The Seattle Storm will continue their four-game road trip on Sunday afternoon against the defending champion New York Liberty in Brooklyn.
Seattle (11-7) owns wins over the top four teams in the WNBA standings, including a 10-point home victory against New York on June 22.
“It’s not that difficult. When we play at a high level and are locked in, we are a really good team,” Storm coach Noelle Quinn said. “When we are not locked in, we’re not a good team. For us to really own it, we have to show we’re improved every single game. It’s a difficult schedule and a difficult season, but at the end of the day we have players in our locker room committed to each other.”
Seattle is led by veteran All-Stars Skylar Diggins and Nneka Ogwumike. Diggins scored the game-winner on a driving layup with 3.4 seconds left in Thursday’s 80-79 victory against the Atlanta Dream.
“Skylar does Skylar things,” said Ogwumike, who contributed 24 points. “She is relentless. She is going to keep on going. There is just a fire in her that is lit all the time. She is literally the head of our snake.”
New York (12-5) has dropped four of its past six games while its defense has slipped to fifth in the WNBA in points allowed at 79.8 per game.
The Liberty welcomed back starter Leonie Fiebich in an 89-79 win over the Los Angeles Sparks on Thursday. She had missed seven games while playing for Team Germany in EuroBasket.
Coach Sandy Brondello had called the game a must-win.
“I was proud of how we responded,” Brondello said. “We were doing silly things. Once we turned to defense, our communication went to another level.”
The Liberty are still missing star Jonquel Jones with an ankle injury.
Natasha Cloud has picked up the scoring slack in Jones’ absence. She had a season-high 23 in the win against the Sparks and has averaged 19.0 points over the past three games.
“Every day I get to come out and play is a blessing,” Cloud said. “To be able to continue to play at an elite level as an underdog, as a second-round draft pick (in 2015), it really does matter to me wearing Liberty across my chest.”
–Field Level Media
