Minnesota Lynx extend winning streak with 79-55 win over Seattle Storm – WNBA Recap
Defending WNBA champions Minnesota Lynx extended their winning streak to 8 games with a 79-55 rout of Seattle Storm here at the Target Center on Wednesday night.
With the win, Minnesota are one win away of tying the Los Angeles Sparks record of most wins to open a WNBA season. The Sparks had 9 straight wins in 2001 and then again in 2003. Lynx accomplished the dominating victory even though
star player Seimone Augustus was sidelined for the game with a right quad strain.
"It's disconcerting for the rest of the league when we don't have our best player...and we still win by almost 30. That says a lot, especially with the defense that Seattle is known to play,” said Taj McWilliams – Franklin.
Franklin scored 17 points for Minnesota and led the game in scoring. She was a perfect 8 of 8 from the field. Tanisha Wright had a team high 14 points for the Storm.
Minnesota started the game strongly, and 6 straight points by Franklin had them up 10-2 with 6:22 left in the first period. They extended the run to 19-4 and finished the quarter leading 25-8.
Seattle played poorly in the period, and were 3 of 15 from the field. They did gain some momentum in the 2nd quarter, starting it with a 12-7 run to trail 32-20. However, Minnesota kept their offensive momentum alive
and finished the 1st half leading 43-30.
Seattle came out of the half time break charged up and started the third period with an 8-2 run to close the gap to 45-38. However, Minnesota were in no mood of allowing a momentum shift in the game, as they countered each run
by Seattle with a run of their own.
Leading 45-38, Minnesota scored 13 straight points to extend their lead to 58-38, opening up a 20 point lead. After starting the period well with the 8-2 run, the Storm managed only 6 field goal attempts and made 1 of those 6 for
the rest of the quarter. Minnesota led 61-41 at the close of the third period.
Back to back three pointers by Candice Wiggins helped open up a 71-46 lead for the Lynx with 6:53 left in the game. After that, the Storm had no chance of returning in the game and Minnesota held on for a comfortable 79-55 win,
making it their 8th consecutive victory.
Devereaux Peters finished with 14 points coming off the bench on a 5 of 7 shooting performance. Wiggins had 12 points and 6 rebounds, while going 4 of 7 from the distance. Maya Moore finished with 12 points. Besides Wright, no
other player managed to score double digit points for Seattle, who had a poor offensive outing.
Minnesota shot 54.7% from the field and 42.9% from the distance, while holding Seattle to 33.3% from the field and only 4 of 22 from beyond the arc. They outrebounded Seattle 33-25 in rebounds, 19-9 in assists and 4-0 in blocks.
It was a complete domination at the hands of the unbeaten Lynx.
"Sometimes you learn more when you lose. Unfortunately we've been doing a lot of that, so hopefully we're learning from this and we'll be able to turn it around,” said Seattle’s Sue Bird after the game.
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