AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Lauren Jackson wouldn’t let another game slip away.
Despite not practicing since sustaining a back injury Saturday in a loss at Atlanta, Jackson scored 36 points to lead the Seattle Storm to a 79-75 victory over the Detroit Shock on Tuesday night.
“There was no way in hell I was losing this game tonight,” Jackson said. “We needed this one too much.”
The Storm (14-11) had lost two straight and have dropped several close games in recent weeks. They blew a 17-point halftime lead Tuesday, but were able to rally again to pick up the victory.
“We knew Detroit was going to make a run — that’s still the team that won the championship a year ago,” Storm coach Brian Agler said. “I’m just proud of the way we finished them off.”
Jackson scored 11 points in the fourth quarter, including three 3-pointers — the last after Detroit had tied the score with 3:37 to play.
“She’s a phenomenal player, and we know what to do when she gets hot like that,” said Swin Cash, who finished with 15 points against her former team. “We were just going to get her the ball and ride her back.”
Deanna Nolan tried to match Jackson, scoring 10 of her 29 points in the fourth.
“She got hot, and it was obvious that someone was going to have to do the same thing for us,” Nolan said. “It just happened to be me.”
The loss dropped the Shock to 9-14 and moved them one step closer to missing the playoffs after three straight Eastern Conference championships.
“We have to play four quarters like we played the last two quarters today,” said Nolan, who showed her frustration by picking up a fourth-quarter technical. “We know we’ve still got a chance, but there are only 11 games left, and we’ve got to win at least nine to give ourselves a shot.”
Detroit outscored Seattle 27-15 in the third quarter to pull within 58-53, and Taj McWilliams’ three-point play tied the game at 67. Jackson, though, answered with her final 3-pointer, and former Shock players Cash and Shannon Johnson hit four key free throws in the last 90 seconds.
“The first half, I didn’t know if that was the Shock team or somebody else’s team,” Detroit coach Rick Mahorn said. “The second half, we came back and shut them down, but unfortunately, we couldn’t get the win. If I could have had seven or eight timeouts, I would have probably called them all in the first half to see if we were going to show up.”
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