Jewell Loyd wasn’t going to get swept.
After a miserable 1-for-8 shooting performance on three-pointers during a lackluster loss against the Minnesota Lynx two days earlier, the WNBA scoring leader made five threes and scored 31 points in Sunday’s rematch as the Storm cruised to an 88-74 victory in front of 6,525 at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
It was the fourth straight road victory for Seattle (10-22), which has won six of its past nine games overall and beat the Lynx for the first time this season after three defeats.
It was also the 10th game of the season with at least 30 points for Loyd, who connected on 10 of 25 field-goal attempts, including 5 of 10 on three-pointers, and 6 of 7 free throws.
“The difference between today and the other night was her defensive intensity and focus,” coach Noelle Quinn said when asked about Loyd, who had 15 points in Friday’s 78-70 loss to the Lynx. “I know we’re asking a lot of her on the offensive end. I thought she played her best on both ends.
“When Jewell gets cooking, it’s hard to stop, but also fun to watch. It’s so helpful. When she’s in a groove, it feels contagious. Everybody starts hitting shots.”
The Storm shot 42.1%, were 10 of 26 from behind the arc and held the Lynx to 35.3% on field goals and 22.2% (4 of 18) on three-pointers. Seattle committed nine turnovers — down from 16 in Friday’s matchup — and forced 12 turnovers for 21 points.
“We did a better job on our defensive coverages with (Napheesa) Collier and (Kayla) McBride,” Quinn said. “Just being in their space and just being very locked into the different actions that they were running.”
Collier averaged 29.3 points in the previous three games against the Storm, but Ezi Magbegor (12 points, five rebounds, four assists, two blocks) finally got the best of their WNBA All-Star matchup and held the Lynx forward to 14 points on 5-for-13 shooting.
With Collier neutralized and McBride getting 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting, Minnesota didn’t have enough offense to keep pace with a Storm attack that outscored the Lynx in every quarter.
Seattle was up 21-15 after the first quarter and rookie point guard Jade Melbourne gave it a 25-15 lead early in the second period with a contested dribble-drive layup over forward Nikolina Milic.
Minnesota briefly went ahead 34-33 before Loyd answered with a couple of three-pointers during an 8-0 flurry to give the Storm a 41-34 lead.
Minutes later, Loyd made a step-back three from 25 feet that put the Storm up 47-40 at halftime.
“Anytime you’re on the road you want to get off to a good start and take the crowd out of it,” Loyd said. “We kind of got momentum. We were hitting shots and competing. We know that Minnesota is a great team and they’re not going to go away easy.
“We wanted to keep pressure on with everything we did. We wanted to be aggressive, whether it was screening, going to the rim hard or running the floor hard. We wanted to have that mindset, just be aggressive.”
After halftime, Seattle pushed its advantage to 57-42 before Minnesota battled back to make it 57-50 late in the third.
But the Storm regained control and led 64-52 to start the fourth quarter thanks in large part to rookie Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu, who tallied all eight of her points and six of her career-high 15 rebounds in the third.
The Lynx (15-17) never got any closer than 10 points the rest of the way and pulled their starters after falling behind 80-61 with 5:02 left.
Soon after, Quinn emptied her bench and every Seattle player made a basket, including Sami Whitcomb, who had 10 points and two three-pointers.
With eight games remaining, the Storm are 10th in the standings and 3 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Sparks (13-18) for the eighth and final playoff spot.
On Tuesday, Seattle plays the Chicago Sky (12-20) and concludes its three-game trip Thursday against the Indiana Fever (9-24).