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Storm-Lynx Preview

Jul 16, 2010 - 8:38 PM By SAMANTHA PANITCH STATS Writer

Seattle (17-2) at Minnesota (7-11), 3:30 p.m. EDT

Few teams have been able to stop the Seattle Storm from dominating the rest of the WNBA in 2010.

The league-leading Storm will try to extend their franchise-record winning streak to nine on Saturday when they travel to face the Minnesota Lynx, winners of five of seven after a slow start.

Seattle (17-2) comes in with a 9 1/2-game lead in the West over Minnesota (7-11), which is trying to hold off Phoenix, San Antonio and Los Angeles for the No. 2 seed in the conference.

The Storm needed triple overtime to beat the pesky Mercury 111-107 on Wednesday. Sue Bird's 3-pointer with 6.4 seconds to play in the third overtime helped Seattle improve to 7-2 on the road

"We felt fortunate to have won because we felt that we have opportunities earlier that didn't play out, but at the same time I thought that we competed hard and showed a lot of resiliency in ourselves." Storm coach Brian Agler said.

Bird finished with 14, but Lauren Jackson shined for Seattle, which hasn't lost since June 17 at Indiana. The two-time WNBA MVP led the Storm with 31 points on 10-for-11 shooting from the field, and pulled down a season-high 18 rebounds after missing one game with a mild concussion.

Jackson is second in the league with 21.9 points and in the top 10 with 9.7 rebounds per game. She finished with 18 points and eight rebounds in the Storm's only matchup with Minnesota this season, a 79-76 victory on May 19 in Seattle.

The Lynx are also coming off a late victory Wednesday, 83-81 over East-leading Atlanta. Nicky Anosike had a late steal and then fed Rebekkah Brunson for the go-ahead layup with 7.2 seconds remaining.

Anosike finished with a season-high 16 points. Seimone Augustus led Minnesota with 22 and Lindsay Whalen added 17 for the Lynx, who were pleased despite squandering a 14-point first-half lead.

"We're feeling really good today," Whalen told the Lynx's official website. "We're definitely going to enjoy this one and get back to work (Friday) and get ready for Saturday. We're in a good rhythm right now and we're practicing really hard."

Augustus, who leads Minnesota with 17.8 points per game, missed the previous matchup with Seattle while recovering from abdominal surgery. Rookie Monica Wright led the Lynx with 19 points and Anosike had 13 and 10 rebounds.

Minnesota is looking to go 3-0 on a season-high six-game homestand. The Lynx and Storm split two games last season at the Target Center.