Regardless of whether center Lauren Jackson returns, the biggest key for the Seattle Storm's game tonight against the New York Liberty is obvious after their first meeting.
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Limit turnovers: In their first meeting, the Storm turned the ball over on just under a third of their possessions in the first half and should have been considered lucky to only be down by three points at halftime. The Liberty continue to lead the league in points off of turnovers with 19 per game and have forced turnovers about twice as often since the All-Star break. A lot of the Storm's turnovers come from forcing passes and holding the ball on the perimeter too long, which could be attributed to the absence of Jackson to get the ball to inside. But against a team that likes to feed off of their defense, the Storm have to find a way to keep those live ball turnovers to a minimum.
- Move without the ball to score early in the shot clock: The first meeting between these two teams at the Prudential Center was a perfect illustration of how perimeter oriented the Storm can get at times: they shot 8-for-21 from the 3-point line for the game, but only shot 3-for-11 in the second half when the game was particularly tight. Compounding that was that they only shot 6-fot-7 from the free throw line and had none in the first half. Regardless of whether Jackson plays, the Storm will have to do a better job moving without the ball in the half court and quickly moving it around the perimeter to find high percentage scoring opportunities either on drives or cuts to the basket.
- How do they contain Cappie Pondexter? This is a question any New York Liberty opponent has to find an answer to, but it's not easy. Getting Tanisha Wright back in the lineup after missing Tuesday's game against the Phoenix Mercury for personal reasons would definitely help in this regard, as the Storm will have a hard time finding someone to stick with Pondexter without her on the court.