If the WNBA regular season were to end tonight . . .

. . . Oh, wait. It does. At least for the stumbling Utah Starzz, who host resurgent Sacramento in the Delta Center at 7 p.m. in the scheduled season finale.

The 19-12 Starzz have one last opportunity to set a franchise record for wins after having squandered their last two tries, including a 74-57 loss Sunday night at Seattle. They lost at home to Los Angeles on Friday.

In fact, they've lost four of their last five games, perhaps partly because they've been locked into the third playoff seed in the Western Conference for a week and have had nothing to play for — except a franchise-best record. Now they can only get that by winning Monday.

Frustrated coach Candi Harvey isn't so concerned about winning as the Starzz meet a Monarch team that's won nine of its last 10, including shocking Houston, which was leading the league at the time, in the Compaq Center last Thursday.

Harvey just wants to see effort and improvement. "Plain and simple, they've got to get some hunger and decide if they're going to play," she said of her players. "You've got to have great leadership, and you've got to be self-motivated."

She's disappointed that the Starzz don't seem concerned with trying to get better with the playoffs coming up starting in the Delta Center either Thursday or Friday against either Los Angeles or Houston, whichever finishes as the second seed in the West. "For whatever reason, that hasn't been enough" motivation, she said.

"We're just one good game from getting back on track. That's all," Harvey said. "At least we do have one more game before the playoffs. As explosive as our team is, if we can just get back on a roll — and it's not even about winning, it's getting back to playing like we were two weeks ago."

The 13-17 Monarchs lost all-stars Ticha Penicheiro and Yolanda Griffith to injury for much of the season and heart-and-soul player Edna Campbell for the whole season to breast cancer. They therefore fell out of the playoff race but are doing their best to affect that race, beating Houston and Utah in the past 11 days.

"Sacramento is playing like a playoff team. It doesn't get any easier," Harvey said.

"But the bright side of it is, what a great opportunity. If we play great basketball, and we win that game, then we're right back where we need to be as we head into the playoffs. Just let this go and learn from it and move on."

What the Starzz need to let go is Sunday's listless outing that allowed Seattle to make the playoffs for the first time in its history. The Starzz tied their lowest-scoring total of the season, and only Jennifer Azzi and Marie Ferdinand hit double scoring figures with 10 each.

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Harvey benched center Margo Dydek and started LaTonya Johnson in her stead, hoping to better defend the Storm's quick post players. "We felt that was a good defensive lineup for us," she said. "It didn't hurt us. We made them take the shots that we wanted them to take. We got the ball out of (Sue) Bird and (Lauren) Jackson's hands, but our team defense as far as rotation wasn't what we needed it to be."

And the defense only contained Jackson for a bit. She tied a career high with 27 points. Bird, who had 33 in her last game, had no points but eight assists.

On the other hand, Utah couldn't shoot, even when some early steals gave it good chances. It fell behind quickly and was down as much as 22 in the second half. Nineteen Utah turnovers were turned into 24 Seattle points.


E-MAIL: lham@desnews.com

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