Bird helps Storm win her final game in New York
NEW YORK » Gabby Williams scored a season-high 23 points in Seattle’s 81-72 win over the New York Liberty on Sunday in what was Storm guard Sue Bird’s final regular-season game in her hometown.
Bird, the league’s all-time assists leader, announced Thursday that she would retire at the end of the 2022 season. She grew up in Long Island, about an hour from Barclays Center.
Bird sealed the game with a 3-pointer as the shot clock ran down with 18.9 seconds left. She held her followthrough much to the admiration of the crowd, who gave her a standing ovation as she came out of the game right after. The 21-year veteran finished with 11 points.
ACES 96, LYNX 95 » A’ja Wilson scored 25 points, Dearica Hamby added 16 — including a 3-pointer in the closing seconds — and the Aces rallied from a 14-point deficit to beat the Lynx.
Kayla McBride hit a 3-pointer and Jessica Shepard scored four point in a 7-2 spurt that trimmed Minnesota’s deficit to 93-91 with 1:38 to play. Neither team scored again until Chelsea Gray shook a reaching McBride with a behindthe-back move to get into the lane and kicked it out to a wide-open Hamby for a 3-pointer from the left corner to give Las Vegas a fivepoint advantage with 15.5 seconds left.
Shepard made a layup about 10 seconds later and, after a turnover by Gray on the inbounds pass, Shepard inexplicably drove for layup with 0.4 seconds left to make it 96-95.
FEVER 89, SKY 87 » NaLyssa Smith scored a career-high 26 points — including a goahead three-point play in the closing seconds to help the
Fever erase a 15-point second-half deficit and beat the Sky.
Smith was fouled as she hit a turn-around jumper from the left block and made the free throw to give the Fever an 88-87 lead with 39 seconds left.
Chicago missed two shots on the other end before Victoria Vivians was fouled with 7.8 seconds remaining. She made 1-of-2 free throws to give the Fever (5-13) a twopoint lead.
After the Sky called a timeout, Courtney Vandersloot missed a short baseline jumper and the Fever
held on.
MYSTICS 71, SUN 63 » Elena Delle Donne scored all 15 of her points in the first half and the Mystics beat the Sun.
Ariel Atkins and Shatori Walker-Kimbrough each scored 10 points for Washington (11-7).
Delle Donne converted a three-point play and then hit a 3-pointer about a minute later to make it 14-9 midway through the first quarter and the Mystics led the rest of the way.
Connecticut scored six consecutive points to trim its deficit to eight nearly-2 minutes later but Alysha Clark scored four points in a 7-0 spurt that made it 38-23 with 6 minutes left in the first half and the Sun couldn’t recover. WINGS 92, SPARKS 82 » Arike Ogunbowale hit five 3-pointers and finished with 27 points, Marina Mabrey scored a season-high 21 points and the Wings used a third-quarter run to take control in their 92-82 win over the Sparks.
Allisha Gray had 20 points, a season-high 12 rebounds, six assists and three steals for Dallas. Kayla Thornton added 15 points for Dallas (8-8). The Wings have won back-to-back games after losing four in a row and six of the last seven.