Category Archives: WNBA Previews

WNBA 2014 In-Depth Previews: New York Liberty

 

Cappie Pondexter/Anna Cruz
Essence Carson/Chucky Jeffery/Sugar Rodgers
Alex Montgomery/Toni Young
Plenette Pierson/DeLisha Milton-Jones
Tina Charles/Kara Braxton

plus the injured Kamiko Williams, who they can’t replace because she tore her ACL in training camp and therefore has to be paid her salary for this season – and they don’t have the remaining cap space to sign someone else if they cut her.

 

Significant additions: Charles, Carson back from injury, black uniforms
Significant losses: Kelsey Bone, Leilani Mitchell

—–

 

There are lots of positives for the New York Liberty heading into this season. They got their second superstar when Tina Charles decided she’d had enough of Connecticut and wanted to come home. Essence Carson is back after blowing out her ACL four games into last season. They’re back in Madison Square Garden after three years exiled to New Jersey due to renovations. They’re reverting to the black road uniforms that no one ever wanted them to get rid of in the first place. Cappie Pondexter and Bill Laimbeer have had a full year to get to know each other and find a fit for this team that should work. So why does it still feel like this team has a lot more questions than answers circling around it going into 2014?

 

A central part of the problem is just what else is there besides the stars. Yes, Carson is back to help Pondexter out in the backcourt, take on some of the scoring load, and generally give them better options on the perimeter than they had last year. But we don’t know quite what she’ll produce coming off a serious knee injury, or if her body will hold up for 34 games. Talking of bodies holding up, that’s a question mark elsewhere as well. Plenette Pierson, a very good forward in this league for a lot of years, struggled through much of last season with a variety of injuries. Then she suffered another knee injury late in her season overseas that her European team called an ACL tear. Laimbeer has said it wasn’t as serious as initially reported, and apparently she’s been running in camp, but no one is remotely sure what she’ll be able to produce this season. Her body already seemed to be breaking down last year, so adding one more major issue on top is not good news for an important player for the Liberty.

 

That leaves lots of kids, unknowns and role players trying to fill holes on the Liberty roster. DeLisha Milton-Jones has an awful lot of miles on her clock, and looked just about done last year in stints with San Antonio and then New York. She’ll be playing significant minutes if Pierson isn’t ready. Kara Braxton will be her usual enigmatic self, showing flashes of real talent one moment, before Bad Kara emerges and does three things that make you want to throw something at her. Toni Young showed off her athleticism last season as a rookie, but not a lot else, and she’s still a combo-forward who hasn’t proven she can play either spot effectively until we see otherwise. Alex Montgomery is a hard-working, decent wing who might be starting at small forward due to the lack of alternatives.

 

The other perimeter backups are Anna Cruz, a Spanish combo-guard making her first foray into WNBA basketball. She has played some point guard, and she might be Pondexter’s backup on this roster, but this is by no means Celine Dumerc that they’ve added. Cruz is decent, but that’s about it, and the history of Euros translating their ‘decent’ play over to the WNBA isn’t great. Chucky Jeffery is back as well, and might be the alternative backup ballhandler if Cruz doesn’t work out. We didn’t see much of her last year in Minnesota or New York, so Liberty fans can only hope that she’s developed. Sugar Rodgers was also acquired from Minnesota – who otherwise likely would’ve cut her – and will happily come off the bench and start firing away. This bench is a lot of different random pieces with the hope that a couple step up and produce.

 

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WNBA 2014 In-Depth Previews: Indiana Fever

 

Briann January/Sydney Carter
Shavonte Zellous/Layshia Clarendon/Maggie Lucas
Marissa Coleman/Karima Christmas
Tamika Catchings/Natasha Howard
Erlana Larkins/Lynetta Kizer/Jasmine Hassell

 

Significant additions: Howard, whatever they can get out of Coleman and Kizer
Significant losses: Katie Douglas, Erin Phillips, Jeanette Pohlen and Jessica Davenport (although all four were missing for huge chunks of last season as well)

—–

 

While there is turmoil everywhere else, the Indiana Fever, Tamika Catchings and Lin Dunn just keep chugging along, showing up and winning games. That said, 2013 was a difficult season for Indiana. They suffered through so many injuries that it was hard to stay afloat, but the weakness of the Eastern Conference helped, they battled their way to the playoffs, and then made the Eastern Finals anyway after toppling Chicago in the first round. There’s been some re-shaping in the offseason as well, but if this franchise is nothing else, it’s reliable. With Catchings still there as the foundation, it’s hard to see them taking much of a backwards step.

 

However, they have lost players worth mentioning, even if they were largely players that they’ve grown accustomed to surviving without. Katie Douglas was Catchings’s primary partner-in-crime for several years, but after multiple recent injuries she’d missed a lot of time and the Fever didn’t want to guarantee her salary. She took a better offer from Connecticut. Before that, they’d already traded point guard Erin Phillips to Phoenix, which also weakened their perimeter options. Dunn never seemed to entirely trust Phillips to run the team, but she could hit shots and provide energy at either guard spot. More shooting disappeared in training camp when Jeanette Pohlen tore her left Achilles (and was later released). They also lost center Jessica Davenport to retirement earlier in the offseason.

 

But all those players, bar Phillips, missed the majority of last season due to injury (and Phillips missed a significant part, before playing hurt for much of the remainder). That gave them a head start on learning how to play without them and building the squad without counting on them. The poor regular season last year also presented them with the #5 overall pick in the draft, the highest they’ve selected since 2005. They won’t be worrying too much about the pieces that are gone.

 

Catchings will be their leader as always. A hard-nosed, constantly active defender, she’s also often on the ball offensively, driving and creating for the team. Her jump shot’s become more reliable over the years as well, although it showed a few cracks at times last season. Shavonte Zellous has developed into a useful complement to Catchings, stepping up last year in Douglas’s absence and earning all-star recognition. She’s worked on her perimeter game to add to her driving skills, and can take on most of the offensive load that Douglas used to carry. Briann January is also still there at the point to keep their continuity flowing. She’s become a little overrated over the years, and often has trouble finishing at the rim, but she’s a quick and annoying defender, and she can knock down the open shot from outside.

 

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2014 WNBA In-Depth Previews: Connecticut Sun

 

Alex Bentley/Renee Montgomery
Allison Hightower/Danielle McCray/Kelly Faris
Katie Douglas/Alyssa Thomas
Chiney Ogwumike/Kelsey Griffin
Kelsey Bone/Yelena Leuchanka

plus either Kayla Pedersen or Kelley Cain as the fifth post you hope never plays.

 

Significant additions: Ogwumike, Thomas, Douglas, Bone, Bentley, hopefully a little bit of giving a crap
Significant losses: Tina Charles, Kara Lawson, Mistie Bass, Tan White, Asjha Jones is even more injured this year, forgot to fire Anne Donovan

—–

 

Well if we thought Chicago’s offseason was messy, welcome to a team where a bomb went off. This franchise was a perennial contender under Mike Thibault, but in their first season under Anne Donovan last year they fell off a cliff. No one was happy about Thibault being let go, Asjha Jones skipped the year to rest her body, Kara Lawson and Tina Charles pouted their way through the entire season, Donovan produced a coaching stinkbomb, and they crawled their way to just 10 wins. On the bright side, that produced the #1 overall pick in the draft, and a clear direction to rebuild. When Lawson and Charles demanded out at different stages in the offseason, resulting in trades and several new young pieces, it only hastened the process. What they’re left with is an interesting squad that has a chance to be competitive pretty darn quickly, and that can grow together in future seasons. Even without their stars from previous years, there’s a sense of renewed optimism around this squad in 2014 (even if I’d rather have seen them start afresh with a new head coach as well).

 

Perhaps the most surprising move, and their only meaningful free agent pickup, was the return of Katie Douglas. She spent five years playing in Connecticut, developing into a star, before being granted her wish for a trade back home to Indiana in 2008. Various injuries in recent years made the Fever reluctant to give her guaranteed money this offseason, so she accepted the Sun’s offer when they were willing to take the risk. If she stays healthy, she’s still a very good player. She can light it up from outside, has those occasional sweeping drives (always to her stronger left hand, not that defenses ever seem to have noticed that), and she’s typically been one of the better perimeter defenders in the league. At the very least she’s a veteran leader for a young squad, but it’ll be a massive help for this team if she can stay fit enough to actually lead them on the floor.

 

Joining Douglas on the perimeter is a group of players that ought to be able to combine as a fairly effective group. Allison Hightower made the all-star team last year after taking on a bigger role when teammates were dropping like flies around her. She’s an excellent defender, has worked hard on her shooting and scoring, and can handle the ball well enough to take pressure off the nominal point guard (or just play point herself, at times). Alex Bentley and Renee Montgomery will likely be the players more frequently referred to as the official point guards on this team. Bentley was the main returning piece from the Lawson trade, an aggressive combo guard whose rookie season tailed off badly after a hot start in Atlanta last year. There’s some promise there, but some development is necessary from what we saw in 2013. Montgomery is Montgomery at this point in her career. A score-first point guard who won’t shoot a high percentage, she can still be an electric burst of energy off the bench and has won the Sixth Woman of the Year award in the past (although the voting that year made very little sense). She can also be a negative for her own team when she’s not clicking.

 

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WNBA 2014 In-Depth Previews: Chicago Sky

 

Courtney Vandersloot
Epiphanny Prince/Tamera Young/Allie Quigley/Aaryn Ellenberg/Jamierra Faulkner
Elena Delle Donne/Courtney Clements
Jessica Breland/Gennifer Brandon
Sylvia Fowles/Sasha Goodlett/Markeisha Gatling

subtract Faulkner, Ellenberg, Clements or Brandon whenever Prince shows up (or possibly by the end of today, depending on how they go about things)

 

Significant additions: Breland, and they hope Gatling and/or Goodlett
Significant losses: Fowles for a while to start the season, a little bit of Prince for undisclosed reasons, Swin Cash, Carolyn Swords, Shay Murphy, sense of optimism

—–

 

Last year was meant to be the breakthrough for the Chicago Sky. After years in the doldrums, the arrival of Elena Delle Donne was like a ray of sunshine brushing away the clouds. They finally forced their way to the top of the Eastern Conference, and made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. They were summarily dumped out in the first round by Indiana, which was a disappointing finish after such a strong regular season, but it still felt like they’d taken strides forwards. It’s kind of a shame that the offseason hasn’t managed to carry that positivity through to 2014.

 

After her season in China, franchise center Sylvia Fowles came home and had arthroscopic surgery on her hip to repair a torn labrum and impingement. The Sky kept it quiet for weeks, and once they released the information have been reluctant to put a date on when she might return. Somewhere in the middle of the season is about as good of an estimate as any of us can come up with. She said ‘soon’ in a recent interview, but that could mean anything as well. The absence of Fowles changes everything for this franchise. Delle Donne might’ve been the final piece that helped them break through, but Fowles was the bedrock that they were built on, especially defensively. She filled the lane and covered for mistakes made elsewhere, while also providing efficient scoring in the paint whenever her teammates could actually get her the ball. They need her back, and they need her back soon.

 

They also lost another frontcourt piece due to the Swin Cash saga, which again complicates their defense more than anything else. The plan in virtually every game last year was for Fowles to take the primary low post threat, put Cash on the most dangerous forward, and then Delle Donne could hide as much as possible on whoever was left. With Cash gone and Fowles out for an indeterminate period, Delle Donne’s going to have to work much harder defensively, even regardless of the extra scoring load Fowles’s absence will place on her shoulders.

 

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WNBA 2014 In-Depth Previews: Atlanta Dream

 

We’re back again for another year! As always, we’ll be going team-by-team with these previews, starting with the Eastern Conference (as tradition dictates). The East will be going up in relatively quick succession; you’ll have to wait a little bit for the West. Enjoy, and feel free to reply, debate, argue or whatever in the comments section below.

—–

 

Celine Dumerc/Shoni Schimmel/Jasmine Thomas
Tiffany Hayes/Matee Ajavon
Angel McCoughtry/Swin Cash
Sancho Lyttle/Aneika Henry
Erika de Souza/Nadia Gomes Colhado

plus either Inga Orekhova or Amanda Thompson (or maybe both, until Dumerc arrives)

Significant additions: Dumerc, Cash, Schimmel, Ajavon, new head coach Michael Cooper
Significant losses: Alex Bentley, Armintie Herrington, Le’coe Willingham if we’re already stretching ‘significant’, former head coach Fred Williams

—–

 

Dream fans were starting to get a little worried early in the 2014 offseason. For a squad that had reached the WNBA Finals in three of the last four years, there was still a clear weakness in perimeter shooting that needed to be addressed, and some question marks around their guard corps. Also, once again, they’d allowed two key players to become unrestricted free agents at the same time, and could only core one of them to make sure she couldn’t leave. They used that spot on center Erika de Souza, allowing wing Armintie Herrington free rein to choose her own destination – and she ultimately chose Los Angeles. Then they made a surprising trade that gave up young combo-guard Alex Bentley for veteran conscience-less 2-guard Matee Ajavon, opening up a big hole at point guard that there didn’t seem to be anyone around to fill. Even with the core of Angel McCoughtry, Sancho Lyttle and de Souza still in place, Michael Cooper’s first year as Dream head coach was looking tricky before it began.

 

Then the pieces started to fall into place. The big move was coaxing French point guard Celine Dumerc into finally giving the WNBA a try. The consensus best lead guard in Europe for quite some time now, Dumerc is a smart, heady player who can run a team, is comfortable playing a background role to other stars when necessary, but can shoot upwards of 40% from three-point range and has a fondness for making big shots. Almost the exact definition for what Atlanta needed in a point guard, considering their volatile star player and limited perimeter shooting. The only negative with Dumerc is that the French season is running long this year, and her Bourges team tend to win everything, so she’s there to the bitter end. She’s missed the whole of training camp, and there’s still a week to go in the French playoffs. So she’ll be late, and it might take her a little while to acclimatise, but by the time we reach the games that matter in August and September she should’ve fit right in.

 

The Dream also added Louisville’s Shoni Schimmel in the draft, and then picked up veteran forward Swin Cash for virtually nothing from Chicago. Schimmel was something of a loose cannon in college, a scorer who can let fly from anywhere and make showtime passes, who sometimes tried to do a bit too much. Cooper apparently wants to make her into a scoring point guard, which might take some time, but with combo-guard Jasmine Thomas as an alternative backup at the point he has other options to run the offense until Dumerc takes over. Cash was a surprise bonus when Chicago gave up on holding her and practically gave her away for free. While not the player she once was, she’s still a strong presence, a solid defender, and can give you reliable minutes without taking much off the table.

 

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2013 WNBA Finals Preview: Minnesota Lynx vs. Atlanta Dream – Part 2, Key Themes and Factors, and the Final Verdict

 

Now for the topics, trends, decisions and debates that are likely to decide the WNBA Finals, or are at least worth paying attention to as the series goes along. Many of them were touched upon in Part 1, where we took a closer look at the personnel involved, but now we’ll get more in depth. Then, just for fun, I’ll offer up a prediction. Although with the way it’s been going for me with picks this year in the postseason, you might want to go the other way.

 

Big or small?

 

Dream head coach Fred Williams made a move for the Eastern Finals that surprised me with its sheer boldness and willingness to be proactive. He often seems to spend games watching them drift by, including in the first-round where his most meaningful move was forced upon him by Le’coe Willingham’s injury. But he opened the series against Indiana with his small lineup, essentially featuring four perimeter players – Angel McCoughtry is generally considered the power forward because she’s the tallest of the four, but they’re basically all guards and wings. It proved to be an astute move, as their offense sliced through the Fever at will, and consistently looked far more effective than at any stage in the previous series against Washington. Now he has to decide what to do against the Lynx, because Minnesota are not the Indiana Fever. They don’t have a virtual perimeter player at power forward – they have Rebekkah Brunson, who might not be a traditional post-up threat, but she’s big enough and nasty enough to take advantage of a smaller player in the paint and on the glass.

 

So does Williams concede that his small lineup can’t defend the Lynx well enough, and go back to a more traditional lineup, with either Willingham or Aneika Henry at power forward? Probably not. Maybe, at times, we’ll see two Dream bigs together in this series. He threw that option away entirely against the Fever, but if Brunson starts dominating the glass, or Williams just wants to shake the Lynx up a little, it might be a more useful option against Minnesota. But we saw in the regular season game between these teams on August 20th that the Dream’s small lineup can both survive defensively, and succeed offensively against the Lynx. Atlanta will want to keep their pace high, and maintain the attacking mentality from the Indiana series, so I’d expect McCoughtry either to start at power forward, or slide there pretty early on.

 

Then it becomes a case of what either team does to handle the matchups. Minnesota can make everything nice and simple by going small themselves, shifting Maya Moore to power forward in a similar move to Atlanta with McCoughtry. Then the defensive assignments are simple. But Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve won’t allow Williams to dictate the action like that. Instead we’ll see Brunson defending McCoughtry – Brunson did an effective job in that role in the regular season game I mentioned – while forcing Atlanta to handle the opposing mismatches on the other end. Either McCoughtry has to defend Brunson, which is plausible for a while but probably not something you want to see for an entire series, or Williams has to get creative.

 

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2013 WNBA Finals Preview: Minnesota Lynx vs. Atlanta Dream – Part 1, Match-ups and Challenges

 

By the numbers (over entire regular season):

 

Minnesota Lynx (26-8) vs Atlanta Dream (17-17)

 

Points scored per 100 possessions: 106.46 (1st in WNBA) – 95.19 (9th)

Points Conceded per 100 possessions: 94.55 (3rd) – 93.2 (1st)

Rebound percentage; .522 (2nd) – .503 (4th)

 

Season series between the teams: Tied 1-1

07/09 @Min, Lynx win 94-72 (no Augustus or Hayes, Lyttle’s last game this season)

08/20 @Atl, Dream win 88-75 (available players were as expected for this series)

 

—–

 

Here we go again, everybody. The Minnesota Lynx are in the WNBA Finals for the third consecutive season, looking to regain the title that they lost a year ago. The Atlanta Dream are back in the championship series for the third time in four years. The franchises clashed in the 2011 Finals, with relatively similar rosters – and the Lynx won in a sweep. But that feels like a long time ago, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. The 2013 regular season, which saw the Dream finish .500 while the Lynx were their typical dominant selves, is largely irrelevant now. So a series from a couple of years ago definitely can’t be considered particularly important. Everyone starts the Finals 0-0, and the Dream’s confidence should be high after a sweep of Indiana to win the East, where they went some way towards reestablishing their identity. The track record of the Lynx makes them worthy favourites for this series, but they won’t have things all their own way.

 

Let’s start out on the perimeter, where you’ll arguably find the strength of both these teams. The Lynx have one of the strongest perimeter trios the women’s game has ever seen. Lindsay Whalen is a consummate point guard, the classic ‘coach on the floor’ who’ll run everything for head coach Cheryl Reeve and get the ball where it needs to go. But Whalen’s also more than capable of attacking the defense for her own points, as we saw in the recent Game 1 against Phoenix, where her scoring helped take the game over. The strength of Minnesota’s wings only makes things easier for Whalen, because typically opponents have to use their stronger perimeter defenders to contain Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore, leaving Whalen with whoever’s left. In this series, that’ll likely be Jasmine Thomas and some Alex Bentley. Both Thomas and Bentley have had their moments this season, playing their parts in Atlanta’s backcourt attack and occasionally getting hot, but they’ll need to at least compete with Whalen and try to stay in front of her as much as possible. Everyone gambles in Atlanta’s defense in search of steals, but they still need to hold their ground and prevent Whalen from getting into a flow that dominates the rhythm of the game.

 

Then there’s Moore and Augustus. After a couple of years settling into the league – where she was already impressive – Moore took another step this season and definitively moved past Augustus as the most valuable of the Lynx wings. She can do a little bit of everything, stuffing the stat-sheet in a way Augustus never really has, while continuing to be a remarkable scoring threat from all over the floor. She’ll rise up and shoot over the defense when you think she’s covered, and just score anyway, or create points by running the floor hard and working on the glass. Augustus is still just as dangerous as a scorer, will break out for points on the run just like Moore, or pull up for jumpers over anyone. She’s also developed a little more of an inside game this year, which we’ll undoubtedly see her break out at times in this series, especially if Atlanta try to guard her with a significantly smaller player. Armintie Herrington is a strong and long enough defender to trouble Augustus on post-ups or drives, but if they try to get away with Thomas, Bentley or even Tiffany Hayes for extended stretches, Augustus has more ways to attack them these days.

 

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2013 WNBA Playoff Previews: Western Conference Finals – Minnesota Lynx vs. Phoenix Mercury

 

By the numbers (over entire regular season):

 

Minnesota Lynx (26-8) vs Phoenix Mercury (19-15)

 

Points scored per 100 possessions: 106.46 (1st in WNBA) – 99.46 (4th)

Points conceded per 100 possessions: 94.55 (3rd) – 100.4 (10th)

Rebound percentage: .522 (2nd) – .486 (10th)

 

Season series between the teams: Minnesota won 5-0

06/06 @Min, Lynx win 99-79

06/19 @Pho, Lynx win 80-69

07/07 @Min, Lynx win 91-59

07/21 @Pho, Lynx win 82-77

07/24 @Min, Lynx win 81-69

 

—–

 

For all the talents of the Los Angeles Sparks, in many ways this was the matchup that everyone wanted to see. In one corner we have the dominant Minnesota Lynx. They were a powerhouse for the third year in a row, once again finishing with the best record in the WNBA. They’ve got three years of chemistry, the smoothest offense and one of the most cohesive defenses in the league. They’ve even got a little bit of extra incentive this season, trying to regain their crown after slipping up against Indiana in the Finals last year when heavily favoured. They’re the ones who were always meant to be here. In the opposite corner, the team who were practically crowned before they set foot on a basketball floor, then had to re-shape themselves after things didn’t go to plan. This isn’t the old Phoenix Mercury, the team that lost the last 12 games they’ve played against the Lynx. Russ Pennell made some changes after he took over in midseason, and now ESPN gets the leader of their ‘Three to See’ in the conference finals after all. We’ve got the reigning champs who were almost forgotten, against the team everyone rushed to anoint as their successors. The Sparks might be out, but Hollywood easily could’ve written this script.

 

Let’s start with what we know. The Lynx are very, very good. They had some occasional struggles getting past Seattle in the first-round, but that was a veteran team with exceptional discipline who know how to make a game messy. And Minnesota still held on to beat them for the sixth straight time this year. With Lindsay Whalen at the point, and Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore on the wings, the Lynx have arguably the most dangerous perimeter trio that the WNBA has ever seen. They can fill it up from outside, they can drive past you, Augustus and Moore have both worked on their post game, and in transition they’re even scarier than the LA team Phoenix just snuck past. This has been one of the central problems for the Mercury in the past in dealing with Minnesota – even if they managed to get their own offense rolling, they couldn’t stop the Lynx to save their lives. It was a team that could play at both ends of the floor against a team that only showed up at one.

 

But while Minnesota have those 12 consecutive wins over Phoenix stretching back to 2011, they’re yet to face the Russ Pennell Mercury. Since taking over he’s gotten the team to engage on the defensive end, and at least expend the energy required to put up a fight when they don’t have the ball. It’s not always been perfect – it takes a while to remember how to follow defensive concepts, and some players on the roster are just basic bad defenders – but they’ve been competitive ever since he took over. Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve will have her team prepared for the changes in the Mercury, but you can never entirely understand what you’re going to face until you see them on the floor. In the end, maybe it was a positive for Phoenix that they played all five regular season games against Minnesota before the All-Star break. It helped get Corey Gaines fired, and the Lynx never got a taste of the new Mercury.

 

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2013 WNBA Playoff Previews: Eastern Conference Finals – Atlanta Dream vs. Indiana Fever

 

By the numbers (over entire regular season):

 

Atlanta Dream (17-17) vs Indiana Fever (16-18)

 

Points scored per 100 possessions: 95.19 (9th in WNBA) – 95.37 (8th)

Points conceded per 100 possessions: 93.2 (1st) – 95.27 (5th)

Rebounding percentage: .503 (4th) – .503 (5th)

 

Season series between the teams: Atlanta won 3-1

05/31 @Ind, Dream won 86-77

06/25 @Atl, Dream won 76-60

08/10 @Ind, Fever won 80-66

09/04 @Atl, Dream won 89-80

 

—–

 

So here we are again. Two years ago, Atlanta recovered from losing the opening game in the Eastern Conference Finals to fight past Indiana and make their second consecutive trip to the WNBA Finals. Last year, Indiana lost the opening game in the first-round, before coming back to knock out the Dream – beginning the run that ultimately led to a championship. So there’s plenty of history here. Between them, they’ve provided the East’s representative in the WNBA Finals for each of the last four seasons. We’re looking at two teams who know exactly what this is all about, and know each other incredibly well. So with all this familiarity, and both teams clawing their way to mediocre records this season, what’s going to make the difference in who earns another shot at winning it all?

 

The regular season encounters this year tell us very little. Partly because at least one important player was either absent back then or will be absent for the playoffs, and partly because this is the playoffs. Indiana didn’t look like the team that had struggled through much of the regular season in the first-round, because they stepped up their game when it mattered and took the Chicago Sky apart. Atlanta had many problems against Washington in the first-round, but eventually stepped up in key areas and came through. It’s simplistic to say, but these teams are close enough that the winner of this series is likely to be decided in large part by who raises their game best for postseason play. Indiana always seem to enjoy playing Chicago, so maybe that helped them in the last round, but they also looked demonstrably ready for playoff basketball. If Atlanta play like they did for most of the series against the Mystics, and the Fever show up like that again, the Dream are in trouble.

 

A lot of that comes back to Angel McCoughtry. She’s the leader and driving force for Atlanta, but she shot appallingly against Washington when the defense managed to keep her out of the lane and limit Atlanta’s transition chances. Indiana will be trying to do exactly the same thing. Karima Christmas will probably be defending her for most of the series, and is capable of doing a lot of the same things that Monique Currie did for Washington, but the Fever don’t have quite the same size to clog the lane as the Mystics. And as we saw in the Game 3 decider, Washington were eventually hurt by foul trouble. While Indiana’s domination of Chicago masked the issue in the first-round, the Fever are still desperately thin in the post. Foul trouble for Tamika Catchings or Erlana Larkins could cause real problems, because there’s nowhere much else to go.

 

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2013 WNBA Playoff Previews: Western Conference First Round – Minnesota Lynx vs. Seattle Storm

 

By the numbers (over entire regular season):

 

Minnesota (26-8) vs Seattle (17-17)

 

Points scored per 100 possessions: 106.46 (1st in WNBA (by a mile)) – 95.71 (7th)

Points conceded per 100 possessions: 94.55 (3rd) – 98.73 (9th)

Rebound percentage: .522 (2nd) – .489 (9th)

 

Season series between the teams: Minnesota won 4-0

08/04 @Min, Lynx won 90-72

08/31 @Min, Lynx won 97-74

09/07 @Sea, Lynx won 75-60

09/10 @Sea, Lynx won 73-60

 

—–

 

As we’ve heard virtually every commentator and analyst across the league proclaim in the second half of the season, “no one expected Seattle to be in this position”. Of course that’s not entirely true – in one of my rare moments of insight, I had the Storm making the playoffs in my preseason predictions, and in fact even had them facing Minnesota in the first-round. That prediction was based on the simple knowledge that over the years, whichever key players happened to be missing on a given night, Brian Agler’s Storm teams found a way to win basketball games. The team defense is there, the collective effort and organisation is there, and they don’t give up. So if anyone is going to give Seattle a chance in this series, it’s going to be me, right?

 

The problem is, it’s incredibly hard to come up with defensible arguments that give the Storm a prayer in this series. Minnesota have been a dominant team yet again this year, led by the wing scoring from Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore, along with the leadership and attacking of Lindsay Whalen at the point. Then there’s still the athleticism and rebounding of Rebekkah Brunson and the smarts and passing of Janel McCarville inside, and one of the most aggressive and effective team defenses in the game – plus the additional chemistry of their core (besides McCarville) having now been together for several years. It’s a Lynx team that loves to play up-tempo and run by you in transition, but can also execute in the halfcourt and create good looks at the basket. They’re a nightmare to handle.

 

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