ATLANTA – Angel McCoughtry scored 23 points and Jasmine Thomas added 13 to lead the Atlanta Dream over the Seattle Storm 68-59 on Friday night.
McCoughtry, last season's leading scorer in the WNBA, also had team highs with nine rebounds, seven assists and five steals to help as the Dream improve to 5-1.
Tina Thompson and Temeka Johnson scored 11 points apiece for the Storm, who dropped to 1-3.
Seattle, the league's lowest-scoring team, managed just four points in the third quarter — coming on two baskets by Johnson — and trailed by 16 before an 11-1 run pulled them to 58-52 on Camille Little's layup midway through the fourth.
But that was as close as the Storm would get. Erika De Souza stole the ball from Tanisha Wright a few minutes later and passed it upcourt to McCoughtry for a fast-break layup and a 10-point lead.
The Dream played the first of six games without forward Sancho Lyttle, their leading rebounder and second-leading scorer this season. With Lyttle playing overseas for Spain's national team, Le'Coe Willingham started in her place and went scoreless but did haul in eight rebounds.
Alex Bentley added 11 points for Atlanta, which leads the league in team defense, allowing 68.7 points per game.
The Storm used a 17-3 run in the first, ending on Shekinna Stricklen's layup, to take a 19-13 lead in the last 2 minutes of the quarter.
Seattle either led or tied for most of the second before McCoughtry stole the ball from Wright with 2.9 seconds before halftime and hit a layup at the buzzer to put Atlanta up 38-35.
The Storm, coming off a nine-point home loss last week to Tulsa in which they went 0 for 17 from 3-point range, hit seven of 19 attempts — but Thompson and Stricklen were a combined 1 for 8 from beyond the arc.
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