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Friday, Aug. 4 10:00pm ET
Comets blow out Fire with early spurt | |||||
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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Cynthia Cooper scored 26 points Friday night to lead the Houston Comets to a 81-56 victory over the Portland Fire. Starting a three-game road trip, Houston jumped out to a 10-2 lead in the opening two minutes and extended its first-half lead to as many as 19. The Fire closed the gap to 39-26 at the break, but the Comets broke the game open once again, pushing their lead to as many as 27. It was the Comets' third victory over the expansion Fire. Sheryl Swoopes, who missed Houston's previous game with a sprained index finger on her shooting hand, made 11 of 12 shots for 23 points and also grabbed 10 rebounds for the Comets (24-5). Tina Thompson had 15 points and 10 rebounds. Sophia Witherspoon led the Fire (10-19) with 17 points and Sylvia Crawley added 10. The Fire shot just 33 percent. The Comets' "big three" scorers accounted for most of the first-half offense. Swoopes and Cooper had 13 points and Thompson scored 11. Cooper, the WNBA's all-time leading scorer, scored her 2,500th point at 14:50 of the first half. The Fire, which had its two-game winning streak snapped, shot 28 percent from the field in the first half and made just one of their first 11 shots. Houston kept its hopes alive of finishing first in the Western division. A Houston loss or a Los Angeles win will prevent the Comets from finishing atop the division for the first time. | ALSO SEE WNBA Scoreboard AUDIO/VIDEO   Houston's Cynthia Cooper knows how to distribute the ball.avi: 674 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 | |||||