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Michelle Snow helps Silver Stars beat Lynx

Jun 27, 2010 - 3:19 AM SAN ANTONIO(AP) -- Michelle Snow scored 15 of her season-high 23 points in the first half and had nine rebounds to help the San Antonio Silver Stars beat the Minnesota Lynx 80-66 on Saturday night.

Becky Hammon added a season-best 21 points and a career-high 10 assists, and Sophia Young had 17 points for the Silver Stars (5-7), playing their first home game in 15 days.

Snow was 6 of 6 from the field in the first half and 7 of 8 overall. She added a career-best nine free throws and finished a point short of her career high.

"I feel like they don't respect us in the post," said Snow, whose role was amplified by an injury to her backup, Ruth Riley, at Phoenix last week. "Minnesota, to start the game, wasn't even guarding us. We were wide open under the basket. That says a lot about what they think of you in the post."

When the Lynx tried to clamp down around the basket in the second half, that opened things up for Hammon from the outside. She scored 17 points after halftime, including four 3-pointers.

"Michelle is extremely important to us, and we know that we want to get her active early and often," Hammon said. "The more she gets touches early in the game, that's just going to loosen up everybody else down the stretch."

The Lynx entered the game with a three-game winning streak and hit their first three shots to take a 6-0 lead. But the Silver Stars scored the next nine points and led the rest of the way.

San Antonio took sole possession of second place in the Western Conference, a half-game ahead of Phoenix but six games behind Seattle. The Silver Stars, already 0-2 against the Storm this season, visit Seattle on Tuesday night.

"We knew we had to get better (defensively), and we got better in that," said Silver Stars coach Sandy Brondello, whose team - the worst in the league in rebounding - had a 40-35 edge on the boards and held Minnesota to 38.5-percent shooting.

"My challenge is, can we do two games in a row? That's the key now. We've won one game; there's no need to jump around, 'Hoorah!' Seattle has dominated us in two games. Can we put our best game forward? We'll see."

Seimone Augustus led Minnesota (5-10) with 14 points on 6-of-20 shooting.

"We couldn't put the ball in the hole," Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said. "That's what it came down to, and those guys shot (52.8) percent. We couldn't match that on the offensive end. Seimone Augustus is our go-to player, and she had some good opportunities. It just wasn't her night."

Both teams were short-handed. The Silver Stars were down to nine players after injuries to Riley (broken right pinkie) and Megan Frazee (left meniscus) in the past eight days. Minnesota was missing Candice Wiggins, out for the season after rupturing her left Achilles' tendon Tuesday.