Final score: Storm 82 – Silver Stars 61 (W) (11-2)

Attendance | 8086

Box Score | Jayda's Game Blog | Live from Press Row

Game Photos | Scott E | Rick | Scott L

The short take on this game is that the Storm started slowly on offense, only leading by single digits through the first half when they should have been up by 20. They started the third quarter with an offense clicking as well as their defense had been in the first half and pretty soon they were up by 20.

The Storm outplayed the Silver Stars throughout the game, it just took some time for the score to reflect that.

It was kind of surprising to see how dominating the Storm really were, especially in rebounding. The Silver Stars have a lot of height with Snow, Frazee, Appel and Holdsclaw (Riley was a no-show). It didn't matter. The Storm's short front line out jumped, out hustled and out willed their way to what seemed like every loose ball and rebound. LJ ended the game with 14 while Swin and Camille both had 9. Those three had more rebounds than the whole San Antonio team put together.

Still, the Silver Stars were able to cut the lead to three before the Storm kicked it into high gear. I was concerned at the half when the Storm were only leading by 7 that the Silver Stars might hang around long enough to put together a little run with their three-point shooters or start taking advantage of their height a little more efficiently and end up stealing the game.

The Storm wouldn't have any of that. As soon as the Silver Stars got within three, the Storm responded by going on a tear and outscoring the Silver Stars by 9 in the quarter to push the lead back up to 16. The fourth quarter was more of the same – the Storm in complete control on both ends of the court with only the occasional foul to slow them down. The Storm walked away with it, turning what started out as a tight-ish game into another blow out.

The real drama came in the third quarter when Sue went down on her left leg and looking like she seriously injured it. She was down for just a bit and had a lot of trouble putting any weight on the knee when she tried to get up. She hobbled off the court in obvious pain. When she made it to the bench, the trainer tried to give her a supporting arm, but she waved him off. Given our vantage point directly across from the bench, we were able to see her start to jog down the tunnel towards the locker room.

I thought that was a pretty good sign, the jogging, thinking that the injury couldn't be too bad if she could run on it. On the other hand, she didn't come out of the locker room until well into the fourth quarter. The longer she stayed in their, the worse I thought it might be. When she did finally come out, she has a huge ice pack on either side of her knee, but she looked like she as in decent spirits. She sat down at the end of the bench and took to describing what happened to her teammates.

At the end of the game, she had taken off the ice and was walking, gingerly to be sure, out to shake hands with the Silver Stars and join the rest of the Storm at mid-court for their post game huddle.

The one thing the Storm haven't had to deal with yet has been injuries. With Sue hobbled or at least slowed down, depending on the severity of her injury, the Storm will have to rely more on their depth as they move into the middle of the season. Tonight, the Storm didn't miss a beat with Sue out for most of the second half. It will be interesting to see how they perform if she is limited in her playing time during a complete game.

Aside from Sue's knee, the other story line for me from this game was Sveta. She got more time in the game with Sue's absence and was put on Becky Hammon most of the time. The Silver Stars had height at the forward and center positions, but the Storm had it at the guard spots and they used that to help control the San Antonio offense. Svet and T combined to keep Becky to 4-14 shooting and were able to keep her from effectively leading the Silver Stars' plays.

The Storm really are playing 8 deep and their high scoring games are allowing the other three players to get some decent court time. Hopefully, by the time the playoffs roll around, the Storm might be playing 9 or 10 deep. I have hopes that Lacey will come around once she gets over her recent illness and gets back into the swing of things. Arob, who knows. She and Bishop both seem too nervous out there. Maybe Bishop will get more confidence as the season progresses. I don't know about ARob. If she isn't playing better by now after so many seasons, I'm not sure what might pull her up.

Other notes:

Lauren's parents were in the front row next to the Hasselbecks. Also in attendance was Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn who was at the game with his daughters. He got a few boos when introduced. All the fathers in the crowd were recognized for Father's Day. The odd thing was that the music played during this was Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion. Not sure that was entirely appropriate.

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