The Dallas Wings ended their West coast trip with an 83-78 win over the Seattle Storm inside KeyArena. The Wings will head back to Arlington 1-1 for the week and 2-0 against Seattle for the season.
Rookie Aerial Powers led the team scoring 19 points, one point shy of her season high, along with four assists. This the second time this season she has recorded four assists.
The Wings and the Storm tied up the game 15 times throughout the night and found themselves down by two late in the fourth quarter. Powers then hit a three to put the Wings up by one and take command of the game with 1:17 left on the clock. Two fouls were called on the Storm, which took Sims and Diggins to the line to give Dallas the 83-78 win.
Courtney Paris recorded her fifth double-double of the season with 12 points and a team-high 12 rebounds.
Karima Christmas and Glory Johnson also hit double figures. Christmas recorded 12 points, while Johnson scored 11.
The Wings return to Arlington, Saturday, July 2 to host the Connecticut Sun for First Responders Appreciation Night presented by American Fidelity. Tickets are still available for purchase at www.dallaswingsbasketball.com.
Dallas Wings Postgame Notes
•The Wings are now 1-1 in West Coast this season.
•Rookie Aerial Powers hit double figures with 19 points, the second highest for the season. The last time she scored double digits was on 6/16 against Seattle in Arlington, scoring 13.
•This is the fourth game of the season Aerial Powers has led the team in points. The other three games where she led were, vs. Atlanta on 5/27, at MIN on 6/4 and WAS on 6/8.
•The Wings shot over 85 percent at the free throw line going 18 of 21.
•Courtney Paris recorded her fifth double-double of the season with 12 points and 11 boards. The last time Paris registered a double-double was on 6/16 against the Storm with 13 points and 10 boards.
•The Wings shot 50 percent from the 3-point arc tonight, the second highest percentage this season and are 1-1 when shooting that percentage.
DALLAS WINGS HEAD COACH FRED WILLIAMS
(On the game)
“I thought both teams fought really hard back and forth throughout the whole game with good shooting. There were a lot of situations where defensively, both teams really got aggressive with each other. It came down to the last minute or so for both coaches to figure things out and what to do. It was a good-fought game and could’ve gone either way.”
(On Aerial Powers’ game)
“She played with a lot of energy tonight. I thought she was on rhythm, especially in transition. She was being
aggressive shooting her jump shot. I told her to go out and just relax and play. She had the opportunity to pretty much go one-on-one, shake and bake and shoot her shot. She still made a few rookie mistakes defensively with some fouls, but she made it up on the offensive end.”
(On preparing for their next game on Saturday)
“We’ll have to ice down tonight then watch some film tomorrow on the plane. When we get back home, we have a quick practice with not too much run-up and down. We’ll watch film and prepare mentally for the next day. We play every other day pretty much for the next three weeks so there’s not a lot of daytime practice for us. We will have a lot of shooting, walkthroughs … it’s all mental right now. We’ll have mental practice with the film session and apply it to the game.”
WINGS FORWARD AERIAL POWERS
(On the game)
“We were hustling and had fight. We kept fighting runs from both teams, back and forth, back and forth, but we kept our composure, made some good plays down the stretch and came out with the victory. We have to take this momentum into our next game.”
(On her altercation with Jewell Loyd)
“What happened was it was a tie up and the ref called it then (Jewell) pushed me so I just reacted the wrong way. I guess the next time I’ll just walk away. It is what it is when you’re in the moment. It’s not like we got into a fight so I was surprised there were (technicals) called.”
(On her big 3-point shot in the final minute)
“We got a loose rebound then the shot clock went back to 14 (seconds) I think. (Skylar Diggins) just drove then passed to Karima (Christmas) and Karima hit me. Luckily I was wide open and got a great extra pass then had time to knock it down. It was not drawn up at all so I’m happy with the way it went.”