Storm vs. Sky: Dominique Malonga's 26 and 10 End Seattle's 11-Game Losing Streak in a 97-88 Win

Eleven losses. Thirty-five days since the last win. A slump long enough that a Storm victory had started to sound like a weather event. On Monday night at Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle finally got to remember what the happy locker room smells like.

Dominique Malonga's line read 26 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks, Natisha Hiedeman chipped in 18 points and nine assists, and Seattle beat the Chicago Sky 97-88 to put that 11-game losing streak out of its misery. It was the Storm's first win since an 82-64 victory at Los Angeles on July 6, and they made the 11,655 people in the building earn it.

Seattle Never Trailed, and It Still Wasn't Relaxing

There were zero lead changes. Chicago's largest lead on the night was zero. Seattle went up 22-16 after a quarter, ripped off nine straight early in the second to turn 22-18 into 31-18, and took a 47-33 lead into halftime. The margin peaked at 17 shortly after the break, at 50-33.

Then a team that had forgotten how this movie ends started checking its watch. Chicago scored eight straight to make it 50-41 and won the third quarter 33-27, leaving it 74-66 going to the fourth. Seattle got the lead back to 10 early in the period, and that is when DiJonai Carrington took the whole thing personally. She hit a floater with 4:54 left, drove for a layup at 4:26, and after Kamilla Cardoso scored, she stole the ball and finished a fast break with 2:52 remaining.

That made it 84-82. If you have followed this team since July, you know how that scene usually plays out. Four of those 11 losses came by five points or fewer, including three-point heartbreakers against Indiana and Minnesota.

The Turning Point: Two Answers in 21 Seconds

This time Seattle answered. Malonga scored on a driving layup off a Hiedeman pass with 2:33 left. Twenty-one seconds later, Ezi Magbegor found Zia Cooke for a corner 3 and an 89-82 lead. The Sky kept coming, with Cardoso, Courtney Vandersloot and Carrington all scoring in the final 90 seconds, but Chicago never got closer than five the rest of the way. Cooke's turnaround with 52.3 seconds left made it 93-86, and Hiedeman closed the night with four straight free throws inside the final 23 seconds.

Nothing about those 21 seconds was complicated. A team that had spent a month finding new ways to lose simply made the next two shots, and that was enough to change the night.

Malonga Was the Reason, Hiedeman Was the Method

Malonga shot 9 of 14, went 3 of 4 from deep and 5 of 7 at the line, and added two steals in 30 minutes without committing a foul. A player who can block three shots and hit three 3s in the same game, foul-free, is a reason to keep buying tickets to a 7-28 team.

Hiedeman was stranger and just as useful. She made only three of her 10 shots and still scored 18 because she went 12 of 12 at the line, and her nine assists came with zero turnovers. Think of her as the accountant of this win: nothing flashy, every number balanced. Seattle shot just 32 of 71 from the field and still scored 97, largely because it kept getting to the line and kept making the trip count.

Cooke gave Seattle 16 off the bench on 7-of-12 shooting. Taylor Thierry had seven points and six rebounds and finished a game-best plus-16. Magbegor scored just five and still went plus-15, and Stefanie Dolson hit both of her 3s. Jade Melbourne fouled out in 21 minutes with nine points.

Carrington was the best player on the other side by a mile. Back for the first time since a Flagrant 2 and an ejection against Indiana on Saturday, she came off the bench, played 27 minutes and scored a career-high 26, making all 10 of her free throws and adding six rebounds and five steals. Cardoso had 15 points and 13 rebounds, seven on the offensive glass, but also six turnovers. Vandersloot scored 13 with eight of them coming at the line, and Natasha Cloud had eight assists. Sydney Taylor (groin) did not play.

Stats That Matter

• 12 of 12: Hiedeman at the line, in a game Seattle won by nine.
• 22-9: Seattle's edge in points off turnovers, with 15 Chicago giveaways doing the damage.
• 48-38: Chicago's advantage in the paint, along with a 13-9 edge on the offensive glass. The Sky did plenty of the hard stuff.
• 25 of 28: Seattle's free-throw shooting, against 22 of 28 for Chicago.
• 0: Lead changes. Chicago chased this one all night and never caught it.

What It Means

Seattle is 7-28 overall and 5-11 at home, so nobody is printing playoff tickets. But this was also the Storm's first home win since they beat Atlanta 105-90 on June 27, and the next game is Friday against Portland, the team that handed them loss No. 11, 100-93, on Saturday. Revenge tours have started from worse places, though not many.

Chicago fell to 12-21 and 4-12 on the road with its second straight loss. These teams have now split two meetings, with the Sky winning 95-90 on July 15. Chicago heads to Golden State on Wednesday, where the Valkyries are waiting on a four-game winning streak, so the next few days will not get any gentler.

Final Word

Bill Murray finally woke up on Feb. 3 at the end of Groundhog Day, and the radio played something new. The Storm got their version on Aug. 10. The record is still ugly, one win does not rewrite a season, and Chicago very nearly ruined the whole thing in the last five minutes. But for one night Seattle got out of the loop, and Malonga looked like the kind of player who can keep it that way for more than a day at a time.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Streak and career-high details as reported by the Associated Press.