effort plays. Even without Jewell in the game.”
Converting on second-chance points and keeping turnovers to a minimum, the Storm held a 36-35 lead going into halftime.
Rookie forward Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu made her first start for the Storm and she delivered with a double-double of 12 points and 14 rebounds.
“I’m really proud of myself,” Fankam Mendjiadeu said. “I was working off the confidence from my teammates. They were really helping me when I would mess up, they would tell me to keep going, and to be confident in yourself, and using that as energy to do what I do best.”
The Liberty took the lead back in the third quarter with a 10-4 run. They stretched it to their first double-digit lead of the game late in the fourth as the Liberty scored on five consecutive possessions to lead 78-68.
The Storm stayed close as Sami Whitcomb scored 12 of her team-high 19 in the final quarter.
“We just really wanted to get good shots and make them work defensively,” Whitcomb said. “Losing Jewell was a blow for us, but we knew we could find other ways to score. So, it was just about capitalizing about that, and I like the shots I got in the end.
Former Storm star Breanna Stewart led the Liberty with 25 points, and Kent product Courtney Vandersloot had nine points and seven assists.
“For us as a unit, it’s about getting better,” Quinn said. “Today I feel like we got better. The other days our effort in games isn’t there and I feel like for our group our goal every day is to get better and progressing.”
