SEATTLE — Lauren Jackson scored a season-high 32 points and hit back-to-back 3-pointers during a decisive run to end the third quarter to help the Seattle Storm hand the Atlanta Dream their first loss of the season, 90-72 on Tuesday night.
The Dream (6-1), now in its third year, had been the last unbeaten team in the league. The Storm (6-1) won their second straight to continue the best start in franchise history.
Jackson had just scored a season-high 27 on Sunday in an 84-56 win at San Antonio. On Tuesday, she hit 10 of 19 shots from the field, including five of eight from behind the 3-point line. She also had 10 rebounds.
Angel McCoughtry, the league’s leading scorer at 24.0 points coming into the game, led the Dream with 16. But she shot just 7 of 24. Sancho Lyttle added 10 for Atlanta..
The Storm effectively put the game away with a 13-2 run that spanned the last 1:28 of the third quarter and the first 45 seconds of the fourth, stretching a 53-46 lead to 18. Atlanta never got closer than 12 points after that.
Seattle went on a 17-5 run, including the final nine points of the half, to snap a 22-22 tie and take a 39-27 lead into the break. Jackson scored 11 of those points. The Dream had forged the 22-all deadlock with 6:16 left in the half on a running jump shot by McCoughtry, capping a 9-2 scoring surge that erased a seven-point deficit.
The last three wins of Atlanta’s season-opening streak had come on the road.
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