The Silver Stars wanted to show everyone that life without Becky Hammon and Sophia Young wasn't going to be as dire as many suggested it might be.

While eventually that might be true, Friday's 79-64 season-opening loss to defending WNBA champion Indiana showed, at the least, the Silver Stars have work to do to prove otherwise.

The Fever, without three players because of injuries, dominated in the paint en route to their third straight win at the AT&T Center.

Indiana outscored the Silver Stars 46-16 in the paint. Most of the damage came in the second half when the Fever — capitalizing on their opponent's defensive breakdowns — outscored the Silver Stars 45-29.

“Defensively, we gave up too many layups,” said Silver Stars guard Shenise Johnson, who had a team-high 14 points off the bench. “I don't care if you don't know each other, you don't give up layups. I think we're still finding our identity.

“Traditionally, we are a defensive team, and we didn't showcase that tonight. I can promise you, we're going to find ourselves, and we're going to be a better defensive team in the future.”

The Silver Stars don't have much choice. They host Candace Parker and Los Angeles on June 1, have back-to-back games against Chicago — which features 6-foot-6 Sylvia Fowles and rookie Elena Delle Donne — and face two-time defending Western Conference champion Minnesota before playing at Los Angeles on June 15.

“I thought we were very streaky today,” Silver Stars coach Dan Hughes said. “I think you could see some potential in what we were doing and saw some points where we just didn't play the kind of basketball we're going to have to.

“You saw a lot of peaks and valleys.”

The valley outweighed the peaks.

With Indiana leaning heavily on its starters — only one didn't play at least 30 minutes — it was able to battle back from a slow start to gain control.

Riding the hot shooting of Shameka Christon, who had eight of her 10 points in the first quarter, the Silver Stars scored the game's first 10 points and led by as many as 11 in the first half.

But Tamika Catchings and Shavonte Zellous, who each scored 19 points, and Katie Douglas, who added 18, led a charge that saw the Fever go from trailing by 11 to leading by 20.

“We figured that San Antonio would start off like gangbusters,” Indiana coach Lin Dunn said. “It's opening night, with a lot of energy, a lot of excitement.

“I think we just did a good job of not panicking.”

The Silver Stars couldn't say the same thing. They made only 19 of their final 51 shots and committed 18 turnovers, leading to 21 Indiana points.

“Give Indiana a lot of credit,” Christon said. “Obviously, they are a great team. I don't want to take anything from them, but a lot of things that happened, especially in that second half, were (because of) us.

“We can take this game and learn from it and get better. Now we see what we have to do.”

tthomas@express-news.net

 

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