Storm road trip continues with dominant win over Liberty
By Christan Braswell, edited by Charles
Brooklyn, NY - On a Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn, the Storm defeated the defending champion New York Liberty 79-70 in a dominating performance from start to finish.
Four Storm players scored at least four points to start the game in a well-balanced attack. In arguably one of her best starts to a game all season, center Ezi Magbegor led all scorers with six, helping give Seattle a four-point lead at 22-18 to end the opening frame.
The two heavyweights continued to slug it out for the rest of the first half in a tightly-contested matchup. Neither team led by more than five before the half, but Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu came alive, scoring 15 of her team’s 26 points. She went into the half with 20 points, five rebounds, and four assists. The All-Star guard went on a personal 6-0 flurry at the end of the second period, keeping New York neck-and-neck with Seattle.
As both teams headed to their respective locker rooms, the Liberty shot 48.5% from the field and 61% on threes, making eight of their 13 attempts. The final 20 minutes of the game saw them go 1-for-11 as the offense ran cold and the defense fell apart before their eyes.
Seattle went on to outscore New York 38-26 in the second half. 24 points came in the paint, eventually ballooning to a 44-28 advantage for the game.
The third quarter saw the Storm’s tide turn in favor with a 14-2 push at the onset, where Storm All-Star Gabby Williams netted eight points, including two three-pointers. One of them forced Liberty coach Sandy Brondello to take a timeout at the 8:03 mark.
13 points went unanswered before Liberty guard Natasha Cloud ended it with a pull-up jumper at 4:11. Seattle went on to outscore New York 22-6 to close the quarter with the help of rookie center Dominique Malonga, who scored five points and corralled five rebounds in under four minutes. The French star set a new career-high in boards in a quarter and a single outing. Seattle held New York to 11.1% shooting, including 2-for-18 on field goals and 0-for-6 on three-pointers in the period.
Seattle jumped out on an 8-2 push to begin the fourth quarter and Malonga was responsible for six consecutive points, giving Seattle a 71-52 lead with 8:06 on the clock. She tied her season-high of 11 points as well as five rebounds, but she had those in three minutes.
The Liberty ended its cold spell with a 6-0 run of their own. After scoring 20 points in the first half, Ionescu disappeared in the second, managing to score just two points thanks to the Storm’s dynamic perimeter defense.
Hours after officially being recognized as All-Star reserves, Williams and Diggins put together two of their most effective showings of the season on both sides of the ball. Williams had 16 points, seven rebounds, five assists, and three steals. According to Storm coach Noelle Quinn, her team finished with 30+ deflections and the All-Star forward led with the most.
Defense was the name of the game for Seattle, scoring 20 points off 17 Liberty giveaways.
10-time All-Star Nneka Ogwumike was on early and often with 15 points and seven rebounds. Her frontcourt mate in center Ezi Magbegor had one of her most impactful performances of the season with 14 points, five rebounds, three assists, and two blocks. She now has five consecutive games with at least two rejections.
Quick Storm notes
15,515 was the announced attendance at the Barclays Center between our visiting Seattle Storm and the New York Liberty.
Seattle’s defense held New York to a season-low 70 points on just 35.3% (24-for-68) shooting from the field.
The Storm defense held the Liberty to just six points in the third quarter for New York’s first single-digit scoring quarter of the season, which matches the lowest-scoring quarter by any team so far in 2025.
Seattle accounts for two of the three highest points off turnovers totals against New York this season, as the Storm scored 20 points off turnovers after putting in 22 points off turnovers in the team’s last matchup with the Liberty.
The Storm outscored New York 44-28 in the paint.
Gabby Williams scored a team-high 16 points with seven rebounds and five assists to go with three steals and a block. This marks Williams’ 10th game with at least 10 points, five rebounds, five assists, and multiple steals, which ranks fourth in Storm franchise history.
Williams leads the WNBA with 15 multi-steal games in 2025, which ties Nneka Ogwumike (2024) for the most such games in the first half of a season in franchise history.
Nneka Ogwumike posted 15 points and seven rebounds with four assists and a steal as she passed DeWanna Bonner for No. 8 on the all-time rebounds list with her 3,102nd career rebound.
Ogwumike recorded her 86th career game with at least 15 points, five rebounds, and three assists, tying Angel McCoughtry and Chamique Holdsclaw for the ninth-most such games in WNBA history.
Ezi Magbegor scored a season-high 14 points while converting on 66.7% (4-for-5) of her shots from the field and made a season-high six free throws on 75% (6-for-8) shooting from the line. Magbegor added six rebounds, three assists, and two blocks.
Dominique Malonga tied her career high with 11 points and grabbed a career-high eight rebounds. Malonga is the second player in WNBA history to record at least 11 points and seven rebounds in under 10 minutes played, and the first to do so as a rookie.
Malonga made 71.4% (5-for-7) of her field goal attempts to pass Liz Cambage for the third-most games shooting better than 50% from the field before turning 20 years old, with her 11th such game. Malonga grabbed five boards in just three minutes during the third quarter, setting her new career high for rebounds in a quarter.
Skylar Diggins dropped 13 points with six assists, two steals, and two blocks, including the 200th block of her career. Diggins recorded at least five assists with multiple steals and multiple blocks for the seventh time with Seattle, passing Breanna Stewart for the most such games in franchise history.
This marks the 59th consecutive regular-season game with three or more assists for Diggins, which ties Ticha Penicheiro for the seventh-longest streak in WNBA history.
Erica Wheeler scored five points with three rebounds and three assists as she extended her career-long streak to eight consecutive games with at least one made three-pointer.
Wheeler has also recorded a steal in 12 consecutive games, which matches the second-longest steals streak by any player this season.
What’s next?
Following this early Sunday road win over the New York Liberty at the Barclays Center, our Seattle Storm will close out their four-game road trip on Wednesday, July 9th in the first game of a sort of “home and home” set. That game comes against the Connecticut Sun with a tipoff time of 8AM PDT, being broadcast locally in the Storm broadcast region on the CW Seattle, the first of consecutive games against a Sun team that has won just two games at this point in the season.
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