Storm Have ‘No Excuse’ For Recent First-Half Struggles
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The Seattle Storm have dropped three straight games after winning three in a row. That’s largely been due to poor play in the first half, leading to difficult, unsuccessful comeback attempts. Credit: John Mac [/caption]
A week ago, the Seattle Storm were riding high on a three-game win streak, bookended by a dominant 20-point victory over the Las Vegas Aces — the same team that knocked them out of the playoffs last season, won two of the last three WNBA championships and now has a Storm franchise legend on the roster in Jewell Loyd.
The week that followed was a complete reversal of the strong play that had thrust Seattle into early-season title-contender conversations. The Storm lost three in a row — all to top 5 teams — concluding with a home loss to the Aces on Sunday. Seattle is now 3-4 overall, sitting at sixth place in the league standings.
Two of the Storm’s last three losses have been marred by slow starts. Seattle lost the first quarter 26-11 to the Minnesota Lynx and spent the entire game fighting back, only to lose by five. The Storm lost the first quarter to the Aces 27-17 on Sunday and also lost by five.
“It just starts on defense. I think we have a team that has no excuse to be this poor defensively in the first half,” forward Gabby Williams said after the loss to Las Vegas. “We don’t have an excuse with this kind of roster … It is supposed to be our strength, and that’s supposed to be the thing we can rely on, even if shots aren’t falling.”
Seattle shot the ball about one percentage point (43.1 percent) better than the Aces (42.2 percent), but they allowed 21 points off 19 turnovers in the game. Their previous season-high was 15 turnovers.
The Storm committed 37 combined turnovers during their three-game win streak. They have turned the ball over 47 times over the last three games.
“The last few games, we’ve been kind of careless with the basketball,” head coach Noelle Quinn said. “We have to shore that up a little bit.”
When the Storm are playing to their fullest potential, the offense is being spurred by the defense. Seattle is typically the team converting turnovers into points on the other end while shutting down its opponent from doing so.
The best example of that was in Seattle’s win over the Aces when they scored 21 points off takeaways and allowed just nine the other way to Las Vegas. That kept the pace in the Storm’s favor, preventing the Aces from establishing any real momentum.
Instead, at least in the first half, Seattle’s offense looked dysfunctional at its worst and disjointed at its best. Williams, in particular, was having to make heroic individual plays outside of the rhythm of the offense, and the Storm weren’t getting their typical output from stars Skylar Diggins and Nneka Ogwumike — both of whom struggled from the field.
“If we would have gotten more stops today, that would have allowed our offense to flow a bit better,” Williams said. “And I don’t think we punished them enough. I think we kind of, when they hit us, we took a step back instead of being more aggressive towards them.”
Quinn will eventually have to make a tough decision about whether veteran guard Erica Wheeler or rookie No. 2 overall pick Dominique Malonga would provide more of a spark to the starting lineup than fan-favorite Alysha Clark. Through six games played, Clark has been decent defensively but is just 3-of-7 shooting from 3-point range. That’s supposed to be her specialty.
Clark’s averages so far this season are the lowest they’ve been since 2014. Wheeler and Malonga — the former especially — have provided far more on both sides of the ball when on the court. Wheeler has also been excellent from behind the arc (46.7 percent on 15 attempts).
Malonga played a season-high 13 minutes on Sunday, including critical time down the stretch when the Storm cut the Aces’ lead to three. She missed a fadeaway jumper that would’ve made it a one-point game with 13 seconds left. However, it was a shot Malonga said she felt confident taking, even if it wasn’t the look they drew up. Wheeler, who arguably got fouled before Malonga got the ball, was standing wide open for a game-tying 3-pointer at the elbow.
“It was not the play, but I mean it was the opportunity,” Malonga said. “I just flashed, and I had the ball. That’s a shot that I’m used to making [fading away]. That’s what I know. So I just shot it, and yeah, I had the opportunity. It didn’t fall in, it’s a shame, but yeah.”
Still, Malonga went toe-to-toe on defense with Aces superstars A’ja Wilson and Chelsea Gray. That, coupled with her eight points on 4-of-7 shooting, are building blocks in the eyes of Quinn.
Chelsea Gray. That's it. That's the tweet. ✨@cgray209 // #ALLINLV pic.twitter.com/LrFrELpKIY— Las Vegas Aces (@LVAces) June 1, 2025
“Dom grew up today in a lot of ways,” Quinn added. “I thought [she played] excellent defense on [Chelsea] Gray and A’ja [Wilson] … They [made] really, really tough shots over her length. But there was no blow-bys, she stayed in place, she was physical. We’re working with Dom to get her hands up, and I thought she was more mindful of that.”
At this stage in the season, the Storm are an imperfect team that has championship-level talent. Lineup adjustments are likely needed to maximize this group early in games consistently. But there’s also plenty of time to smooth out the kinks with 37 games remaining in the season.
Quinn is focusing on what the team is doing well, she said, noting, “It’s not a panic.” Seattle has another quick turnaround to a home game against the Paige Buckers-less Dallas Wings on Tuesday. The Wings, despite being 1-6, still have a dangerous Arike Ogunbowale, who could go off on any given night.
“It’s a long season. It’s the best league in the world,” Williams added. “We saw what we did to Phoenix — we lost by 20 and came back. I don’t think we expected Vegas to come out here and just let us win by 20 again. So we’re just going to have to go into the next game with the same kind of mentality.”
