Storm use huge 2nd half to end their five game losing streak, beat LA 85-77.

The good news is that the Seattle Storm were able to snap their 5 game losing streak and show great resiliency as they defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 85-77 on the road.  The bad news, is that after sweeping the season series 4-0, the Storm won't get to play the Sparks again this season.  But this win is great for the team and some really important things happened in tonight's victory.

The Storm showed great heart in this game.  At the beginning of the game, we saw a common theme this season; the Storm got down big early.  Seattle trailed LA by eleven, 24-13 after the first period.  They trailed 48-35 at half time and it looked like the Storm were going to lose another game on the road.  But the team never quit and fought hard to rally and get back into this game in the 2nd half.  After being held scoreless in the 1st half, Jewell Loyd came up huge, scoring 11 of her 15 points in the 3rd period.  Seattle outscored the Sparks 24-16 in the 3rd quarter to cut the lead to five, 64-59, heading into the fourth.  Storm veterans Sue Bird and Crystal Langhorne would rally the team with seven and eight points in the final quarter respectively.  Seattle would outscore Los Angeles 26-13 in the fourth and take home just their 2nd road win of the season (the previous: also against LA on June 14th). 

While it's just one game, this game showed the great potential for the Seattle Storm's basketball future.  Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis had her first breakout game of the season.  KML had been struggling to get playing time this season and because of that, she hasn't been able to live up to the big expectations she had coming out of the WNBA Draft as the #3 overall pick to Seattle.  But she was given more of an opportunity in tonight's game, logging twelve minutes and scoring in a variety of ways.  She helped rally the team in the 2nd quarter, scoring 12 of her career-high 15 points in the period.  Hopefully, this is a breakout game for the former UCONN star and will lead to many more nights like this in her Storm career.

But KML wasn't the only Seattle rookie to have a strong game.  Fresh off her 16 point, 4 rebound, 3 assist performance on Saturday against the San Antonio Stars; Jewell Loyd had another strong game, scoring 15 points, 4 rebounds, and collecting 3 assists in tonight's game against the Sparks.  Loyd just won Rookie of the Month in July and is now starting to score more consistently as she continues to adjust to the pro game.  She is only going to get better as the season progresses.

While this season is going to have a lot of growing pains, it'll be games like tonight that'll remind the Storm Crazies that the future is very bright for this team.

WHAT'S NEXT?:
The Storm have a very quick turn-around.  The team will fly to Phoenix to play the Mercury on Wednesday 08/12 at 7:00pm PST.