Sky rallies to stop losing streak at 4
Epiphanny Prince did it again.
Wait. No she didn’t. But the Chicago Sky’s hair-raising 71-69 victory Sunday over the Atlanta Dream at the Allstate Arena sure had the feel of the improbable magic that Prince worked early in the season.
Of course, maybe it wasn’t magic at all on a night when Rev. Jesse Jackson was in the house and there was a free Gospel music concert after the game.
“I made a comment about it earlier … divine intervention,” Sky coach Pokey Chatman said with a smile. “It’s fitting with a comeback victory like this.”
Before going down with a broken foot June 16 that will keep her out through mid-August, Prince went on a scoring binge of multiple 30-plus point games that also included a couple of spectacular buzzer-beating 3-pointers, both of which catapulted the Sky to dramatic victories.
One of those was June 2 in Atlanta against the Dream, the two-time defending Eastern Conference champion that can’t seem to hold a lead against the Sky.
That day, the Dream was up as many as 22 points before ultimately succumbing to Prince’s heroics. This time the Dream lead was a many as 14.
But the Sky, which snapped a four-game losing streak, improves to 8-5 and moves into a second-place tie in the Eastern Conference with the Indiana Fever, outscored the Dream by 10 points in the fourth quarter.
The late push came on the strength of lockdown defense and the best production of the season by the bench, which outscored Atlanta’s bench 39-11.
Four Sky players, led by center Sylvia Fowles with 21 points, scored in double-figures. Three of those players are reserves, all of whom hit clutch 3-pointers down the stretch. Shay Murphy scored 13 points, including 2 three-pointers, Sonja Petrovic had 12 points with 2 three-pointers and Le’coe Willingham had 11 points with 3 three-pointers.
“It’s been hard since Piph’s injury. We needed this big time,” said Petrovic, a rookie from Serbia who has scored in double figures in both Atlanta games.
“With (Prince) out, you have to step up. It’s a big loss and you’re not going to compensate with one person. It has to be a mix of all of us helping.”
Willingham, who has gotten off to a slow start this summer, helped with her best all-around game of the season. Not only did she finish with her season high in points (she was averaging 1.4 ppg), she also added 6 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 assists and some tough defense in the post.
“I felt like my old self today and it really felt good,” said Willingham, who was acquired by the Sky in the off-season trade with Seattle that was headlined by the addition of star forward Swin Cash. “It’s been a difficult transition for me. Today, I found energy and it translated into everything I did on the court.
“We have to have that type of effort out of all of us (on the bench). Sometimes, it just takes a little time to find your stride and we’ve all had our struggles at different times trying to do that. But tonight everything fell into place for us and the effort was there.”
The effort was particularly noticeable on the defensive end, where the Sky held a Dream team (7-8) that shot 61 percent from the field Friday in Tulsa to a 39 percent clip.
Meanwhile, Atlanta forward Angel McCoughtry, the WNBA’s leading scorer, just about hit her 22.8-point average with 21 points, but she struggled to get almost all of them. She connected on only 8 of 24 shots.
“We talked to our players about having a sense of urgency,” Chatman said. “We talked about getting stops and getting rebounds and we made it tough for Angel. Players like (Petrovic and Willingham) also did some really good defensive stuff.
“It was just nice to see us be down, come back and win.”
pbabcock@dailyherald.com