KT45K! KT45K! KT45K! KT45K!

Katie Smith needed eleven points to become the first player in women's basketball history with 5,000 professional points. She scored exactly eleven as her team beat Detroit before almost 13,000 announced spectators, many of them day-camp kids at a noontime game.

Hassled and outmuscled early on, the Lynx switched to zone and let the Shock (19 turnovers) wear itself out. Detroit's intense attention to Katie left other perimeter scorers open. Svetlana Abrosimova had a career game: 8-8 from the floor, 22 points, 3 steals (but 6 turnovers-- not unusual), and 5-5 in three-pointers, including a first-half buzzer-beater that gave the Lynx the lead. "It was a good day; I didn't force anything," she said.

Smith looked less than aggressive until the game's final minutes; arguably the league's best shooter-- and one of its most unselfish stars-- scored points number 4,999 and 5,000 by driving, then making an unlikely off-balance arc. Katie: "I was angry because I didn't get a foul called. I wasn't thinking about the 5,000. I was bumped -- and lucky I hit the shot."

Minutes earlier she made her only three-pointer, shot with a hand in her face, with one second on the shot clock, after she recovered a bobbled ball. "We were still in it until Katie knocked down that big three-pointer," Shock coach Laimbeer said.

Katie downplayed her landmark: "It's great, but let's play ball. In the big scheme of it, it's really just a number....I think later it will have a better meaning."

Nicole Ohlde: "That's Katie, just worrying about the win."