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Houston eliminates defending champs

At least the Seattle Storm had some time to get used to the fact that their reign atop the WNBA was at an end. Matter of fact, they had practically the whole game to get used to it. On a night they needed to win it to stay in it, the Storm were out of it almost from the get-go against the Houston Comets.

The Comets went on a tear early, then cruised to a 75-58 victory over the dazed Storm in KeyArena to win the Western Conference semifinals, two games to one. The Storm more than just lost. Seattle was throttled in front of 8,415 fans as the Comets became just the second team in league history to win a series by taking both games on the road. The Storm won Tuesday`s opener at Houston, 75-67, then let the Comets back into Thursday`s Game 2 as Houston squared the series with a 67-64 victory.

And in the early going, it seemed as if the Comets could never miss a shot, either. They hit 20 of 30 during the first half, 28 of 52 (53.8 percent) for the game. They hit nine in a row during a span of five minutes -- five of which were lay-ins -- that took them from a 6-4 deficit into a 24-13 lead. Even when Houston finally did miss one, Sheryl Swoopes -- who wound up with the league`s first-ever playoff triple-double of 14 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists -- came right back. She scored on a Storm turnover and hit another layup to make it 26-13 before the game was even 10 minutes old.

Seattle never cut the deficit below double-digits the rest of the night.