Storm collapsed late in the fourth, lost ninth straight

After Carla Leite cut hit a pair of free throws to get Portland (8-9) within three points, the Storms’ Jade Melbourne had her offensive foul upgraded to flagrant one after review. The turnover that resulted led to a Megan Gustafson 24 foot three to tie the game at 89 with 2:06 left in the game. Portland would hit a pair of threes after that to get the score to its final margin of 94-89 as Seattle (3-13) lost its ninth straight game despite Dominique Malonga’s career high 28 points and the Storm had their best shooting performance of the young season.

Portland closed the game on a 10-0 run over the final two and half minutes to erase what had been a seven point Seattle lead at the start of the fourth quarter. Bridget Carlton kicked off the scoring with the first of four three pointers that her fire hit in the final 10 minutes; Carlton hit two of those threes, including the dagger with 41.4 seconds left on the clock. She finished with 24 points and was one of two Portland scorers over 20 points – the other was Leite with 20.

Malonga’s 28 points led all scorers as she also pulled in 11 boards to secure the double-double. The center was one of three Storm scorers in double digits, Awa Fam (18) and Natisha Hiedeman (19) were the other two. As a team, Seattle hit 32 of 67 shots from the (47.8%) from the field; the Storm were 23 of 43 (53.5%) from inside the arc.

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A 12-0 run for Seattle that covered a nearly three minutes scoring drought for the Fire to give the Storm a 68-56 lead before Karlie Samuelson drilled a three from right in front of the home bench with 4:13 left in the third quarter. Samuelson would score eight of Portland’s 14 points in the final 4:13 left in the quarter. If it wasn’t for the 31 year old guard, Seattle would have built a massive lead as the offense was efficient from the paint while its defense continued to stifle the Fire’s three point shooters.

The Storm heavily relied on Malonga on both sides of the court as she pulled in her 10th rebound midway through the third quarter; the 20 year old also scored eight of Seattle’s 26 points in the third quarter. Outside of the 20 year old center, Seattle’s offensive attack also benefited from eight points from Fam in the same quarter; Melbourne and Heiderman were the rest of the offense.

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Malonga’s lane violation wiped out the first made free throw from Fam with less than 30 seconds left in the first half; while the second toss from the charity stripe was sunk, the loss of a point meant that Seattle had a only a 48-47 lead at the end of a frantic quarter. Unlike the first quarter, the second quarter was a back-and-forth affair that saw both offenses struggled to hit the threes like they did in the first frame. In particular, the Storms’ defense limited Portland to one made three in the second quarter – compared to the first where the Fire sunk three.

Seattle’s defense struggled with defensive boards down the stretch as the Fire pulled in six of the eight their offensive boards in the final five minutes of the second quarter. Fortunately those six boards only resulted in one made bucket, a Leite 26-foot three ball from the top of the arc.

While Portland had initially built a nine point lead behind a 10-3 run, fueled by a pair of three pointers, Seattle would outscore the Fire 16-3 behind a pair of shots from behind the arc by Heiderman to take a 23-21 lead into the first intermission. The first frame saw a combined 11 turnovers between both squads as there was a lot of sloppy passes into congested lanes. It was particularly clear when the offenses went through scoring droughts as they pressed passes that led to a loss of possession.

It was a Heiderman three that broke Portland’s run and allowed her offense to get it’s flow back after the Fire had gone on such an early run. But it was Malogna that had kept the Storms’ offense in motion in order to get the shooting guard the rock so she’d be able to make the shot.