The Storm Sweep The Mystics As Breanna Stewart Earns WNBA Finals MVP Honors

The Seattle Storm picked up their third WNBA Finals victory in franchise history on Wednesday night, completing a three-game sweep of the Washington Mystics with a 98-82 win on the road.

Breanna Stewart led the way in the series-clinching win with 30 points and eight rebounds, getting major help from center Natasha Howard, who added 29 points and 14 boards in the win. Stewart, who was the runaway winner of the league MVP award, became the youngest Finals MVP award winner in WNBA history, averaging 25.7 points in the series and the sixth woman to win WNBA MVP and Finals MVP in the same season.

The Mystics hung around behind strong performances from Kristi Toliver and Elena Delle Donne, but they didn’t have quite enough firepower to reel in the Storm, who pulled away late. Seattle’s three-point shooting was the difference in the game and the series. The Storm shot an incredible 50 percent (13-of-26) from beyond the arc in Game 3 and 38.7 percent as a team in the series, compared to the Mystics who struggled mightily from deep, shooting 18.3 percent from downtown in the series.

For Sue Bird, it’s her third championship, and while the legendary point guard had a relatively quiet Finals, her heroics simply to get the Storm to the Finals with her unbelievable fourth quarter in Game 5 against the Mercury, will be hard to forget.

The Storm are now tied with the Detroit Shock (now the Dallas Wings), L.A. Sparks, and Phoenix Mercury for the second most championships in WNBA history with three, behind the Minnesota Lynx and Houston Comets.