SEATTLE (AP) — Alanna Smith scored 16 of her career-high 22 points in the first half, Napheesa Collier scored seven of her 20 points during a decisive fourth-quarter run, and the Minnesota Lynx beat the Storm 83-70 on Tuesday night, spoiling the Seattle debuts of Skylar Diggins-Smith and Nneka Ogwumike.

Smith carried the Lynx in the first half before Collier took over late, and Minnesota leaned on its defense to frustrate the Storm into a difficult night at the offensive end. Seattle’s Jewell Loyd, last year’s leading scorer in the WNBA at 24.7 points, was held to 10 points on 3-of-19 shooting.

“Seattle is a good team and I feel like we really shut them down in the second half, especially,” Collier said. “Just covering down for each other, really working as a unit and when we’re doing that it’s really fun.”

The opener was supposed to be the unveiling of the new-look Storm after they finished with the second-worst record in the league at 11-29 last season following the departure of Breanna Stewart in free agency and the retirement of Sue Bird.

Bird, who recently became part of Seattle’s ownership group, was in her courtside seat for the opener to see how Diggins-Smith and Ogwumike meshed with their new team. Diggins-Smith returned to the floor after missing the 2023 season while on maternity leave and Ogwumike left behind Southern California for the first time in her WNBA career to sign with Seattle after spending her first 12 seasons with the Los Angeles Sparks.

It was a shaky debut.

“This is a new team,” Seattle coach Noelle Quinn said. “And though, yes, we have excellent players on this roster, it takes time. … What it showed is we have a lot of work to do and that will come as we build through games and the adversity that will come. We’ll be better.”

Ogwumike finished with 20 points and nine rebounds, and Diggins-Smith added 10 points. But Seattle was just 1 of 9 on 3s and committed 17 turnovers.