Sky vs. Storm: Azura Stevens Scores 18 of Her 20 in the First Half as Chicago Holds Off Seattle 95-90

Azura Stevens scored 18 points in the first half on Wednesday, and then she went dark. Nineteen-plus minutes of game clock passed, Seattle crept back from 11 down to within two, and her next basket did not arrive until there were 26.5 seconds left. It was a layup off a Courtney Vandersloot feed, after Vandersloot had milked the clock, and it was the one that mattered most.

That bucket gave the Chicago Sky a 93-88 lead, and they held off the Seattle Storm 95-90 at Wintrust Arena in the team's annual camp game, an 11 a.m. local tip with more tension than most prime-time games manage.

Chicago's Cruise, Seattle's Chase

Seattle's last lead came at 10-9 with 5:52 left in the first. After that, this was Chicago's game to lose, and for a long time it looked nowhere near losing it. The Sky led 26-19 after a quarter, then rattled off 10 straight to turn a 26-23 game into 36-23 with 7:45 left in the second. They hung 30 on the Storm in the period, with Sydney Taylor scoring 12 of her points in that quarter alone, and took a 56-44 lead to the break.

It was 77-69 after three, and Chicago's edge reached 14 at one point in the second half. It was still 86-75 with a little over six minutes to play when Seattle finally woke up. The Storm rolled off nine straight, capped by Flau'jae Johnson's 24-footer with 4:28 left, and a comfortable lead had become an 86-84 game.

Vandersloot's 14-foot pull-up steadied things. After a Jade Melbourne free throw, the game went scoreless for two and a half minutes, both teams trading empty trips with the outcome sitting right there on the table. Natasha Cloud broke the silence with a 24-foot 3 at the 1:35 mark for a 91-85 lead. Melbourne answered with a three-point play. Stevens got her layup. Dominique Malonga scored with 8.4 seconds left, and Cloud finished it with two free throws at the 5.5-second mark.

Stevens Up Front, Reinforcements Behind Her

Stevens finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and four assists on 8-of-16 shooting, including 3-of-6 from deep. Chicago needed every bit of it, because Kamilla Cardoso was out with a knee injury and that left a lot of work up front. Elizabeth Williams responded with five points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks, and per the Sky she passed Ruth Riley for No. 10 on the all-time blocks list along the way.

Taylor added 17 points and five rebounds. The surprise of the day was Chloe Bibby, a developmental player who joined the team June 30 and was making her first appearance of the season. She gave Chicago 14 points and four assists in 19 minutes and finished plus-14, which is not how these debuts usually go. Cloud scored 13 on just five field-goal attempts, with six assists and four steals. Vandersloot had eight points, six assists and three steals in 20 minutes while on a minutes restriction, and her two biggest passes both came in the last 1:35. Gabriela Jaquez chipped in 10.

Seattle's best player was Johnson, who scored a game-high 25 on 11-of-17 shooting with six rebounds, four assists and three steals. Malonga had 16 points and 12 rebounds, seven of them on the offensive glass, though she went 4-of-9 at the line. Awa Fam added 14 points and two blocks, Melbourne scored 11, and Katie Lou Samuelson went a perfect 4-of-4 for 11 off the bench. That's five Storm players in double figures, even with Natasha Hiedeman going 0-for-5 from 3.

Nine Free Throws and 21 Points

Seattle won an awful lot of this game. It out-rebounded Chicago 45-29. It grabbed 16 offensive boards to six. It took the paint 56-46 and the fast break 17-6. It even made one more field goal, 36 to 35.

And it lost, because of two lines. From 3, the Storm went 4-of-25 while the Sky went 11-of-32, a 21-point gap. At the foul line, Seattle missed nine of its 23 free throws in a game decided by five. Make six of those nine and the final score changes hands, at least on paper.

The real pivot came in that scoreless stretch. Seattle spent two and a half minutes one shot from tying the game, and it never got that shot to fall. Then Cloud stepped into her 3, and a one-possession game became a two-possession game with the clock suddenly on Chicago's side. Stevens' layup about a minute later was the finishing touch, but Cloud's make is the one that took the air out of the comeback.

Stats That Matter

• 4-of-25: Seattle from 3-point range, against Chicago's 11-of-32.
• 14-of-23: The Storm at the free-throw line, 61 percent in a five-point loss.
• 27: Chicago assists on 35 made field goals.
• 56-46 and 45-29: Seattle's edges in the paint and on the boards, neither of which saved it.
• 96 percent: The share of the game Chicago spent in the lead.

What It Means

Chicago moves to 8-16 and 4-7 at home, ending a two-game slide that included a 96-91 loss at Dallas, and it wins the first meeting of the season between these teams. Los Angeles visits Wintrust on Friday, the Sky's last game before the All-Star break.

Seattle is 6-20, the only team in the league with 20 losses, and 2-12 on the road. That's three straight defeats for the Storm, all of them away from home, and the road doesn't end yet, with a Friday date at Indiana.

Moneyball, Minus the Happy Ending

Seattle did the hard parts. It beat Chicago on the glass, beat it in transition and scored inside whenever it wanted. What it couldn't do was the math, and as anyone who has seen a certain Brad Pitt movie can tell you, the math always wins eventually. Three is more than two. A free throw is a free throw. Stevens waited 19-plus minutes to score again, and when she finally did, Chicago already had the answer key.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game notes from the Chicago Sky. Context as reported by the Associated Press.