Lauren Jackson leads late surge as Seattle rallies past Atlanta, 80-70, to clinch top seed

Jackson leads Storm past Dream, 80-70

ATLANTA — Lauren Jackson scored six points of her 14 points in a decisive 8-0 run and Seattle clinched the top overall seed in the playoffs by rallying for an 80-70 win over the Atlanta Dream on Tuesday night.

Tanisha Wright also scored 14 points and Sue Bird added 13 for the Storm (25-4), who had already had locked up the top seed in the Western Conference.

Angel McCoughtry scored 16 points on 3-for-19 shooting for Atlanta, which dropped into third place in the East, percentage points behind New York. Both teams were one game behind first-place Indiana, which played at Los Angeles.

Sancho Lyttle had 12 points and 17 rebounds, and Erika DeSouza added 13 points and 11 rebounds for the Dream.

Atlanta led 69-67 with 3:35 remaining before Seattle, which rested its starters most of the first half, took control.

The Storm were coming off a 111-65 win over Tulsa in which they setting a record for the most lopsided victory in WNBA history. Seattle’s starters sat out the fourth quarter as the Storm beat Tulsa by 46 points.

Seattle couldn’t pull away from the Dream, with or without its starters.

The intensity picked up when the Dream outscored the Storm’s starters 24-20 in the third quarter to take the lead.

There were three ties in the final period, the last at 67-all. Shalee Lehning gave Atlanta it’s last lead at 69-67.

Seattle coach Brian Agler pulled his starters with 5:08 remaining in the opening quarter. The Storm’s backups played the rest of the half, turning a 12-4 deficit into a 32-31 halftime lead.

The Seattle starters returned for the second half.