Sue Bird’s Double-Double Led The Storm To A 2-0 Lead Over The Aces In The WNBA Finals

The Seattle Storm are one game away from their fourth WNBA championship as a franchise and second in three years after a 104-91 win over the Las Vegas Aces in Game 2 of the WNBA Finals.

The Aces have simply not had any answers for the Seattle offense, which had three players score 20-plus in Game 2. Breanna Stewart led all scorers with 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting (5-of-8 from three) to go along with five assists and four rebounds. She had plenty of help, as Alysha Clark and Natasha Howard each had 21 points on a combined 17-of-22 from the field, and the legendary Sue Bird had 16 points and 10 assists as they simply cooked the Las Vegas defense with their ball movement.

The Storm had 33 assists on 40 made shots in Game 2, posting a preposterous 57.1/46.2/80.0 shooting split as a team, as they took advantage of the Aces aggressive helping on defense, particularly in the post, to create open looks from the perimeter. The Aces on a few occasions pulled within a few of Seattle, but the closing run by the Storm was just too much. On each of these fourth quarter three-pointers that helped salt the game away, you can see how they took advantage of the Aces pack the paint defense against them, as perimeter players sank inside leaving opportunities for open shooters.

On the other end, the Aces played really well. MVP A’ja Wilson had 20 points on 8-of-17 shooting, while Emma Cannon added 17 points off the bench and Angel McCoughtry chipped in 16. As a team they hit 52 percent from the field and 42.1 percent from three-point range, which typically would be more than enough for the three-point averse Aces, but they simply cannot seem to stop this Storm offense.

As the series shifts to a potential closeout Game 3 for Seattle, Vegas will have to find a way to slow down the Storm offense. They have to stick more with perimeter shooters and cut off driving lanes for Bird, who has 26 assists in two games this series and is simply carving them up. Stewart is nigh unstoppable, but they might just have to give up some one-on-one opportunities to the former MVP in exchange for knocking their shooters out of rhythm.