Dallas turned a close first half into a runaway Monday night, beating Seattle 79-56 in Arlington, Texas, as Aziaha James sparked the bench with 18 points and Paige Bueckers came within one assist of a triple-double. The Wings led 36-25 at halftime, then opened the third quarter with an 8-0 burst that pushed the margin to 44-25 and left Seattle chasing the game from there.
The result matters now because it was the kind of compressed, one-sided finish that can change the tone around a team in a hurry. Bueckers scored all 10 of her points in the first half, added nine rebounds and seven assists, and helped Dallas keep pressure on a Seattle team that could never find enough clean possessions. The Wings are 6-3 after the win, while the Storm fell to 3-7.
Dallas did not need a huge scoring night from its rookie guard to take control. Four other Wings starters finished with nine points, Jessica Shepard pulled down eight rebounds, and the team outworked Seattle on the glass 48-36. Even with Arike Ogunbowale going 2 of 13 from the field and Maddy Siegrist hitting only three of her 10 shots, Dallas still separated because the ball moved and the second unit delivered.
Seattle’s offense never settled in. Flau’jae Johnson led the Storm with 16 points and 10 rebounds before fouling out with 39.7 seconds left, and Natisha Hiedeman added 11 points, but the team still made only 20 of 61 field goals and shot 33% overall. It also made just 4 of 19 attempts from distance, and it did not get its first field goal of the second half until the 5:39 mark of the third quarter.
Johnson’s night carried a note beyond the box score. Her 15 blocks in 10 games put her alongside Elena Delle Donne as the second rookie guard in WNBA history to reach that mark, even as Seattle absorbed another loss that deepens the pressure on a 3-7 start. Dallas, which has already shown it can win both shootouts and grind-it-out games, now heads into the rest of its WNBA games with a record that looks a lot more stable than Seattle’s.
The bigger question is whether the Storm can find offense fast enough to match the defensive work Johnson is giving them. Monday’s result did not just expose a bad shooting night; it showed how quickly Seattle can be buried when the first good look comes too late and the margin is already gone.
