Bird scores 22 points, Jackson has 20 to help Storm hold off Liberty 92-84

Bird, Jackson help Storm hold off Liberty 92-84

NEW YORK — Sue Bird scored 13 of her 22 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Seattle Storm to a 92-84 victory over the New York Liberty on Friday night.

Lauren Jackson had 20 points and 10 rebounds, Tanisha Wright scored 18 points and Swin Cash added 16 for the league-leading Storm (10-2).

Cappie Pondexter scored 24 points for New York (4-6), which has lost consecutive games after winning two in a row. Leilani Mitchell had 13 points, Taj McWilliams-Franklin added 11 and Plenette Pierson had 10 in her Liberty debut.

With New York trailing by nine with about 2½ minutes to go, Pondexter scored 10 points to help the Liberty pull to 86-84 on her 3 with 33 seconds left. New York didn’t score again, though.

Wright, Bird — who had eight points in the final 2:34 — and Jackson made two free throws each to seal Seattle’s win.

The Storm opened the fourth quarter with a 10-2 run, capped by Bird’s 3-pointer and fadeaway jumper, to take a 72-65 lead with 6:09 left.

McWilliams-Franklin made two free throws and Pierson had a jumper to pull New York within three about a minute later. However, Wright had a 3 with 4:41 to go to push Seattle’s lead to six.

The Storm got two offensive rebounds to help run time off the clock and capitalized when Wright converted a three-point play with 2:52 left to increase the lead to 80-71.

The Liberty scored nine straight points during a 1:34 stretch midway through the third, taking a 50-46 lead on Pierson’s layup with 4:19 left.

Wright had two 3s and Svetlana Abrosimova made one in the last 3½ minutes of the quarter for Seattle, but Kalana Greene scored seven points for the Liberty — including a layup with under 3 seconds left to give New York a 63-62 lead heading to the fourth.

Jackson hit a 3-pointer and Cash had a three-point play to give the Storm a 22-17 lead with 8:06 left in the first half.

The Liberty scored the next eight points, taking a 23-22 lead on Pierson’s layup about 2 minutes later.

The teams traded leads the rest of the second quarter, with neither leading by more than two points until Bird’s jumper with 8.2 seconds left gave the Storm a 37-33 lead at halftime.