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Sun-Storm Preview

Aug 4, 2010 - 3:35 PM By MATT BECKER STATS Senior Writer

Connecticut (13-13) at Seattle (22-4), 10:30 p.m. EDT

For much of the season, the Seattle Storm have played with the swagger of a team poised to win a championship.

They haven't possessed that same demeanor lately.

Coming off back-to-back losses for the first time all year, the Storm will try to regain their aggressiveness Thursday night when they play host to the struggling Connecticut Sun.

Seattle (22-4), which clinched the top seed in the Western Conference with a victory over Phoenix on July 27, saw its 13-game winning streak end with a 72-71 loss in Minnesota on Sunday. The Storm appeared to have a good chance of bouncing back with a visit to four-win Tulsa on Tuesday, but the Shock pulled off the upset by handing Seattle an 84-75 loss.

Sue Bird had 19 points on 8 of 11 shooting, but the Storm turned the ball over a season-worst 26 times.

"The thing I have found out about this league, being in this league for a long time, is usually the hungrier teams win," Seattle coach Brian Agler said. "We had a long stretch of being hungry and for whatever reason we lost that."

The Storm hope to regain their confidence in Seattle, where they're 13-0.

This will be the Storm's first game against Connecticut since an 86-74 home win last Aug. 27. Bird led Seattle with 21 points and seven assists, while Lauren Jackson and Swin Cash added 17 apiece.

The Sun (13-13), losers of five of six on the road, arrive at KeyArena following Tuesday's tough 111-103 overtime loss in Minnesota. The defeat dropped Connecticut, which has lost three straight and eight of 11, two games behind New York for the East's final playoff spot.

The Sun trailed by 30 midway through the second quarter Tuesday before a furious comeback. They outscored the Lynx 59-37 in the second half, and Renee Montgomery made a 3-pointer at the end of regulation to force overtime.

Although Connecticut seemingly had the momentum, the team fell apart in the extra frame, turning the ball over four times. Montgomery, who finished with a career-best 33 points, also committed an ill-advised foul that cost her team in the final minute.

"We made some dumb plays in overtime," Sun coach Mike Thibault said. "We had turnovers, we took a couple of tough shots, a bad foul, we needed to commit."

Connecticut welcomes Seattle on Aug. 13 to finish the season series.