Jackson Leads Storm To Second Straight Win

By Brady Martin: SPM WA Writer
Posted Friday, July 4, 2008

Lauren Jackson had a game-high and season-high 33 points in Seattle's win over New York Thursday. Photo by chuckarelei.

SEATTLE – "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" echoed around the arena, a familiar sound when star forward Lauren Jackson is on her game.

And she was on her game Thursday night, scoring a season-high 33 points to lead the Seattle Storm to an 84-71 victory over the New York Liberty in front of 6,973 fans at KeyArena.

“We talked about that recently, getting more balance inside and outside from Lauren,” Storm head coach Brian Agler said. “Obviously, she’s a great 3-point shooter, but she’s also awful tough with her back to the basket. She’s starting to buy into that and she’s doing a great job. She’s one of the best.”

The win improves Seattle’s home record to 9-1 on the season.

Unlike their previous game against New York on June 3rd, when they scored just six points in the first period, the Storm came out running and jumped out to a quick 13-2 lead before five minutes had gone by. Seattle never relinquished the lead.

“I thought Seattle came out and played really well,” New York head coach Pat Coyle said. “They set the tone early and we didn’t match the intensity.”

Jackson set the tone early, aggressively going at the Liberty defense, and in the process finally looked like an MVP. The team made a conscious decision to get her the ball early and often and the Australian star paid that decision back in spades. She was unstoppable all night long.

A short turnaround jumper with 1:46 to play in the first half helped Jackson to pass another career milestone – 4,500 points. She is the youngest and fastest player in league history to reach this mark. Naturally, she was unaware of this and downplayed it afterward.

“No, I had no idea, but that’s pretty cool,” she said. “I didn’t think about it really. I’m just glad we won.”

New York turned up their press early in the second quarter to try and get back in the game. The move was briefly successful, as they closed to within six points, 25-19, with 9:04 left in the second, but that was as close as they would be the rest of the evening.

In fact, the work Seattle did against New York’s defense all night was impressive, considering how poorly they fared against at Madison Square Garden last month. Led by Sue Bird, the Storm’s ability to break the press repeatedly helped them to stretch their lead to 20 late in the third quarter. Bird turned in another outstanding game, finishing with a season-high 23 points and six assists.

“We’re such a better team now,” Bird said. “The team you saw tonight was just a different team. It took us a couple times to figure out the press, but we figured it out.”

The Liberty had one last run in them and managed to get within 74-67 with 4:11 to play in the game, but Seattle collected themselves and went right back at New York. Three minutes later, they had put together a 10-0 run to put the game away.

The Storm will complete their home stand against Minnesota on Saturday night. The Lynx are another team that uses pressure defense, so according to Bird, this win was great preparation.

“The good thing is we’re gonna play a team in Minnesota that presses a lot as well,” Bird says. “I’m glad we had practice against it tonight and were successful... ”

 E-mail this page
 Printer-friendly page