SEATTLE — Dallas Wings center Teaira McCowan tied her season high with 18 points, leading the team, but it wasn't enough to battle the Seattle Storm Tuesday afternoon. The Wings lost today's matchup, 74-83.
The Wings started off hot in the first half, with good ball movement and ultimately outscored the Storm, 22-14 in the second quarter.
McCowan netted 10 points in the first half.
When the second half kicked off, the Storm came roaring back with Breanna Stewart and Ezi Magbegor leading the charge. Stewart scored 15 of her 19 points in the second half.
Seattle took the lead for good with 6:51 left in the third quarter following a sequence in which Stewart made a layup, a 3-pointer and a short jumper in a 65-second span and then found Sue Bird for a drive-and-kick 3.
Bird's 3-pointer gave her 2,445 career field goals, the seventh most in WNBA history, passing Cappie Pondexter.
"I thought the first half we did a great job of moving the basketball... three, four passes and playing within the shot clock, late in the shot in clock. Versus the half, we actually took a lot of quick shots, which allowed them to get out in transition. Those things that we have to control, we have control the urge to shoot quick shots, take quick shots -- especially when you don't... we weren't making the shots," Dallas Wings Head Coach Vickie Johnson said in part, during a post game interview.
Johnson pointed to her team doing a good job of mixing up plays getting both two and three-point shots, versus relying on mostly the three-point shot in the second. The Wings were two of twelve from outside the arch in the second half.
McCowan, who ended the game with her fourth double-double this season for the Wings. The rest of the team combined to shoot 32.8% (19 of 58) from the field. Arike Ogunbowale made finished with 12 points, while Tyasha Harris tied her season-high with 10 points and Satou Sabally also scored 10.
McCowan said her team is still young and there's room to learn from taking quick shots in the second half of games.
"I think we have to be more poised on the offensive end, because we have to think about if we're taking these quick shots, they are getting out on transition. That means 9 times out of 10 someone is not getting back. So, they are getting easy buckets in transition," McCowan said.
Despite the loss, there was some celebration for Wings' Marina Mabrey scoring her 1,000th point on a layup at the 9:06 mark of the third quarter!
Up next:
The Wings are now looking to bounce back from losing four of their last five games. They'll play the Minnesota Lynx at Target Center in Minneapolis, MN. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. CT.
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