Confident Sky wins third straight
What's that in the Sky?
Not a bird, not a plane ... but confidence.
Suddenly, the Chicago Sky is the hottest team in the WNBA and making a charge towards the playoffs that just recently seemed unlikely at best.
Not only did the Sky win Sunday night in its first game back at the UIC Pavilion since the WNBA's monthlong Olympic break, it also beat one of the league's best teams. In overtime.
The Sky's 82-81 win over Detroit, which is the defending Eastern Conference champion and currently in second place in the standings, marks its third victory in a row and puts the final playoff spot in the East just two games out of reach.
Since resuming the season after 33 days off, the Sky has won its first three games, beginning with back-to-back road victories in New York and Washington. It marks just the second time in franchise history the Sky has won three straight.
The Sky also now owns a 2-1 advantage over the Shock on the season, and the one loss was by just 3 points in Detroit.
"This is great. Detroit is one of the best teams in the league right now," said Sky forward Candice Dupree, who led the way with a game-high 24 points. "I don't know what it is. I don't know if we match up well with them or what. For the most part, I think we do and that helps. But I think this game was all about who wanted it more tonight. This is huge for us."
The Sky also got 15 points from Jia Perkins and 10 from Sylvia Fowles, who was honored after the game with a special video tribute that chronicled her experience of winning an Olympic gold medal with the U.S. national team.
Fowles, Perkins and Dupree were the only Sky players to score in overtime, which ended on back-to-back misplays -- first by the Sky, then by the Shock.
The Sky had its 82-81 lead with five seconds left and had to only run out the clock, but the ball was mishandled and rolled out of bounds. That gave Detroit possession with 3.3 seconds left.
The Shock came out of a timeout with the ball at half-court, but had to scramble just to get a shot off before time expired. A long 3-pointer by Katie Smith was way off. Smith then pounded her fist on the scorer's table and seemed to indicate that the Shock had run the wrong play.
"It looked like someone went in the wrong direction," Perkins said, starting to laugh. "But oh well. I'm not going to complain."
Smith led four Shock players in double figures with 23 points. With her first point of the game, Smith became the third player in WNBA history to score 5,000 career points.
The other two are Lisa Leslie (5,853) and Tina Thompson (5,281).