The early season schedule for the Seattle Storm has been the most difficult in the league — it didn’t get any easier on Wednesday night.
The Storm were dominated by the Minnesota Lynx 79-55, falling to 1-5 on the season. The Lynx improved to a league-best 8-0 and moved within one victory of the 2001 Los Angeles Sparks for the best start in WNBA history.
The Lynx played without leading scored Seimone Augustus, who was sidelined with a right-quad strain, but it didn’t seem to matter as Minnesota led 25-8 after one quarter and cruised to victory.
“I don’t know if we were nice, but we were extremely passive,” Storm head coach Brian Agler said. “I think when our team wants to move in that direction (being more aggressive), we will start moving in the right direction.”
In the absence of Augustus, Taj McWilliams-Franklin led the Lynx with 17 points, shooing a perfect 8-for-8 from the field, something Agler was not pleased about after the game.
“It bothers me a lot,” he said.
The Storm recovered a bit in the second quarter, outscoring the Lynx 22-18, but were outscored 36-25 after halftime.
“Clearly we didn’t play well both times we’ve played against (Minnesota),” Storm point guard Sue Bird said. “They were able to take advantage. They played very well. Sometimes when you’re missing a player, such as Seimone, people tend to step up. I think they had a lot of players do that. They just played very well.”
The Lynx had five players score in double figures. The Storm had one — Tanisha Wright, who scored 14 points.
Seattle continues its five-game road trip in San Antonio this Saturday when they face the Silver Stars.
“We have to bounce back,” Bird said. “There is no doubt about that. We are in a position where, while we do feel we’ve gotten better, we didn’t show it tonight. We’ve got to start winning games. It just gets to a point where you just have to stop thinking so much and go out there and find a way to win.”
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