Shock, Marion Jones finish tough first season in Tulsa with 84-71 win against Chicago Sky

Shock finish first Tulsa season with rare win

TULSA, Okla. — Tiffany Jackson scored 17 points, former Olympic sprinter Marion Jones finished her rookie season with a career-high 14 points and the Tulsa Shock snapped a six-game losing streak Saturday night by beating the Chicago Sky 84-71.

The Shock, who relocated from Detroit in the offseason, lost 25 of their last 27 games before finishing their first season in Tulsa with a victory that made them 6-28.

Jones made her first career start and made a fast-break layup at the end of the third quarter to put the Shock up 57-56.

Ivory Latta and Shanna Crossley had tiebreaking 3-pointers to put Tulsa back ahead in the fourth quarter, and the Shock finished the game on a 20-7 spurt.

Sylvia Fowles had 16 points to lead Chicago, which finished last in the Eastern Conference at 14-20. Jia Perkins scored 14 and Misty Bass added 12 points for the Sky.

Crossley finished with 17 points for the Shock, who got a standing ovation from their home crowd after only their sixth win of the season. Only three teams in WNBA history have won fewer games in a season.

Tulsa ended up with essentially an expansion team as few of the veterans of the franchise’s three WNBA championship teams this decade made the move. Nolan Richardson, the coach and general manager, traded away the remaining players from the Detroit era in making the switch to his “40 Minutes of Hell” style that won him an NCAA title at Arkansas.

Finally, at the end of the year, came a bit of hope.

Latta answered Perkins’ 3-pointer with one of her own from the right wing with 6:14 to play, and that ignited the final surge for Tulsa. Latta and Jackson finished it off with back-to-back fast-break layups to whip the crowd into a frenzy at the end.

Jones, who had her five Olympic medals stripped before making a return to basketball, had six points and two assists during a 14-6 run by the Shock in the first quarter. Her basket at the end of the third finished an 11-4 run that brought Tulsa out of its last deficit of the season.