Mercury vs. Storm: Valeriane Ayayi's 18 and 10 End Phoenix's Skid and Hand Seattle a 10th Straight Loss

Seattle went into the locker room Saturday feeling decent about itself, having closed the first half on a 12-5 run to get within 48-41. Less than three minutes after the break it was 62-41, Phoenix had scored the first 14 points of the third quarter, and the Storm's losing streak was about to hit double digits.

Valeriane Ayayi had 18 points and 10 rebounds off the bench, and the Phoenix Mercury ran away with a 93-73 win over the Seattle Storm at Mortgage Matchup Center. Phoenix ended a four-game losing streak. Seattle has now dropped 10 in a row.

One Good Quarter, Then a Very Long Afternoon

The Storm actually came out of the gate looking like a team with no idea it was in a slump. Seattle shot 48 percent in the first quarter and led 24-19, and for 10 minutes the 3-13 team looked like the better one. Then the Mercury hit Seattle with eight straight to open the second, and the whole game tilted.

Phoenix followed that with a 13-0 run later in the quarter, going from 30-29 to 43-29 in under three minutes, finished off by an Ayayi 3 and two Kahleah Copper free throws. Dominique Malonga, who had been fighting her shot all day, scored seven in the 12-5 push that kept it respectable at intermission.

That was the end of respectable. The Mercury's run spilled across halftime, 15 straight in total, and Phoenix won the third quarter 33-20 to take an 81-61 lead into the fourth. The lead reached 26 at its peak. The final frame finished 12-12, which is the kind of quarter you get when both sides have already checked out, and the margin stayed exactly where the third quarter left it.

Five Ways to Beat You

Ayayi was the headliner because she did the dirty stuff and the pretty stuff in the same 22 minutes. She went 8-of-8 at the line, hit two of her four 3s, pulled down nine defensive rebounds and finished plus-22, the best mark on either team. Bench players are not supposed to dictate a game that thoroughly.

She was not the only one filling up a box score. Noemie Brochant was the most efficient player in the building, shooting 6-of-7 overall and 4-of-5 from 3 for 16 points while handing out 10 assists. Natasha Mack had 10 points and 10 rebounds, giving Phoenix three players with double-doubles. Copper scored 17 with seven rebounds, getting to the line nine times on a day when her 3-point shot was not falling. Lexi Held scored 11 in her first career start, and DeWanna Bonner added 10 in 23 minutes off the bench. Alyssa Thomas took only six shots, because she did not need to take more, and still had eight points and nine assists to go with a plus-21.

For Seattle, Natisha Hiedeman was the bright spot, scoring 20 on 6-of-9 shooting with four assists. Everyone else had a rough go of it. Rookie Flau'jae Johnson scored 13 but needed 17 shots and hit just one of her seven 3s. Malonga finished with 10 on 4-of-16, and her minus-35 was the ugliest number on the sheet. Zia Cooke scored 10 off the bench, six of them at the line, and Awa Fam hauled in 10 rebounds to go with her five points.

Foul trouble did not help. Seattle was called for 24 fouls to Phoenix's 13, and four different Storm players finished with four apiece, including starter Jade Melbourne, who lasted just 11 minutes. That is how Phoenix ended up with 26 free throw attempts, and Ayayi and Copper combined for 15 makes on their own. Seattle was excellent at the line in its own right at 15-of-17, but it is hard to make up ground that way when you are also getting outscored in the paint and on the break.

The Turning Point: Fourteen Straight to Open the Third

There is no mystery about when this game ended. Phoenix came out of halftime with a seven-point lead, and by the 7:08 mark of the third it was 21. Seattle had just done the hard work of clawing back into the game before the break, and all of that effort disappeared in the time it takes to order a coffee. For a team on a nine-game losing streak at tipoff, a run like that tends to land a little harder. The Storm did not recover, and the Mercury never gave them a reason to think they could.

Stats That Matter

• 26 assists: Phoenix's total on 31 made field goals, with Brochant and Thomas combining for 19 of them.
• 49-36: The field-goal percentage gap, with Seattle's early 48 percent long gone by the end.
• 39-29: Phoenix on the boards, including 32 defensive rebounds that kept most Storm trips to one look.
• 8 blocks: The Mercury's total at the rim, compared with two for Seattle.
• 13-4: Fast-break points, with Phoenix happily running off all those misses.

What It Means

The Mercury are 5-12, and this was only their second home win of the season against six losses at home. A blowout of a struggling team does not fix that, but after four straight defeats it counts as a pulse, and they also moved to 2-0 against Seattle this season after a 72-68 win on June 3. Next up is a trip to Indiana on Monday.

The Storm are 3-14 and 1-8 on the road. Their last win came on May 24 against Washington, nearly a month ago, and the next chance comes Monday at home against Dallas. Ten straight is a streak that starts to change how a season gets talked about, and the answers are not getting any easier to find.

Sleepless, Still

Sleepless in Seattle ends with two strangers finally finding what they were looking for at the top of the Empire State Building. The basketball version is still wandering around the lobby. Ten games and counting, and the elevator has yet to show up.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press.