The Seattle Storm aren’t having the best season. They are 3-12 and have lost their last eight games. Despite how bad that sounds, the team’s last three performances have shown improvement and reasons for positivity.
After multiple blowout losses, the Storm started last week with a 101-91 loss to the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces. The Storm recorded a season-high 33 made field goals, and last year’s No. 2 overall pick, center Dominique Malonga, in her first start since returning from a concussion, led the Storm with 19 points in less than 17 minutes.
The Storm returned home to face the Los Angeles Sparks and lost 88-83, but pulled within a possession with less than a minute remaining. In that game, the Storm recorded a season-high 26 assists and shot 46.9% from the field, while all five starters scored double figures for the first time this season.
Friday’s game against Golden State was the tightest result, finishing 76-72 in a loss. It was just a one-point game with as little as 13.4 seconds remaining. Seattle forced 14 Golden State turnovers and converted them into 24 points, the most points off turnovers the team has scored this season. Seattle also held Golden State to 21.6% shooting from deep, the Valkyries’ worst 3-point percentage in a game this season.
After Golden State took a 15-point lead in the third quarter, the Storm went on a 14-3 run spanning the third and fourth quarters and held the Valkyries to just 10 points in the final period.
Though the Storm couldn’t pull off the wins in those three games, they can feel that they are getting closer to how they want to play and find success.
“Our offense is a huge part,” veteran center Stefanie Dolson said to The IX Sports of her team’s improvements. “A lot of teams are going to score, and a lot of teams aren’t playing defense, so if we’re able to score, we can get stops, and I think we’re seeing that once we start scoring the basketball, we are in these games.”
To Dolson’s point, in the Storm’s games before June 8 against Vegas, they scored a league-worst 94.3 points per 100 possessions. Over the last three games, that has improved to a middle-of-the-pack 103.8. Their assist percentage also improved from 65.9% to 73.9%, good for second-best in the league over each team’s last three games.
“That’s been a big focal point for us, pretty consistently in our practices, just being able to share the ball, keep it moving … making the reads,” Raman told media after the loss to Los Angeles. “… The more they get comfortable playing with each other, the more their unselfishness by nature is showing up on the court with their ability to share the ball. Seeing that translate to the assist, I was really happy to see that tonight.”
Point guard Natisha Hiedeman told The IX Sports that the improved offense is due to the work behind the scenes and the team’s chemistry slowly but surely coming together. At Monday’s practice, head coach Sonia Raman pointed out that just getting reps has been key, as the number of minutes certain lineup combinations have played together is really small.
Some of that has to do with injuries and late arrivals, particularly Malonga missing several weeks due to a concussion and 2026 No. 3 overall pick Awa Fam arriving late. Veteran center Ezi Magbegor, who is one of few returners from last season, has yet to play this year due to a foot injury.
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“It’s just new people playing together. … It’s learning how to play with each other and where someone wants the ball, when they want the ball, and just figuring that out takes time,” Dolson said. “We didn’t have a lot of time to focus on those little details in the beginning, so we’re kind of just like bringing it back. … It’s hard to make shots when the passes aren’t good or off rhythm so we’ve been working a lot on that and making sure that we can set our teammates up for a successful shot, and I think it’s showing.”
Although the team’s offense has improved, its defense has gone downhill. Before the loss in Vegas, Seattle had a defensive rating of 102.9 points allowed per 100 possessions, the fourth-best in the league during that stretch. In the last three games, it has worsened to 112.3.
Raman said she thinks her team is doing some good things defensively, but the biggest issues are finishing possessions, keeping teams off the glass to limit offensive rebounds and second-chance points, and keeping opponents off the free-throw line.
Dolson, who is in her 13th year in the WNBA, sees the same issues.
“Our set defense is … not bad at all,” Dolson said. “It’s more so when we take a bad shot, and they get in transition, or they get a shot, but then they get the offensive rebound, now we have to play defense again. So I think it’s about the little details like that on defense and then communication.”
Even though people often say that rebounding in particular is all effort, Dolson says that effort is not what is lacking.
After Wednesday’s loss to the Sparks, Raman echoed a similar sentiment. She took responsibility for the defensive rebounding issues and said she has to find ways to make her team better in that department.
“I think that we’re expending a lot of energy flying around and trying to help the helper and be in our defensive rotations, and then when the shot goes up, just being a little bit quicker to react,” Raman said. “I think that the effort’s there, but some of the consistency of it — you can see that sometimes it happens in bunches. But we need to probably approach that a little bit more in terms of our team defense, get more players down there fighting and battling.”
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The larger defensive fix is something that sounds simple but is harder to change in practice.
“I think just working in tandem, moving on a string with each other, having each other’s back, trusting one another, putting a full game plan together,” Hiedeman told The IX Sports when asked what needed to change. “I feel like once we do that a little bit more, it’ll be good.”
With the pieces to end the losing streak slowly coming together, the Storm turn their attention to the revival of the WNBA Cascadia Rivalry. They will play on the road against the Portland Fire on Wednesday for the first regular-season matchup between the Fire and the Storm since 2002.
Since their last game was on Friday, the Storm will enter the matchup more rested than they’ve been most of the season after taking Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday off from practice. After weeks of playing games every other day, the team views the break as a much-needed reset.
“It’s always good, I mean, I love a break, I love an off day,” Dolson said, smiling. “I think it’s important for everyone’s mental, their physical, everything, to just take a step out from basketball and just relax a little bit, not think about it, and then we can get back and be focused.”
The time off allows the team time to get together and continue to build bonds off the court that can contribute to the players’ growing chemistry on it.
“To be able to have a day off and spend a day off with the team, do a little team activity, you know, we’re at the team activity, and it feels like — I don’t know what our record is, it’s bad — but it feels like we’re 13-0 when we’re at the team activity,” Hiedeman said. “So just those vibes and energy still being there and us being collective and a unit still, it was just a lot of fun.”
Throughout all of the losses, the players have said that the vibes have remained positive and the team has remained focused on growth. Some of that growth is finally starting to show; now the question is if it will translate to wins.
