Shock beat Storm 84-75 as WNBA’s worst team surprises its best

Shock top Storm as WNBA’s worst surprises its best

TULSA, Okla. — Scholanda Robinson scored 12 of her 21 points in the third quarter to lead the Tulsa Shock to a surprising 84-75 victory over the Seattle Storm on Tuesday night.

The league-worst Shock (5-22) snapped a seven-game losing streak and a nine-game skid at home, while the Storm (22-4), with the WNBA’s best record, dropped their second straight.

“Just so excited,” Robinson said. “A little bit of relief, but it just feels really good. We put a great game together from beginning to end. It is just domination. We beat the best team in our league and it just shows what a great team we are. When we come to play our game and we play for 40 minutes, we can beat anybody.”

Ivory Latta added 15 points and Tiffany Jackson had 11 for the Shock, whose last win in their own arena came two months ago against Minnesota.

Sue Bird scored 19 points for Seattle. Lauren Jackson had 18, Tanisha Wright 15 and Swin Cash added 13.

“I think Tulsa played very well. They played aggressive,” Seattle coach Brian Agler said.

“The thing I have found out about this league, being in this league for a long time, is usually the hungrier teams win. We had a long stretch of being hungry and for whatever reason we lost that. Tulsa has played hungry all year long. They work hard, they play hard, they try to make things happen, and tonight they did and took advantage of the opportunities.”

With the score tied at 41, Amber Holt converted a four-point play, then Keisha Brown hit a shot from midcourt right before the halftime buzzer, giving the hosts a 48-41 lead at the break.

Robinson, who had only five points in the first half, then went to work, hitting jump shots and 3-pointers.

Cash got the first basket of the second half for the Storm, the Robinson answered with a three-point play to stretch the advantage to 51-43.

Tulsa forced 24 turnovers in one of its best defensive efforts of the season. The Shock were still outrebounded 33-25, but they had 14 steals and made key blocks against Bird, Cash and the Storm’s other top shooters.

“The more important part of our system is being able to not turn it over and battle people on the boards,” Tulsa coach Nolan Richardson said. “That’s been a deficiency that we’ve had big time. But tonight we held our own on the boards and played good defense. That was the best defense we played against a solid team. (Seattle) struggled to get some easy shots which we expected them to make all the time anyway.”

When the teams met at the BOK Center on June 27, the Shock built an early lead before Seattle rallied for an 11-point victory.

“Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t,” Bird said. “It’s difficult to compare games, but I think at some point we were just unlucky. One point we had a fast break opportunity to cut it to four and we can’t make the layup. Sometimes things just happen for you that way, where in the last game we had people make 3s.”