The Atlanta Dream can expect to see a much different Seattle Storm team than the one they beat 70-53 last Sunday when the two teams face off tonight.
The Storm are just 4-9 on the road this season, but a nearly unbeatable 9-1 at home. The Storm’s only loss came early in the season to the Minnesota Lynx, who own the best record in the WNBA.
Seattle is coming off of a 77-63 victory over the Tulsa Shock on Thursday. On paper, the victory doesn’t mean much because the Shock are a dreadful 1-21 on the season, but the Storm did do some good things. After committing 27 turnovers in last week’s loss to Atlanta and 18 turnovers in a Tuesday loss to the New York Liberty, the Storm managed to keep the turnovers to just nine against the Shock. Seattle also scored 50 points in the first half and shot over 50 percent from the field for the entire game. When the Storm shoot 50 percent or better, they are 7-0 for the season.
Storm head coach Brian Agler has emphasized the importance of taking care of the basketball after the Seattle’s road losses last week. He was much more pleased after Thursday’s game.
“It was obviously much better, especially in the first half with three turnovers,” Agler said after Thursday’s game. “It’s important for us. I wasn’t excited about how we played in the second half, but we still didn’t turn the ball over.”
The Storm will also need a better performance offensively from the one they got out of point guard Sue Bird last Sunday against the Dream. Bird was held to just two points on 1-for-3 shooting from the field. Bird rebounded nicely from the bad game though, scoring 17 points in Tuesday’s loss to the Liberty.
The all-star point guard also recognized the importance of limiting turnovers.
“Coming off that road trip, turnovers was something we discussed,” Bird said. “It’s something that we came in thinking about. There are going to be some turnovers. There are people on this team who are great at taking risks, and sometimes with those risks come turnovers. But we only had nine and that is a very good thing for us. When we can keep our turnovers low we’re much more successful.”
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