Tag Archives: Atlanta Dream

WNBA Today, 08/19/2012 (Part Two): Eastern power holds; LA complete Storm sweep

On with the slightly more timely coverage of Saturday’s games, where Eastern clashes went exactly as the standings would suggest, and home-court advantage wasn’t enough to compensate for injuries and absences in the one Western contest.

 

New York Liberty 74 @ Connecticut Sun 85

  • Two teams which had faced each other only two days earlier in New York clashed again. Connecticut were looking for a quick rebound, after a pretty miserable loss on Thursday night. They were still without Asjha Jones due to her achilles injury. As you’d expect, New York kept faith with the same lineup that helped win the previous game.
  • It was quickly apparent that Connecticut weren’t going to perform as they had 48 hours earlier. Tina Charles, who was utterly anonymous on Thursday, was straight into the action with a little jump hook over Plenette Pierson. Kara Lawson, also terrible in the last game, immediately started knocking down shots. A couple of days to think about their performance and rest up, plus the return to their own home court, appeared to have helped the Sun enormously.
  • Although while their offense was much improved, Connecticut couldn’t stop New York at the other end in the early stages. Nicole Powell and Cappie Pondexter in particular were firing away and making shots, keeping pace with Connecticut. In fact, the Liberty held a narrow lead after a high-scoring first quarter, 26-23.
  • Turnovers began to hurt the Liberty, and Connecticut took more of a grip on the game as the first half progressed. For possibly the first time all season, Sun coach Mike Thibault decided to simply ride Charles as far as he could, letting her play the entire 20 minutes of the first half. She rewarded him with 9-13 shooting for 19 points by the break, largely on layups and finishes around the rim. This was a Tina Charles making a statement, showing definitively that Thursday night was merely a blip. The Sun were up 47-43 at halftime, despite allowing New York to shoot 55% from the floor to that point. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/19/2012 (Part One): Catching Up

Yes, I know this is desperately late, but yesterday sitting in the pub and watching the start of the English Premier League season took precedence over writing about the WNBA (even though the first really important game isn’t until Monday). But just in case anyone still cares to hear my thoughts about Friday night’s WNBA games, here you go. It was at least a small step up on the three snoozefests that got the season back underway the night before.

 

Washington Mystics 69 @ Minnesota Lynx 98

  • Yep, we’re going to get the game only a mother or a blowout fan could love out of the way first. The Lynx reopened their season with their roster back in one piece, Rebekkah Brunson, Jessica Adair and Devereaux Peters all having recovered from their respective injuries over the break. Brunson returned to her customary spot as the starting power forward, alongside the three Lynx gold-medalists (who’d all somehow made it back from London in time to play).
  • Washington kept faith with the same starting lineup that lost in Indiana the night before (the schedulers sure weren’t kind to the Mystics – a road back-to-back against the Fever and Lynx to kick off the second half. That was never going to end well.)
  • Brunson came back from London with some seriously ugly fluorescent yellow shoes.
  • It didn’t take long for the vast gap in talent, chemistry, confidence, and everything else required to win basketball games showed up in this one. From the opening tip Minnesota were moving the ball well and stepping into shots with clear belief that they could make them, while also finding repeated holes in the Washington defense. The Mystics, on the other hand, looked tired and defeated well before the first quarter was over, with them already facing a 26-15 deficit.
  • While a home game against Washington was a nice way to ease back into the WNBA, there were no signs of Olympic hangover from the Lynx players we saw win gold only six days earlier. Seimone Augustus couldn’t miss with that pretty jumper (along with several wide open layups), Lindsay Whalen was playing her typical solid all-around game from the point, and Maya Moore slid right back into rhythm on the other wing. It was like they’d never left (after all, they closed the first half playing Tulsa twice – so those were comprehensive blowouts too).
  • The Minnesota bench kept things rolling as necessary as, although it was interesting to see Amber Harris as the first post off the bench, ahead of Peters and Adair. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve sometimes makes decisions like that based on matchups, so we’ll see if that rotation decision continues in future games. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/14/2012: Have a Nice Summer!

So after four teams completed their schedules for the opening half of the season on Thursday, the remaining eight finished it all off yesterday. At this point, everyone needs a rest, including the bedraggled writers. So one last time until we pick it up again in a month, let’s head to the Bullet Point Breakdown and take a look at the games that closed out the WNBA until August 16th.

 

Washington Mystics 70 @ New York Liberty 53

  • Thanks to the collapse in Chicago (and the inconsistencies in Atlanta), New York somehow started yesterday only 2.5 games outside the playoffs. This despite some deplorable performances in the first half of the season, and a 6-11 record. On the bright side, they had DeMya Walker fit enough to start again at power forward, and Kia Vaughn ready to play off the bench after recovering from her concussion.
  • The less said about Washington’s play in the opening months of the season the better. They once again went with Jasmine Thomas over Shannon Bobbitt as their starting point guard.
  • Cappie Pondexter and Essence Carson came out firing in the early passages for New York. The Liberty might have had most of their posts back, but all the shots were still coming from the guards.
  • Washington had Monique Currie playing aggressively on offense – again, Mystics coach Trudi Lacey has jerked her minutes around so much lately, Currie may have felt the need to shoot while she could – with Crystal Langhorne the inevitable main alternative. They balanced out New York’s guard scoring in an even first quarter.
  • The rest of the game, with all due respect to Washington’s efforts, largely came down to a dismal performance from the New York Liberty. Yes, we can give some credit to the defense the Mystics produced, but that’s the WNBA’s 10th-rated defense we’re talking about. They’ve barely been able to stop anyone all year. New York were bringing most of this on themselves.
  • There was so little energy and application from New York. It was like they expected the return of Walker and Vaughn to provide the necessary production, so the effort level they’d produced when they were down to practically one post player disappeared. Without the extraordinary offensive display Pondexter came up with in their previous game against Indiana, it left the Liberty falling behind. Even to a team as bad as Washington.
  • So the Mystics led 36-27 at halftime, partly because they’d managed to shoot 43%, but mostly because the Liberty were a dreadful 27% from the field.
  • The second half didn’t get any better for New York. It looked like the Liberty players would rather have been on vacation already, and some of them had checked out a little early. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/12/2012: Speed, shooting and teamwork win the day

Sometimes basketball is an awfully simple game. If you’re quicker than the other guys, if you shoot better than the other guys, if you take better care of the damn ball – most of the time you’re going to win. Three games yesterday in the WNBA, and three times one side had greater team speed, shot the ball better, and had fewer turnovers. Guess which team won in every case?

 

San Antonio Silver Stars 77 @ Chicago Sky 68

  • It’s been ugly for Chicago lately. They started the season 7-1, then Epiphanny Prince broke her foot – and they’ve been 1-6 since. Even the one win needed a desperate fight back to beat Atlanta on the Sky’s own floor. They can’t find Sylvia Fowles enough in the post, and they’re struggling to score without Prince to bail them out. Even with the miserable seasons Washington and New York have had so far, Chicago are starting to drop perilously close to the chasing teams. That playoff spot that looked a virtual certainty a month into the season is back in doubt again.
  • San Antonio, on the other hand, have been on a tear. They’d won seven in a row coming into this game, including all three prior games of the Eastern Conference road swing that this encounter completed. They’d rather the Olympics were in October.
  • The Sky switched back to Ruth Riley in their starting lineup, after going small with Sonja Petrovic in their previous game against Indiana. This despite San Antonio being pretty small themselves with Sophia Young at the 4. San Antonio, of course, aren’t changing anything at this stage.
  • The problem with starting Riley against teams with agile power forwards, is that Fowles has to guard them while Riley takes the opposing center. So Fowles had to chase Young around, and Young took advantage with a couple of early jumpers from the perimeter. Fowles doesn’t really want to follow her out that far.
  • Meanwhile at the other end Young could relax, as her primary defensive responsibility is Riley, who does virtually nothing on the offensive end. Jayne Appel was the one exerting all her energy trying to battle Fowles in the paint.
  • Chicago ran an awful lot of pick-and-rolls and slip-screens with Fowles to try to find her in the paint early on, but it was painfully predictable. It worked once or twice when she managed to seal Appel under her, and she also drew early fouls on Appel, but it’s not like a slew of points were being produced. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/09/2012: And on the seventh day, blowouts

After the exertions of Saturday night, Sunday was a much more relaxing quad-game day in the WNBA. The games were more spread out, and they all ended with double-digit margins. It was like the basketball gods took pity on your poor, tired WNBAlien correspondent and took it easy on him. Which isn’t to say that our coverage will be any less comprehensive than usual, of course. All four games, Bullet Point Breakdown style to get right to the point. Enjoy.

 

San Antonio Silver Stars 94 @ New York Liberty 81

  • New York were still without Plenette Pierson and Kia Vaughn, leaving them down to the bare bones in the post. On the bright side, Sophia Young is pretty small herself for a power forward, so San Antonio are one opponent where playing Nicole Powell at the 4 doesn’t leave you horribly undersized.
  • The Liberty tried to force the ball down to Kara Braxton on early possessions, but Jayne Appel did a decent job of making things difficult for her, and Braxton lasted only three minutes before being subbed out by John Whisenant. While it’s primarily her brain and the dumb mistakes she makes that are frustrating about Braxton, her physical fitness limits the number of minutes she can play even when she’s mentally engaged.
  • Of course, with Vaughn and Pierson out, Whiz doesn’t have many options, and rookie Kelley Cain got abused by Danielle Adams on multiple possessions after she replaced Braxton. The kid’s doing her best, but there are reasons why Whiz barely used her until injuries forced his hand.
  • Outside of a very occasional feed into their posts, the vast majority of New York’s offense in the first half came from perimeter jumpers. Fortunately, Cappie Pondexter and Essence Carson were both shooting well, and both are well capable of creating their own opportunities when necessary. Without much of a post presence left, the Liberty’s in-to-out offense has dried up, which leaves a lot of it being generated by individuals in isolation. Liberty shot-making was keeping them right in the game, but San Antonio were moving the ball noticeably better.
  • And good ball movement hurts this Liberty defense. So much of their defensive system relies on help coming across from the weak side, but an unselfish team can move the ball away from that help to the open shooter before the defense can recover. So even while shooting the lights out from the perimeter, New York were giving it all back at the other end. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/08/2012: Welcome, my friends, to the night of WNBA basketball that never ends

It felt like there was a hell of a lot of WNBA basketball played last night. We’ve had four-game evenings before, but with an early-evening start and late-night finish, and with all the swings and roundabouts that the games took us through, there was a lot to see and talk about. So this time I’m making no promises about keeping things short. Skim-reading is acceptable if you don’t have several hours to dedicate to careful perusal of WNBAlien.

Once again, it’s the Bullet Point Breakdown to try to keep everything moving.

 

Chicago Sky 86 @ Indiana Fever 88

  • Chicago decided to try starting small again, as Pokey Chatman grows increasingly tired of watching Ruth Riley do very little out on the floor. She was replaced in the lineup by Serbian forward Sonja Petrovic. The last time the Sky tried it, they got humiliated on the glass by Phoenix, but with Indiana’s small lineup it was an understandable switch.
  • The Fever started their usual five, but were short a player due to Erin Phillips’s concussion. That left Jeanette Pohlen and Katie Douglas sliding over to cover the point guard duties whenever Briann January needed a rest.
  • The problem with going small against Indiana, is that they can switch practically at will on defense. They want Tammy Sutton-Brown on Sylvia Fowles, but after that pretty much anyone can guard anyone. It makes defense easier.
  • The Sky were trying to trap high on ball-screens, but the Fever simply moved the ball out of the trap, rotated an extra pass or two, and were left with wide open shots when the ball movement beat the defensive rotation.
  • Indiana also drove aggressively in the opening minutes when the opportunities were available, and were quickly in the penalty. So while they missed a lot of the open shots, the parade of free throws made up for it, and Indiana led 25-15 after a quarter.
  • Largely thanks to the perimeter shooting of backups Le’coe Willingham and Shay Murphy, Chicago fought back in the second quarter. Indiana still couldn’t hit a damn thing, which also helped.
  • Indiana continue to bring a double-team from the baseline side essentially every time the ball is entered into the low post. And it consistently works. The offensive player feels her defender on her high shoulder, starts to spin into what she thinks is space on the low side, and turns right into the second defender coming across. It happens repeatedly. One time, Sylvia Fowles read it perfectly, and threw the cross-court pass to the player that the tactic leaves wide open on the weak side – and Murphy knocked down the three. But the Fever will live with that happening occasionally. The next time Chicago tried it, Tamika Catchings read the pass and picked it off.
  • Talking of passes being picked off, it’s amazing how many turnovers the Sky continue to commit. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/02/2012: A Four-game Feast

The basketball gods offered up a little bit of a treat on Sunday. To make up for a few miserable recent days of basketball, we got four games, at least three of which were well worth watching. The schedulers even spaced them out in neat one-hour intervals so you could transition smoothly from one to the next. We here at WNBAlien will pay tribute to the gods’ generosity in our usual way – with detailed analysis of all the action. Chronological order (feel free to skip the Phoenix-Washington game if you’re only interested in potential playoff teams), Bullet Point Breakdown-style – let’s get to it.

 

Minnesota Lynx 84 @ San Antonio Silver Stars 93

  • You’re going to have to excuse me for going all gushy about this game, because not only was there some excellent basketball played, but the chess-match aspects of the battle between head coaches Dan Hughes and Cheryl Reeve were fascinating as well. Just for those who want to hear about the basketball action and not the ins-and-outs of playcalling and rotations, there’ll be a Chess-Match Warning! posted before every entry related to little coaching intricacies.
  • The teams opened with the standard starting fives we’ve come to expect. One long-term injury apiece, with Jessica Adair and Tangela Smith unavailable.
  • Chess-Match Warning! Those with long memories – or who spend an awful lot of time at this website – may recall the twist San Antonio threw at Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs last year. They defended Maya Moore with the far smaller Becky Hammon, practically daring the Lynx to attack that matchup if Moore could come up with a post game. It worked shockingly well, and Minnesota rarely found a way to exploit it. But in the first regular season matchup between these teams in 2012, Hughes rarely used that tactic. This time, the Silver Stars went right for it. From the opening tip, Hammon was on Moore, Shameka Christon on Seimone Augustus, and Danielle Robinson on Lindsay Whalen. The Silver Stars weren’t messing around.
  • At the other end the Lynx wanted it switched around – Augustus defending Hammon, Moore on Christon.
  • Moore pulled down two offensive boards on the opening Lynx possession, suggesting she might be more prepared to take advantage of the Hammon matchup this year. But after Christon went off, with 8 points in the opening three minutes, Moore was benched for Candice Wiggins. Moore had lasted only 3:04 into the game. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/30/2012: Playing away can be fun

Three WNBA games last night, all overlapping each other. Sometimes, the multi-game view in LiveAccess can be very useful. Considering very few of the fans in attendance went home happy, maybe they’d have been better off in front of a computer screen as well. Let’s get right to it, via the Bullet-Point Breakdown.

 

Connecticut Sun 77 @ Washington Mystics 64

  • For the fifth straight game, Sun coach Mike Thibault retained the same starting lineup, with Kalana Greene and Alison Hightower on the perimeter ahead of Danielle McCray. Washington switched things up a little, bringing Shannon Bobbitt in at the point to replace Jasmine Thomas. For whatever reason, Monique Currie continues to come off the bench – so the Mystics still haven’t tried starting all their best players together for a single game this season.
  • Washington were without backup guard Natasha Lacy due to concussion-like symptoms.
  • The game started poorly for Washington, with multiple turnovers and a forced timeout when Bobbitt picked up her dribble and was trapped. It looked like a blowout waiting to happen.
  • Despite those early problems, Bobbitt illustrated quickly that she was an upgrade on Thomas. Bobbitt has drawbacks – she’s tiny, at times she over-dribbles or has tunnel vision, she often can’t finish inside, and she’s not as good a shooter as she thinks she is – but she makes things happen. If the shot-clock’s running down she’ll penetrate and create something, even if it’s something fairly undesirable. Even when the ball’s in someone else’s hands, she’s often pointing and directing everyone as to what they should be doing. She gives this team a pace and directness they haven’t had with their other lead-guard options.
  • After their lead went as high as 11 in the first-quarter (ooh, unintentional Spinal Tap reference), the Sun relaxed a little too much. It had almost been too easy, and they took their foot off the gas. The ball stopped moving as well as it usually does in their offense, their key post pairing of Tina Charles and Asjha Jones faded out of the game, and Washington drifted back into it.
  • Offensive rebounds were helping the Mystics as well, even if they often only led to an extra opportunity to miss. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/27/2012: Dream win early, Storm win late, and Sparks suffer a nasty Shock

It was a unusual schedule for the WNBA yesterday. We had one game on so early that most people with ‘normal’ jobs couldn’t watch it; one game on national TV that everyone was petrified would be so excruciating that the league would lose fans rather than gain them; and one that was blacked out everywhere and impossible to watch until it was over. But as ever, WNBAlien is here to meet your needs, and cover all the action, Bullet Point Breakdown-style.

 

Indiana Fever 58 @ Atlanta Dream 70

  • It was the same starting five as usual for Indiana, with Shavonte Zellous starting despite the neck strain that forced her out early in Saturday’s game against Tulsa.
  • For the Dream, Ketia Swanier started once again at point guard, ahead of Lindsey Harding. If Harding’s fit to play, despite the ankle injury she suffered last week, it’s hard to understand the rationale behind bringing her off the bench. But it’s often hard to understand what’s going on in Marynell Meadors’s head.
  • The first quarter was Indiana’s. Tamika Catchings picked up two quick fouls (the first was cheap, the second could easily have been a charge on Angel McCoughtry instead), but Erlana Larkins came off the bench and filled the gap smoothly. McCoughtry was very quiet early on, and with the Fever taking good care of the ball Atlanta couldn’t get out on the break, leaving their offense utterly anaemic. So the Fever led 18-12 at the end of the first.
  • And that, frankly, was as good as it got for Indiana for the rest of the day. The momentum of the game swung entirely in Atlanta’s favour in the second period. A couple of quick shots from the Fever created long rebounds that let the Dream stretch their legs, a couple of sloppy passes did the same, and suddenly Atlanta were off and running.
  • Meanwhile, Indiana’s penetration had completely disappeared, and the only shots they were throwing up were perimeter jumpers, that wouldn’t fall. They shot 1-15 as a team in the second quarter. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/25/2012: Ever Increasing Victories

So, three WNBA games this Sunday, and the levels of defeat became increasingly comprehensive as we went along. It was like the basketball gods were tired of this week and just wanted it over and done with. They had no time left for tight, hard-fought contests. This was a day where the threat of overtime never even remotely raised its head above the parapet.

First up was Atlanta’s trip to New York, a game which completed the four-game season series between these teams, despite the fact that it’s still June. Address all complaints to the WNBA scheduling department. While they’ve had a largely miserable start to the season, two of the Liberty’s four wins this year have come over the Dream, so a win in this game would’ve taken the series 3-1 and given them the tie-break over Atlanta. Assuming New York still have hopes of making the playoffs, that’s something that could come into play later in the year. Thoroughly inconsistent themselves this year, the Dream were looking to bounce back from a loss to this same Liberty squad last Tuesday.

Making that recovery far more likely was the simple fact that leading scorer and star player Angel McCoughtry was back in uniform, after missing a couple of games with an MCL sprain. There was more encouraging news for the Dream in that both Tiffany Hayes and Lindsey Harding were dressed and ready to play after their ankle injuries late in the last game. Ketia Swanier had been moved into the starting lineup, but Harding was fit enough to come off the bench. She looked like she was in a lot of pain on Tuesday night, so it was good to see her in one piece. New York were still without Plenette Pierson due to what was previously a hyperextended knee – although the official listing in the box score for this game read ‘calf strain’.

The first quarter was dominated by Atlanta. McCoughtry came out firing, but the Dream swiftly realised that they could knife through what New York were generously calling ‘defense’ at will. While the Liberty were clanking perimeter jumpers off the rim, Atlanta were constantly in the paint for layups, either in transition or in the halfcourt. It was far too easy for the Dream, and they were up 26-16 by the end of the first quarter.

The opening period also contained one of the worst charging calls you’re ever likely to see. Armintie Price was coming in for a layup, and Essence Carson was still sliding both backwards and sideways when she flopped on the ground after barely any contact from Price. Hideous call.

The only good sign for New York in the first quarter was that point guard Leilani Mitchell was already 3-3 from three-point range. In general, when Mitchell’s produced points this season, the Liberty have won games. Now they just needed to remember how to do everything else. Continue reading →