If there was a time when the Storm would truly miss its three injured All-Stars, then it would be in the final moments of a closely contested game.
Sure enough, Seattle found itself in a tight affair Friday night in its first game without Breanna Stewart, Sue Bird and Jewell Loyd.
Normally Seattle would turn to one of its proven go-to scorers, but Stewart is out for the season due to an Achilles injury, Bird is recovering from knee surgery and Loyd sat on the sideline in street clothes with a protective boot around her sprained right ankle.
This time the Storm relied on clutch shot-making from Jordin Canada and Alysha Clark at the end to prevail 79-76 in front of 7,915 at Alaska Airlines Arena.
“When you have a collective group of people that fight like that and have the fight within them, then anything is possible.”
Despite the absence of its trio of stars, who combined to average 47.4 points and account for 54.4 percent of the scoring last season, the defending WNBA champions are third in the league standings at 8-5.
“They’ve just got big hearts,” coach Dan Hughes said. “God bless them. They’ve just built a trust in me that they’re going to answer the call.
Seattle came out swinging and raced out to a 33-21 lead after the first quarter behind eight points from center Mercedes Russell, who finished with 12.
Seattle converted just 5 of 19 field goals (26.3 percent) in the final frame while Chicago was 5 of 17. Both teams were 0 for 3 on three-pointers.
The dynamic point guard beat Courtney Vandersloot and the shot clock with a short jumper to tie the score at 72-72.
Minutes later, Canada got into the lane for a driving layup that put Seattle up 77-74 with 1:12 left.
After Chicago cut its deficit to 77-76, Clark converted the shot of the game – a contested 15-foot turnaround jumper that banked off the glass with 10.1 seconds remaining.
The Sky had time for one last rebuttal, but Diamond DeShields’ three-pointer fell short.
Natasha Howard scored 14 points while Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis had 11 off the bench for Seattle, which is 5-0 in home games.
“It came down to execution,” said Sky forward Jantel Lavender, who had 13 points and 10 rebounds. “Alysha Clark hit a really, really tough, one-handed, off-the-glass shot. It was kind of like their night so it was tough.
“Just execution on those last plays. We didn’t get what we wanted down the stretch.”
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