Storm Week 8: Now We’re Having Fun!

Now THAT’S what I’m talking about! The Storm played 3 of the top 6 teams in the W last week, scored 314 points – the most in a 3-game stretch in the history of the franchise – and beat two of them. They played an overtime thriller against the Wings, ended their 11–game losing streak against the Liberty, and then beat the Dream by 15 on Pride Night. Four different players set new career highs in points, including an incredible 37 & 12 game from Dom in which she went toe-to-toe with MVP-candidate Paige Bueckers. Dom became the youngest player ever to score 30 points in a game, much less 35+, much less doing it with a dozen rebounds as well. The Storm might not be good yet, but they are definitely fun, and they are definitely showing plenty of signs of how good they can eventually be.

Monday – Storm lose 112-110 in overtime to Dallas

Wednesday – Storm snap losing streak, knock off the Liberty 99-88

My biggest fear coming out of the Dallas game was that the losing streak would start weighing on the young Storm. While no one is expecting them to win a ton of games this year, 11 losses in a row could really add up and affect their mentality. However, I was already feeling better during warmups before the game even started. The Storm were full of smiles and the vibes were clearly good (better, in fact, than before the Dallas game in my opinion). What they took away from that Dallas game was not “oh god, another loss” but instead “we can compete, we just need to get a little better at closing.” In retrospect, it seems like something clicked into place on the offensive end against Dallas and it continued through the next two games.

Another interesting thing that happened before the game started is that the Storm played a tribute video for Breanna Stewart. It opened with an apology for not playing a tribute video for her 3 years ago, and was clearly an effort by the Storm’s management to formally move on from the pain of Stewie leaving and into a phase where they just celebrate her accomplishments. The front office and owners were clearly hoping Stewie would be like Sue Bird and stay here for her entire career. Personally I thought we were lucky she came back for Sue’s final year and I was not surprised when she left. Either way, her number should be the next one we raise to the rafters. In 7 years here she won two titles, was Finals MVP for both of them, and won a league MVP award as well. That’s plenty, and I don’t begrudge her for wanting to move back to the east coast and build something new.

Stewie was in street clothes for this game as the Liberty decided to rest her. She’s been playing 35 minutes a game and more or less carrying the team as they struggle with injuries to their other stars. You can understand why they would want to give her a day off, and I guess we are in fact the team you give your star the day off against. With Satou Sabally in concussion protocols as well the Liberty starting lineup was not one they’ve used much before and this likely helped the Storm get off to a great start, taking a lead halfway through the first quarter that they never surrendered. Stewie missing the game also helped the Storm win the battle of the boards 39-28. I cannot remember another game this season where they outrebounded their opponent by double digits.

Ironically, this game does not count as a clutch game because the Liberty never got closer than 8 in the last 5 minutes. However, having watched these Storm lose the last 2 minutes of a close game by as many as 10, I can assure you it very much felt like a clutch game, and the Storm were very excited when the clock finally hit zero and they knew they had won. Big smiles and celebrations were everywhere (it’s actually the first win of Awa Fam’s career as their losing streak started before she showed up). Flau’jae deservedly got the post-game interview thanks to a career-high 28 points (not to mention 9 rebounds, two assists, 3 steals, and a block), but she was quick to shout out her teammates. Jade also had a career high in points with 18, as well as a career high 7 assists. Sabrina Ionescu simply could not stay in front of Jade, and Jade was able to use her speed both to get to the rim and also to break the full-court press the Liberty tried using in the 4th quarter. Dom had a fairly quiet 20 & 10 (on 75% shooting too). Dom gave a quote after the Dallas game about how she’s realizing that good things tend to happen when she goes aggressively to the rim rather than settling for fadeaway shots. This was music to my ears both because I think she’s right and also because you can see her figuring things out in real-time. If this is what her quiet games are going to look like, the next decade is going to be awesome. 

Saturday – Storm Keep Winning vs Atlanta, 105-90

It was the 2nd night of a back to back for Atlanta, which lost a close one to Golden State on Friday, and – like New York – they chose to rest one of their starting bigs (Naz Hillmon). 2 early 3’s from Awa Fam forced Atlanta to take a timeout with the score at 8-0. She hit another 3 right after the timeout to push it to 11-0 and wound up 5 for 6 from 3-point range for the night. Throw in 3 for 3 on 2-pointers and she set a new career high with 21 points, doing so on 8 for 9 efficiency. Even crazier, her 3-point shooting in the 7 games she has started alongside Dominique Malonga is a ludicrous 19 for 30. 19 for 30! No one can shoot 63% forever, but it’s been quite the hot streak, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it coincides with Dom joining her in the starting lineup.

Flau’jae was great once again. She had 6 first quarter rebounds to help the Storm lead that category 21-13 at the half and 34-26 for the game. She wound up with 11 boards, 4 assists, 2 steals, and a team-high 24 points (on a hyper-efficient (for her) 9 for 12 shooting). Her 3rd double-double of the season gives her 3 times as many as all other rookies combined. In addition to all that, she oozes joy when she plays. This team is clearly having fun right now, and she is a big reason why.

Dom was good once again with a double-double of her own (her 3rd of the week!), as well as 2 steals and 3 blocks. It’s her 4th double-double of the season and the 8th of her career. She is (of course) the youngest person ever with 8 double doubles. The more interesting bit is who held that mark before her: Storm legend Lauren Jackson (at age 21). However, Dom wasn’t perfect as she did also turn the ball over 6 times (as well as the Storm were shooting 60% for the game!) 12 first-half turnovers were the only reason this game wasn’t a blowout early) and she also wound up fouling out. 

There was definitely a scary moment with 5:31 left in the game and the Storm up 9 when Dom picked up her 5th foul on a moving screen. The Storm challenged, but lost the challenge, and Atlanta scored to cut it to 7 on their next possession. This is the kind of moment where the Storm were having issues two weeks ago. Bad plays would snowball into painful losses, but this team seems to have learned some things by suffering through that pain. One phrase I heard multiple times in post-game interviews was “winning plays” as in “we just need to make winning plays.” In this case it was Flau’jae driving for a hoop and then making a late-shot-clock 3. Jade then drew a charge and Awa hit a 3. Dom came back into the game at that point with a bigger lead than when she left with the 5 fouls. When she did then foul out, the team was up 17 with 2:14 left and everything was golden. They wound up winning 105-90.

Player of the Week

It’s not Awa, but let’s all pause once again and appreciate her 54 points on 77% shooting, including 11 made 3’s on 14 attempts. (Not a typo.) And it’s not T this week even though she continues to excel, leading the team with 20 assists while chipping in 52 points. You can certainly make the case for Flau’jae, who put up 63 points, 25 rebounds, 15 assists, 7 steals, and 2 blocks while also playing with such infectious passion that you can’t help but have a good time watching her (much less playing with her). But my player of the week this week is Dominique Malonga. The future may have arrived this week, with Dom putting up a double double in all 3 games. Her totals wound up at 73 points and 33 rebounds on 61% shooting. She also had 6 blocks and 2 steals, as well as 6 assists. She may have lost the battle with Paige on Monday night, but she also may have won the war by unlocking the Storm offense. They end this week with a winning streak instead of a losing streak, and I can’t wait to see where things go from here.

Breaking News: On Monday Dom was named Player of the Week by The Associated Press for the entire WNBA. I don’t think this will be her last time winning that …

Roster Update

Jordan Horston continues to be out with the foot injury she picked up at Golden State. The Storm haven’t given out any details about her injury, but they did say she should be back in “the next few weeks” so we know it’s worse than a day-to-day situation. The Storm defense really misses her, in my opinion. In the last 6 games she played they gave up 84 points per game (and only 1 opponent broke 90). In the 5 games without her they have given up 94, 93, 110, 88, and 90 for an average of 11 more points per game. It’s a pretty simplistic way of looking at things, but I also think it’s directionally correct (and that we would have beaten Dallas if you could replace the Katie Lou Samuelson minutes with Jordan).

Speaking of players who should really help the defense when they come back, Ezi Magbegor has begun practicing and she and Jordan were both seen participating in a scrimmage after shootaround on Saturday so it shouldn’t be too much longer. The team could use them as their bench has gotten a little thin. Sonia only seems to trust 8 or maybe 9 players right now, and the starters have been playing heavy minutes (as well as scoring basically all the points) lately. The good news is that the team is clearly becoming more familiar with each other, and with the way Sonia wants to play. They’re running aggressively and that has been fueling the offensive explosion in recent games. However, it would be nice to add two more trustworthy players and maybe get back to holding teams under 85 points as well.

This Week

Just 2 games this week, and both are against teams that are worse than all 3 of our opponents this week. The Storm get 4 days off before they head to Phoenix for a game on Thursday. They then return to Seattle to host Portland on Saturday.