Seattle Storm @ Phoenix Mercury | Phoenix, AZ | September 19, 2024

On the night the regular season came to a close, the Seattle Storm got off to their best start. And they’re not finished yet.

Nneka Ogwumike scored 10 of her 24 points during the first quarter, Mercedes Russell had 10 of her 14, and the Storm racked up 35 points through the opening 10 minutes on the way to a wire-to-wire 89-70 rout of the Phoenix Mercury inside The Footprint Center.

Seattle (25-15) wound up with six players in double figures as it recorded the most regular-season wins since the 2018 team went 26-8 on the way to the franchise’s third WNBA title.

Already locked into the No. 5 playoff seed even before Thursday’s tip-off, the Storm heads straight to Nevada to begin its best-of-3 first-round series against two-time defending champion Las Vegas. As the No. 4 seed, the Aces will host Game 1 on Sunday at 7:00 p.m. and Game 2 on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. If Seattle wins at least one of those contests to send the series back to Climate Pledge Arena for a decisive Game 3, that will be next Thursday, Sept. 26. The tip-off time for that game has not yet been announced.

On Thursday, the Storm wound up with six players in double figures, including all five starters. Skylar Diggins-Smith added 14 points, Sami Whitcomb tallied 11, and Gabby Williams tossed in 10. For the third straight game, they were without leading scorer Jewell Loyd (knee) and leading rebounder Ezi Magbegor (concussion).

Joyner Holmes came off the bench for a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds. It was her first of the season and the second of her career. The first one came during her 2020 rookie campaign with the New York Liberty.

Rookie guard Nika Mühl scored her first WNBA points on a steal and score five minutes into the fourth quarter, with her college coach Geno Auriemma in the building.

[yaelalexis]

Nika first point in his coach geno 🥹🥹🥹 and some husky players