The sting of the Seattle Storm's loss to the Atlanta Dream yesterday was softened a bit by the Phoenix Mercury's loss, meaning that the Storm only fell a half-game behind the idle San Antonio Silver Stars and remain a half game ahead of the fourth-place Mercury.
Nevertheless, there's no denying it was a poor performance.
James Bowman of SB Nation's Swish Appeal witnessed the debacle in Phillips Arena yesterday and has a breakdown of how that performance stacks up against the franchise records.
Dream Take Advantage of Bird, Turnover-Prone Storm - Swish Appeal
* Seattle's 27 turnovers is not a team record. The most turnovers in a Storm game is 28, against Indiana in 2006 and against Atlanta in a double-overtime game in 2009.* The Storm's two offensive rebounds ties the team record for fewest offensive rebounds. The other two dismal nights on the boards were performances against Los Angeles in 2000 and against Detroit in 2008.
* Atlanta's win against the Storm is the first win against Seattle in almost two years. The only other win by the Dream against Seattle took place on August 15, 2009 in an 88-79 victory at Philips Arena.
That's without taking into account Sue Bird's two points, three assists, and six turnovers, which Atlanta Dream coach Marynell Meadors attributed to great defense by Dream point guard Lindsey Harding.
The way the Storm's season has gone, this performance is less of a complete anomaly than simply an extreme example of season-long patterns: they've been out-rebounded by a far inferior rebounding team in the San Antonio Silver Stars and high turnover rates have been a problem even in wins against some of the league's worst defenses.
The Dream just had all the tools to exploit some of the Storm's biggest weaknesses and, as Kris Willis of SB Nation Atlanta described, those tools just came together for "...a textbook win for Atlanta as they dominated nearly every facet of the game."