Welcome to the Basketball Hangover. We are in the WNBA Finals! Exciting!
Sue Bird set a career-high and a WNBA record.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Seattle Storm.)
The first WNBA Finals game in 2020 between the #1 seed Las Vegas Aces and #2 seed Seattle Storm was pretty strange. But also pretty awesome to watch.
We all know that the Aces are built to be a powerhouse, physical team that thrives by banging in the inside. But they stayed with the Storm by… making three-pointers. Angel McCoughtry went 4 for 4 behind the arc.
Then Breanna Stewart, Jewell Loyd, and Epiphanny Prince all caught fire. All the while, Sue Bird was dropping dimes. The Storm finished the first half with a 26-6 run as they led, 57-40.
The thing is… the Aces wouldn’t go away. The Storm went cold as A’ja Wilson came alive. She scored 10 points in the third and, coinciding with the Storm missing a ton of shots, the Aces finished the period with a 18-4 stretch.
Then Stewie took over. She scored the first 11 points of the fourth period and that was devastating to the Aces. The Aces never got close again.
But the Storm had some amazing stat lines on their team. Stewie finished with an incredible 37 points and 15 boards (ironically, the record for most points in a WNBA Finals game is by McCoughtry at 38). Jewell Loyd continues to have an incredible playoff run; she scored 28. Sue set a record for most assists in a WNBA Playoff/Finals game with 16. It is also her career-high, regular season or playoff. By the way, 16 assists was the previous record for most assists in a regular season game. That was broken last August 31st by Courtney Vandersloot when she dished out 18 dimes. McCoughtry led the Aces with 20 points.
That was a statement game by Seattle, though. I always felt they seemed overwhelming. Even Epiphanny Prince came in and scored 11 points in the first half to make up for Sami Whitcomb‘s absence.
The Aces just have to find a way to stop Stewie. Or Loyd. Or Sue. Gosh, this seems stressful for Las Vegas.
Bullet Passes
Carolyn Swords of the Aces, who retired early to take a marketing job for the Aces before unretiring to play in the Wubble, went for 12 boards. 7 rebounds were offensive and that is only two away from the record set by Jonquel Jones, which she did last year’s Finals.
A’ja Wilson ended with 19 points. The last four women who won MVP also went on to win the WNBA Championship. Elena Delle Donne won both last season. Stewie did it in 2018. Sylvia Fowles won the title after winning the MVP in 2017. And Nneka Ogwumike won both ring and award in 2016.
Epiphanny Prince was the 4th pick overall selected by the Sky in the 2010 WNBA Draft. She was an all-star in 2011 and 2013. She spent 5 years with the Sky and then four years with the Liberty. She only played three games with the Aces last season before signing with the Storm this season. She’s a scorer to the core and we saw that when she scored 11 in the first half of this game.
Double U Finals Scoreboard
GAME 1: #1 LV 80 vs #2 SEA 93 (SEA leads series, 1-0)
Watch This Play
Sue had 16 assists but her only basket was a dandy. Look at her escape the trap and get that reverse.
SUUUUUE 😤#StrongerThanEver pic.twitter.com/lNmTg4RvRH
— Seattle Storm (@seattlestorm) October 2, 2020
See ya for Game 2 on Sunday afternoon!
Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
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