AUBURN HILLS, Mich., June 26 (AP) -- Deanna Nolan scored 13 points to lead a balanced Detroit Shock offense in a 70-61 victory over the Connecticut Sun on Thursday night.
Detroit (11-4) used an 11-1 third-quarter scoring run to build a commanding lead after Connecticut trimmed the Shock's lead to five.
Nolan's 3-point field goal with 3:44 remaining in the quarter gave the Shock a 50-37 lead before Cheryl Ford closed out the run off an offensive putback. Ford was one of three Shock players to score 10 points while Kara Braxton added 11.
Plenette Pierson, who scored 11 points in helping the Shock build its lead, left the game in the third quarter with a right knee strain.
Detroit, which rebounded from a lopsided loss to the Sun in Connecticut on Tuesday, led 37-27 at halftime after scoring 15 unanswered points to finish the first quarter and begin the second.
scored a season-high 28 points to lead the Detroit Shock to an 89-79 win over the Phoenix Mercury on Saturday in a rematch of last year's championship series.
The game was the first between the teams since the Mercury beat Detroit in game five of the finals Sept. 16 to win the WNBA title.
The former Georgia star was 10-of-15 shots from the floor and added eight rebounds to help the Shock (8-3) break a two-game losing streak. Her previous best was eight points against Los Angeles on June 11.
Shock rookie Alexis Hornbuckle, a 5-foot-11 guard from Tennessee, grabbed a season-high 15 rebounds, and Detroit outrebounded Phoenix 51-41 overall. Katie Smith added 18 points for the Shock, Deanna Nolan had 14, and Hornbuckle finished with 11.
The loss dropped Phoenix to 2-6. Only Washington and Houston have fewer wins.
To exacerbate the Mercury's difficulties, Diana Taurasi, coming off a WNBA season-high of 37 points against Seattle, shot a miserable 1-for-13 for just nine points. Adding to her frustration, the all-league performer fouled out and picked up just four rebounds in her 34 minutes of playing time. Coming into the game, Taurasi, in her fourth year out of Connecticut, led the league in scoring with a 25.6 average.
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP)—Katie Smith will have several reasons to fondly remember her 34th birthday.
The Detroit Shock All-Star was presented with her U.S. Olympic team jersey before the game, then scored a season-high 33 points in a 77-67 victory over the Seattle Storm Wednesday.
“I didn’t want to go home with a loss on my birthday,” said Smith, who hadn’t scored more than 28 points since joining the Shock in 2005. “I just didn’t hit enough shots to get 34 points on my 34th birthday.”
Detroit coach Bill Laimbeer played Smith for the entire game, then joked that he thought she had fallen short of her milestone.
“I played her all 40 minutes so she could try to score 40 points,” he said. “She did turn 40 today, right?”
The Shock (6-1) stayed unbeaten at home.
“I thought we might start 2-10, given our injuries and lack of practice time, so I’m very happy to be 6-1,” Laimbeer said. “We’ve still got a lot to learn about utilizing our bench, but we’ve been better than I expected.”
Seattle lost for the second straight night after a 5-1 start, but got 27 points from Lauren Jackson.
“We’re not going to make excuses—we had a chance to come in here and win the game, and we didn’t do it,” Seattle coach Brian Agler said. “Katie Smith had a great game and Detroit had a little more to offer than we did tonight.”
Swin Cash had 10 points in her first game against Detroit. The 2004 Olympian played her first five seasons with the Shock, winning two titles, before being traded to the Storm after feuding with Laimbeer.
“It was weird going to the visiting locker room—I stepped off the bus and went to the left before I caught myself,” said Cash, who was warmly greeted by the small Palace crowd. “Once the ball tipped off, it was OK.”
Deanna Nolan added 14 points for the Shock and Cheryl Ford had eight points and 11 rebounds. Both players have played all season through injuries—Nolan sprained her ankle while playing in Russia and Ford is still recovering from last season’s knee injury.
“You have to give Tweety and Cheryl all the credit in the world for playing when they are thing banged up,” Smith said. “That’s why it is a pleasant surprise to be 6-1.”
The Storm led 23-13 early in the second quarter, but Detroit finished the period with a 25-10 surge to take a five-point edge.
The Shock moved the advantage to double figures—47-37—early in the third, helped by a technical foul on Sue Bird.
Seattle pulled within 70-67 on two Jackson free throws with 2:10 left, but Smith answered with a 3-pointer and Detroit hung on.
Pistons forward Rasheed Wallace attended the game, sitting under the basket near the Seattle bench.
ATLANTA (AP)—Minnesota Lynx coach Don Zierden pulled aside rookie Candice Wiggins, hoping to inspire his young star after she went scoreless in the first half.
“She wasn’t playing like we expected her to play,” Zierden said. “We saw a couple of sets that were working with her running it, so we went ahead and stayed with that and milked it for all we could.”
Wiggins scored all of her 22 points in the second half and hit a key 3-pointer, and Charde Houston made two free throws with 38 seconds left to help the undefeated Lynx beat the winless Atlanta Dream 85-81 Tuesday night.
Wiggins, picked third overall in the draft, shot 7-for-10 from the field in the second half, making half of her six 3-point tries. Her 3 with 1:09 left gave Minnesota a 78-76 lead.
In a reserve role, she wanted to give Minnesota a spark.
“I just really tried to come off the bench and give as much energy I could,” Wiggins said. “You have an advantage being on the bench where you can see sort of what’s going on.”
The Lynx won their fifth straight game and continued the best start in franchise history. Nicky Anosike had 20 points and 12 rebounds and Seimone Augustus added 19 points for Minnesota.
Betty Lennox missed a 3-pointer with 22 seconds left in the game that would’ve given the Dream a one-point lead. Lennox, who spent her first three WNBA seasons with Minnesota, finished with 28 points and eight assists.
The 6-foot Augustus, who was recently named to the U.S. Olympic team, guarded Lennox for most of the game and was the one who altered the guard’s late miss.
“She still hit some tough shots,” Augustus said, “but I mean that’s what great players do to keep their team in the game. I just tried to use my length.”
Jennifer Lacy scored 16 points for Atlanta, now 0-5.
Atlanta was coming off its closest game of the season, an 80-74 defeat at Washington on June 27. The Dream will try for their first win as a franchise against Chicago on Friday.
Coach Marynell Meadors says she has seen growth in her young Dream team, which shot 69 percent from the field in the second half.
“We have a young team that will continue to get better,” she said. “We haven’t experienced a lot of challenges, but we will learn as the season continues.”
A jumper by Lennox put the Dream ahead 76-75 with 1:32 remaining in the fourth quarter. Wiggins, who shot 3-of-7 overall from beyond the arc, answered with her go-ahead 3.
The Lynx, who led the league in fewest turnovers with 13.3 per game, committed 12 in the first half. Minnesota finished with 18 turnovers for the game, while had Atlanta 20.
A basket by Camille Little sparked a 9-0 run for the Dream in the third quarter. Ivory Latta hit a 3-pointer a couple possessions later to give Atlanta a 40-37 lead with 5:47 left.
Minnesota later went on a 13-2 run, capped by Wiggins’ 3 to give the Lynx a 49-44 lead with 1:01 in the third.
NEW YORK (AP)—The New York Liberty got off to a fast start and then used a strong finish to pull away from the Seattle Storm.
Shameka Christon matched a career high with 25 points and led the Liberty to a 77-63 victory over the Storm on Tuesday night.
Christon was 9-for-14 from the floor, including 4-for-6 on 3-pointers, and scored 15 in the second half to help the Liberty (2-3) recover after Seattle cut an early 16-point deficit to two at halftime.
“We know they’re a good team,” Christon said. “Of course we dominated the first quarter. You can’t expect a team like that to not to pick it up. Our thing was to come out (in the second half) as if the score was 0-0 and play hard.”
Janel McCarville added 12 points for New York, which had lost five straight meetings against the Storm.
“We came out with a lot of intensity, playing defense and making them turn the ball over, getting stops on the defensive end and our shots falling on the other end,” said Christon, who leads the Liberty in scoring at 15.6 points per game. “It helped that our best defense was them taking the ball out of the net and us being able to set up in our defense.”
After scoring just six points in the first quarter, the Storm had 30 in the second and pulled within two on Bird’s jumper with 1.8 seconds left before halftime. Seattle tied the score at 38 on Jackson’s layup 46 seconds into the third quarter, and Bird’s layup with 3:54 left in the period gave the Storm their first lead, 44-43.
“We just need to get out to a better start,” Bird said. “Against good teams, especially on the road, you can’t let them jump on you like the Liberty did to us tonight.”
The Liberty moved back ahead for good 15 seconds later on Christon’s three-point play. Rookie Erlana Larkins hit two free throws with 1:33 to go in the third, and Ashley Battle added two more 29 seconds later to push New York’s advantage to 54-48 heading into the fourth.
After Bird’s 3 pulled Seattle to 57-53, the Liberty scored nine consecutive points in a 2:02 span to stretch their lead to 13 on Cathrine Kraayeveld’s 3 with 6:11 to go.
“I think this is the first time we put together four pretty good quarters,” New York coach Pat Coyle said. “That’s something we looked at, the tape, and something we talked about”
The Liberty shot 46 percent from the field (28-for-61), including 9-for-23 on 3s.
Seattle committed a season-high 23 turnovers that led to 27 points for New York.
“Tonight’s turnovers were a result of both us not being as sharp as we could be, and New York being very aggressive,” Storm coach Brian Agler said. “They caused a lot of them. I don’t think we read the defense well at times, I think we were careless with the ball at times, and I think we got in a hurry at times.”
The Storm trailed 22-6 after the first quarter, their third double-digit first-half deficit this season and their lowest scoring period. Seattle was 2-for-8 from the field and 1-for-4 from the line in the quarter.
” It seemed like everything was going their way,” Bird siad. “They were getting loose balls, things like that.”
The six points allowed in the first were the fewest against the Liberty in any quarter this season.
Seattle scored seven points in just 1:45 in the second, pulling to 24-13 on Swoopes’ driving layup. The Storm’s second 7-0 run of the second quarter pulled them to 30-26 on Tanisha Wright’s jumper with 3:46 left in the period.
Rookie Sylvia Fowles, the second overall pick in the draft by Chicago, strained her knee in a third quarter collision with Milton-Jones. She hobbled off the court and went to the hospital for an examination. She did not return, but Sky coach Steven Key said Fowles will be fine.
Sparks rookie Candace Parker, the first overall pick making her first visit as a pro to her hometown, collected 12 points, seven rebounds and fouled out before a crowd of 6,304—the Sky’s first sellout—at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion.
“It’s great to come home,” said Parker, the former Tennessee star who led the Volunteers to a pair of NCAA titles, including one in April. “I was really excited to play in front of my family and friends. I probably know about half the people here.”
Milton-Jones secured the victory with a pair of free throws with 29.5 seconds left in overtime to put the Sparks up for good at 76-73.
Trailing 56-43 as the fourth quarter opened, Chicago’s Jia Perkins sparked a rally with 10 fourth-quarter points.
Dominique Canty tied the game at 69 with two free throws for Chicago with 6.6 seconds left in regulation.
Lisa Leslie added 18 points and 12 rebounds for Los Angeles.
Candace Dupree paced the Sky with 22 points and 11 rebounds. Perkins finished with 16 points while Canty added 13 for Chicago.
Rookie guard Matee Ajavon added 15 points, included six in the closing minutes that helped Houston put to rest any talk of repeating last season’s franchise-worst 0-10 start.
The Comets (1-5) lost their previous four games by a combined 17 points, but improved to 14-6 all-time against the Silver Stars franchise that used to play its games in Utah as the Starzz.
Michelle Snow and Tamecka Dixon added 12 and 11 points, respectively, for the Comets, who improved to 1-1 at home.
Becky Hammon led San Antonio (2-3) with 20 points and Sophia Young, who tweaked her knee in the game, added 15 on 4-of-12 shooting.
The Comets trailed 64-62 with 6:09 to go before Thompson ignited a 10-2 run that gave Houston a 72-66 lead with 3:41 to go.
Erin Buescher added 10 points and five rebounds for the Silver Stars before fouling out with less than three minutes remaining.
San Antonio, which committed 16 turnovers, fell to 0-3 on the road this season and has lost three of its last four games against the Comets.
The Silver Stars led 33-25 with 3:52 left in the second quarter after Edwige Lawson-Wade made the second of back-to-back 3-pointers. But the Comets rallied with a 17-2 run to close out the half and took a 39-35 lead to the locker room.
Thompson scored seven points during the rally for the Comets, who held the Silver Stars without a field goal after Lawson-Wade’s 3-pointers.
Houston started the third quarter with a 8-2 run to take a 47-37 lead before Buescher hit another San Antonio 3-pointer after the team called their first timeout of the half.
That ignited a 14-4 run that tied the game when Hammon hit her fourth 3-pointer of the game with 3:33 left in the third.
Alana Beard scored 33 points, including six 3-pointers, and had seven assists, for the Mystics (2-4). She came a point short of the franchise record, Chamique Holdsclaw’s 34 against Indiana on July 24, 2003.
Washington got within 76-72 with 7:55 remaining, rallying from a 15-point deficit, but Phoenix made five of seven free throws over the next three minutes and Taurasi scored 11 fourth-quarter points.
Phoenix ran off 11 straight after the teams were tied at 59 in the third quarter to take control.
Tangela Smith added 16 points and nine rebounds for the Mercury.
The Mystics, a 67 percent free-throw shooting team, missed 14 of 20.
Beard nearly kept Washington in the game by herself, making 12 of 17 shots from the field, 6 of 8 from beyond the arc. She scored the first three points of the fourth quarter and hit a 3-pointer with 8:21 left to cut the advantage to 74-70.
