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Shock-Storm Preview

Aug 7, 2010 - 5:58 AM By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN STATS Senior Writer

Tulsa (5-22) at Seattle (23-4), 10:00 p.m. EDT

The Seattle Storm have won 14 straight at home. They should be heavily favored to beat the Tulsa Shock on Saturday night, although they suffered a stunning loss to the league's worst team earlier this week.

The Storm look to avenge that defeat and take advantage of a Shock team playing on consecutive nights when the teams complete their season series.

Seattle (23-4) is closing in on clinching home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, and hasn't lost at KeyArena all year. Its 14-0 home start is the best by a WNBA team since Los Angeles went 16-0 in 2001.

The Storm, though, haven't had a very good week. Their 13-game winning streak was snapped last Sunday in a 72-71 loss at Minnesota. They suffered a more surprising defeat Tuesday, 84-75 at the Shock.

Seattle, which had won its first two meetings with Tulsa by an average of 13.5 points, committed 24 turnovers to help the Shock (5-23) end a seven-game slide.

"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. Tulsa has played hungry all year long. They work hard, they play hard, they try to make things happen, and tonight they did and took advantage of the opportunities."

Repeating that upset should be difficult for Tulsa, which employs an uptempo style under coach Nolan Richardson. The Shock have looked like a tired team in the second halves of back-to-back contests, losing by an average of 20.0 points on four previous such occasions.

Seattle avoided a third straight loss with Thursday's 83-82 home win over Connecticut. The Storm trailed by five points with less than two minutes left before rallying.

"Even though we didn't play our best, we won and everyone can be at ease a little bit," point guard Sue Bird said. "We know we need to work on some things and get back to where we were a few weeks ago. Everyone knows that and we're focused."

Lauren Jackson scored 31 points for Seattle to snap out of a three-game stretch in which she'd averaged 14.7. Swin Cash added 21 to match her output from the back-to-back losses.

"That was so much better than what we've been through the last couple of games," Agler said.

Tulsa dropped its fifth straight road game Friday, blowing a double-digit lead en route to a 77-70 loss at Los Angeles. Ivory Latta was the only player in double figures for the Shock with 16 points.

"It hurts to be up by 12 or so and then lose the game like this," Latta said.