Shock drops two straight on the road

The Tulsa Shock may have recently found their niche at home, winning two in a row, but the road is has not been as nice to them lately. The Shock dropped a pair of road games over the weekend, losing 87-75alt to the San Antonio Silver Stars on Friday and 116-84 to the Phoenix Mercury on Saturday. The losses drop the Shock’s record to 3-6 on the season as they return home to prepare for a home-and-home weekend series with the Minnesota Lynx.

The Shock jumped out to a 19-17 first quarter lead on Friday night in San Antonio before Chamique Holdsclaw took over, scoring 19 points while leading four double-digit scorers for the Silver Stars. Tulsa shot a respectable 46 percent from the field on the night as Kara Braxton scored 14 points. Unfortunately no other Shock players scored above nine points as the Silver Stars took advantage and pulled away for the win.

Diana Taurasi picked up where she left off in her last meeting with the Shock, scoring 18 Saturday night as the Mercury reached triple digits scoring for the second time this season, both times against the Shock. Candice Dupree also added 18 points for the Mercury while six players scored in double-digits. Shanna Crossley found her mark from behind the three-point arc for Tulsa, as she led all Shock scorers with 17 points, including five treys in the loss.

“After being beat by that much I don’t think fatigue was necessarily the main issue,” said Crossley. “We had a back-to-back last week and we’re learning how to overcome that and come back from that night before. It goes a lot deeper than just fatigue and and being tired from the game before.”

Next up for the Shock is a 7 p.m. tip-off Friday at Minnesota followed by a return trip to Tulsa and a 7 p.m. tip-off at the BOK Center with Minnesota on Saturday night. Tickets for all future Shock home games are available at the BOK Center box office, online or by calling 599-WNBA.