Guru’s WNBA Report: Bird and Stewart Set Playoff Marks As Seattle Puts Down Las Vegas in Finals Opener

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

The third time was the charm as well as the WNBA best-of-five championship opener Friday night for the Seattle Storm which shook off another third quarter playoffs surge by the Las Vegas Aces and regained control in the final period to grab a 93-80 victory at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., near Tampa/St. Petersburg.

 

A Las Vegas win over Seattle on the final day of the corona virus-shortened 22-game regular season just under two weeks ago enabled the Aces to match the Storm at the top of the standings at 18-4 and gain the No. 1 seed off their 2-0 sweep of the series.

 

University of Connecticut all-time alumna Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart did not play in that game dealing with injuries at the time for Seattle, which was still going to get the other double bye to the semifinals as the No. 2 seed.

 

The aging/relatively still young duo were back in force for this one, however, with Stewart collecting a new playoff career mark in this postseason for the second time with 37 points which highlighted a stat sheet-filled line adding 15 rebounds, 5-of-8 three-pointers, and four blocked shots.

 

That’s a WNBA playoffs first.

 

Bird set a playoffs and finals mark with 16 assists, one under the overall WNBA mark of 17 set by the Chicago Sky’s Courtney Vandersloot in the regular season. Bird also set a playoffs and finals mark for assists in a half with 10, while the previous playoffs assists record was 14 held by Bird and Vandersloot.

 

“Yeah, they’ve been through it,” Seattle coach Gary Kloppenburg said of the formers Huskies stars. “They’ve been through the wars. They’ve been through those championships. So that experienced is invaluable.”

 

For good measure former Notre Dame standout Jewell Loyd had 28 points and former Rutgers great Epiphany Prince coming off the bench had 11 points.

 

Seattle took the fourth-seeded Minnesota Lynx (14-8) down on a 3-0 sweep in a semifinals series that started two days late when three Storm players produced inconclusive Covid-19 tests but subsequent testing came up negative.

 

Las Vegas, on the other hand, had to grind back from a 2-1 series deficit and battle the seventh-seeded Connecticut Sun (10-12) to a three-point win in the decisive Game 5 on Tuesday.

 

If the Storm was believed to gather some rust with a slightly longer wait to begin the championship series, that was belied quickly Friday night as Seattle battled to a 23-21 lead at the end of the first quarter and then handled the Aces 34-19 in the second for a 57-40 lead at the half.

 

The Aces jumped to a 6-0 lead at the outset of the game before Loyd got Seattle on the board with a three-ball.

 

It got to 11-5 and just stayed there for a long-while, reminiscent of the fourth quarter of semis Game 5 when neither the Aces nor Connecticut could generate any offense.

 

Then Stewart scored and Seattle grounded out a 10-0 run for a 15-11 lead and worked its way staying ahead until the Storm then exploded in the next period when Stewart scored for a 35-34 regained lead and the Storm continued on a 14-0 run until Wilson scored to stop the streak for the moment with 2:01 left in the second.     

 

But Las Vegas came alive in the third 27-12 to trail by just a bucket 69-67 with 10 minutes left in regulation.

 

Seattle paced by Stewart regrouped offensively and defensively 24-13 in the fourth for the final result setting up a critical Game 2 Sunday at 3 p.m. on ABC in which the Storm with a win could be on the cusp of their second title in three seasons and a fourth overall tying the marks of the former Houston Comets, which won the first four, and Minnesota, which won four in this past decade.

 

“She got that look in her eyes like I’m just going to take over,” said Kloppenburg, the assistant who is filling in as head coach for Dan Hughes, who was advised to stay  out of the Florida bubble this summer because of cancer surgery early last season when Kloppenburg also filled in. 

 

“She hit some threes, got a couple from inside, got to the line, and she was just fabulous down the stretch,” he continued.

 

“I think we kind of lost our focus in that third quarter,” Kloppenburg said. “Got more into a half-court game. They picked their defense up, and I think we just didn’t respond in that third quarter and we let them all the way back in.

 

“I’m proud of the way we refocused, regrouped, got our defense solid in the fourth quarter, got a run going to stretch it out and win.

 

“A five-game series, you desperately want to get that first one, then we can go see what we’ve got to do to adjust to get a little bit better for the second one and really come out and try to get this next one.

 

“Especially against a team like Las Vegas. They’re a very good team.  They have a lot of good weapons. They shot the ball really well tonight from three. We can’t rest on these guys.” 

 

Of the fourth quarter and her overall game, Stewart said, “I don’t think I was like, oh, I’m going to score this many points straight. I was just taking what they gave me and being confident. I think I’m definitely excited for the moment and the big stage. 

 

“I think also the fact that I expect to be here and I’ve been here, whether it’s been college, WNBA, or USA. Continuing to embrace that big moment and take advantage of it. That is why we play basketball. These are the reasons why I play big games, help my team in big moments. That’s what I want.”

 

Noting her assists, Bird said, “I think Stewie and Jewell were pretty much on fire,” Bird said. “What do you think? 

 

“I’m just out there trying to find the open player. But like said, and I’ve always said this, assist is a two-person thing. And tonight those two were amazing.”    

 

 Las Vegas coach Bill Laimbeer has shook off adversity before guiding the former Detroit Shock to three crowns, the first of a which in a then best-of-three championship series saw his team get pounded by the Los Angeles Sparks in the opener out West in the Staples Center and then regroup to take the next two in a pair of thrilling games in Motown.

 

Should the Aces come back Sunday the series has an excellent chance to go the distance for the second straight season, following the Washington Mystics winning their first title a year ago in the nation’s capital downing Connecticut with a strong fourth quarter finish in Game 5.

 

“One game down,” Laimbeer said, “One or by 21, it really doesn’t matter, we lost the game. A lot of things didn’t go right for us today. “We struggled to score, struggled to make shots. 

 

“Give their defense some credit, they switched a lot. But at the same time a lot of those shots we have normally been making. We can’t get frustrated. We have to keep playing our solid defense. Clawed our way back into the game, but then ran out of gas.”

On Friday, Las Vegas got 20 points from prized free-agent acquisition Angel McCoughtry in the offseason, while WNBA regular season MVP A’ja Wilson scored 19, while the Notre Dame alumni duo of Kayla McBride had 13 and Jackie Young scored 10, and Carolyn Swords, who this season came out of retirement when Australian sensation Liz Cambage opted to stay in her home country because of the pandemic, grabbed 12 rebounds.

 

The keys were Seattle’s tremendous 36-for-72 shooting of 50% from the field while the Storm blocked shots better 9-2 and overwhelmed in the paint 48-18.

 

As for Bird’s performance, Kloppenburg said, “I mean, yeah, 16 assists and three turnovers is just unbelievable. She was just doing a really good job of finding shooters, getting into their defense, the different ways that we do that, and just tremendous floor game for Sue.

 

“I think she’s going to hit a couple of those threes once we keep moving on. She’s too good a shooter, she didn’t take a lot of shots tonight, really, but she found open players, and they knocked them down.”