Tag Archives: Atlanta Dream

WNBA Today, 09/27/2013: Dream hold off Fever as defense disappears out East; Mercury kiss cheeks while Lynx kick ass in West

 

In some ways, the prospects for our Eastern and Western Conference Finals in the WNBA this season suggested they would go to type. In the East, we had two teams known for their ability to pressurise and force turnovers. One was the best defense in the league this season, the other has been known as a shut-down defensive squad for years. A classic Eastern defensive battle was on the cards. In the West, we had the team with far and away the best offense in the WNBA this season, against a team known as all-offense, all-the-time for over six years (albeit with some recent hints of defensive interest). So a run-and-gun Western shootout, right? As it turned out, we got the contrast – just not in quite the way that history might’ve suggested.

 

The evening began in Atlanta, with the Indiana Fever starting another series on the road. That’s what happens when you slide into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record after a constant struggle throughout the regular season. But the Dream had survived problems of their own, collapsing from a 10-1 start to the season and then having to come from 1-0 down in the first-round of the playoffs to fight past Washington. Whoever ultimately makes it out of the East is going to have worked through some significant difficulties to get there.

 

Dream head coach Fred Williams made a surprisingly active and ballsy move to open the series. After junking his small lineup entirely against the Mystics in the first-round, and making it through that series in part because of his team’s size and offensive rebounding, he immediately went small against Indiana. Both Le’coe Willingham (who started the Washington series at power forward, then missed Games 2 and 3 due to a knee problem) and Aneika Henry (who replaced Willingham) were in uniform and available, but both began the series on the bench. Instead, Angel McCoughtry slid over to the theoretical power forward position, while Armintie Herrington regained her starting spot alongside Tiffany Hayes and Jasmine Thomas on the perimeter. Essentially, it puts four perimeter players on the court with center Erika de Souza. It’s a lineup they used effectively as a change-up during the regular season, especially after Sancho Lyttle got hurt and made their ‘natural’ lineups less effective. We were always likely to see it in this series because Indiana are so small these days with Tamika Catchings at power forward. But it’s the first time Williams has ever used it to start a game. In some ways, it’s the exact opposite of how the Washington series began, where Mike Thibault and the Mystics dictated the action throughout Game 1 and Williams never seemed to have an answer. For once, he had the guts to throw the first punch.

 

All of that said, the game didn’t begin particularly well for Atlanta. They looked confused on which way they were going on the opening tip, handing Catchings an uncontested layup to start the game. Then Hayes jacked an ugly three on Atlanta’s first possession, and Catchings continued to light them up for the next few minutes of the game. The plan appeared to be to guard her with Hayes – McCoughtry was hiding on Karima Christmas, as expected – and Catchings apparently wasn’t impressed by this idea. She hit jumpers, or attacked Hayes off the dribble and finished inside. It didn’t look like Hayes could handle her. When the game restarted after the first timeout five minutes into the opening quarter, Herrington had switched over onto Catchings, and Plan A appeared to have been thrown out the window.

 

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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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WNBA Today, 09/24/2013 (Part One): Dream through as fouls, fatigue and failing shooting puts paid to Mystics’ hopes

 

Deciding Game 3s deserve their own articles, so coverage today comes in two parts. First the East, and coming soon details of the exciting conclusion to the West’s first-round.

—–

 

In any sport, the most exciting games are when it’s winner-takes-all. When it comes down to a final contest where you either win and move on, or lose and go home. So last night was a treat for WNBA fans. Two first-round series had gone the distance, and were heading for deciders on the same night. Two teams would be left to pack their bags and check travel plans for their overseas gigs during the offseason; two would be opening the conference finals on Thursday night.

 

We began in Atlanta, where neutrals could only hope for a more entertaining product than the series had provided so far. The Dream and Mystics had combined to shoot 33% from the field in the opening two games, and it had not been a pretty exhibition of basketball. The players available were the same as for Game 2, with both Sancho Lyttle and Le’coe Willingham still missing for Atlanta, leaving Aneika Henry to start at power forward again. It had worked out pretty well for the Dream two nights earlier.

 

But it was Washington who got off to the better start in this one. The speed and energy of Atlanta’s defense had made a major impact on Game 2 and allowed the Dream to take control despite not shooting particularly well, but this time it was the Mystics’ quickness and conversion in transition that dominated the early stages. They were pushing down the floor hard, looking for open shots before Atlanta’s defense could get set, and actually knocking several down. Ivory Latta hit a couple of threes, Kia Vaughn was running the floor hard and finishing and Monique Currie hit shots as well. These were all positive signs for a Washington team that had been successful defensively in this series, but often struggled to score points. They were the ones with speed to their game, rather than Atlanta.

 

The Dream trailed by as many as 11 points in the opening period. Their defense didn’t start with the same kind of energy as in Game 2, and when you get beaten down the court in transition it’s hard to send traps or double-teams to unsettle your opponent. Usually, you’re still struggling to pick up your own man, never mind send an extra defender. That’s doubly true, of course, when Angel McCoughtry’s on your team and barely bothering to run back on defense. It was annoying in the regular season – it’s scarcely believable in a playoff game that could end her team’s season. Offensively, Atlanta had many of the same problems in the opening period that they’d suffered from during the first two games. Defenders staying in front of McCoughtry, leading to forced jump shots that didn’t go in; and Kia Vaughn continuing to shut down Erika de Souza on the low block. Fortunately for Atlanta, Vaughn picked up two early fouls in barely three minutes of action, the second a thoroughly dumb reach when Erika attacked on a drive from the elbow. Vaughn went to the bench, but she had such an impact on Erika in this series that every time Michelle Snow came in it seemed to take Erika a little while to recognise that she now had much greater opportunity to attack.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/22/2013: Desperation fuels Dream and Sparks to force deciders

 

For many years, I’ve been saying that the WNBA’s regular season goes on too long. In fact, that’s true in most American sports. They play for months on end to decide nothing more than which terrible teams to eliminate, and who plays whom in the games that actually matter. And, of course, to decide the vital home-court (or field, or whatever) advantage. Six games into this year’s WNBA playoffs, and all that time fighting for home-court is looking even more pointless.

 

Last night’s action began in Washington, where the Mystics were looking to close out their first playoff series win since 2002. Atlanta had been so pedestrian and lifeless in Game 1 that it seemed like Washington had every chance to complete the job, especially considering the Dream’s dismal road record over the course of the season. Since their 10-1 start to the year, Atlanta had gone 1-12 away from Philips Arena. They also made a change in the post, and not the one they would’ve made by choice. Sancho Lyttle was still out, and she was joined in street clothes by replacement Le’coe Willingham due to a right knee problem picked up in practice. That forced Aneika Henry into the starting lineup, leaving only the decaying remnants of Ruth Riley on their bench as interior backup.

 

Let’s get one thing straight from the start – this was not a pretty game. This was the uglier sister to Game 1’s initial ugly sibling. If I say something good happened in the next few paragraphs, it’s relative to all the other rubbish that we had to sit through over the course of this game. But at the very least, we have to credit the Dream for making it ugly. They came out with vastly better energy than in Game 1, doubling and trapping and generally harassing on the defensive end. It wasn’t a typical man-to-man, more a constant stream of double-teams where they trusted themselves to be able to rotate and cover well enough to avoid being exploited elsewhere on the floor. Making that one basic change led to much greater energy in their play elsewhere on the court, feeding into their offense and their rebounding. Occasionally, anyway.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/20/2013: Atlanta embarrassed, LA exploited, as Mystics and Mercury open playoffs with road upsets

 

It was a slightly strange opening to the WNBA playoffs this year. Kind of a cross between a whimper and a bang. Upsets always shake things up and make things a little more interesting, with the best-of-three format immediately putting pressure on everybody. But the crowds weren’t great (often a problem in the first-round when teams are selling tickets on such short notice), and the first game was so lacking in energy (and shot-making) that it threatened to send everyone to sleep. Which if you think about it, just makes this article all the more important. Maybe you dozed off during the game, and require this informative piece to let you know what happened. On with the coverage.

 

The postseason began in Atlanta, where the Dream played host to the Washington Mystics. With both sides finishing at 17-17 there obviously wasn’t that much between these teams, although Atlanta have a much more successful recent history than Washington. The Mystics hadn’t made a playoff appearance since 2010, and hadn’t won a playoff game since 2004. They’ve won one playoff series in the franchise’s entire 16-year history. Having made the Finals twice in recent years, Atlanta had the pedigree, but they’d also struggled in the second half of this season after their 10-1 start. A team photo with Sancho Lyttle in uniform had raised faint hopes that she might be returning from her broken foot for the playoffs, but she was in street clothes yet again (it’s 9 1/2 weeks since her surgery, by the way. Recovery was supposed to take 6-8). Armintie Herrington’s shoulder problem was presumably a little more serious than initially believed, because Tiffany Hayes started the game in Herrington’s regular spot. Herrington was available off the bench, but it was a change to their regular lineup that probably wouldn’t have been made if she was fully healthy. Hayes is their bench energy, and Herrington’s something of a stabilising force for the starting group. It works better that way round.

 

Washington opened the game in a 2-3 zone, which briefly made me wonder if head coach Mike Thibault was going to go heavily against the typical coaching manual and use that defense consistently throughout the game. Zones against Atlanta can be effective, because the basic tenet when facing the Dream is to make them beat you from outside. But the zone was gone after just one possession. We saw it a couple more times during the night, just to keep Atlanta a little off-balance, but it was a change-up move rather than the regular defense.

 

Frankly, Washington didn’t need to make many changes from their basic man-to-man, because Atlanta struggled to break them down all night long. The Dream got out on the break a couple of times in the first quarter, even opening the game with a 4-0 run when Matee Ajavon was twice stripped by Angel McCoughtry for steals. But Thibault called an early timeout to calm his team down and remind them to take care of the ball, the Mystics became more careful and made sure to work back in transition, and Atlanta’s offense utterly collapsed. Between Kia Vaughn, Crystal Langhorne and Michelle Snow, the Washington posts where bodying up Erika de Souza in the paint and forcing her further from the hoop than she wanted to be. When she threw up shots after the ball was tossed into her in the post, she had someone right on top of her and nothing went in. Similarly, Atlanta’s perimeter players weren’t creating anything easy. If they managed to get anywhere near the rim, they were forced to attempt the finish under heavy pressure and missed consistently. Angel McCoughtry couldn’t get around Monique Currie, so penetration was difficult, and if she managed to force an effort towards the rim Currie was right in her face. With little pace to their game, Atlanta couldn’t score.

 

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2013 WNBA Playoff Previews: Eastern Conference First Round – Atlanta Dream vs. Washington Mystics

 

By the numbers (over entire regular season):

 

Atlanta (17-17) vs Washington (17-17)

 

Points scored per 100 possessions: 95.19 (9th in WNBA) – 95.96 (6th)

Points conceded per 100 possessions: 93.2 (1st) – 95.6 (6th)

Rebound percentage: .503 (4th) – .502 (6th)

 

Season series between the teams: Atlanta won 3-2

06/02 @Wash, Dream won 73-63

06/28 @Atl, Dream won 86-75

08/18 @Atl, Dream won 76-58

08/23 @Wash, Mystics won 74-64

08/28 @Atl, Mystics won 85-80

 

—–

 

These teams finished tied with .500 records in the Eastern Conference, but arrived there by very different routes. Washington were a ‘win two here, lose three there’ kind of team all season long. They’d fight out a few results, then lose their way for a while, then remember what they needed to do to win games again. Just to make it this far has to be considered a success for Mike Thibault and his squad, considering the disastrous couple of years under Trudi Lacey that preceded this season. Meanwhile, Atlanta started the year 10-1, and then dropped into something resembling freefall. For those of you who can do basic math, you’ll be able to calculate that they went 7-16 over the remainder of the season. Injuries hit them hard, and it was a struggle to overcome them enough to regain real form in the second half of the year – plus not everyone is back. Both these teams are somehow predictably unpredictable, which makes foretelling how their series is going to play out rather tricky.

 

Thibault has turned the Mystics into a solid team this year. You can see from the stats above that they’re pretty consistently mediocre – which isn’t a criticism. They’ve lifted themselves to being middle-of-the-pack at most aspects of the game. They play decent team defense, they can hit shots from outside, they can draw fouls on penetration – but they’re also prone to cold streaks, occasional breakdowns defensively, and becoming painfully static on offense. They work hard for each other, but you’re never quite sure where their offense is going to come from. Will Ivory Latta or Monique Currie get hot from the perimeter? Is this a random night where Kia Vaughn or Crystal Langhorne finds some rhythm inside? Will their young bench group lead to the offense disintegrating or energise the team and keep the starters on the bench? They’ve pieced things together this season from game to game, finding the hot hand wherever it is, and clawing out wins. Their depth and multiple potential scorers makes it hard to plan to stop them, because you can’t focus on a particular player or two, but it also means they don’t have a true go-to option. They’re reliant on someone stepping up on any given night.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/16/2013: Regular season ends as Mystics take #3 seed and Fever happily settle for #4

 

Sunday saw the conclusion to the WNBA’s 2013 regular season, with a surprising amount still to be decided. There were some minor questions around home-court advantage in theoretical WNBA Finals matchups, but the main issue remaining was in the Eastern Conference playoff race. With the #3 and #4 seeds still to be decided, the matchups in the first-round were also still up in the air. And there was still a chance that Indiana and Washington could finish off their games, and be left waiting around for the Atlanta result to decide their fate. It was a strange state of flux to be sitting in, heading into the final day of the season.

 

Indiana Fever 80 @ Connecticut Sun 82

  • Playing in the first game of the day, the Fever made the first conspicuous move in relation to deciding the seeding for the Eastern playoffs. If you want to be generous, you could say that their decisions suggested that they didn’t mind whether they faced Chicago or Atlanta in the first-round. After all, neither a win or a loss would definitively decide their opposition. But more accurately, it seemed like they wanted the Sky. Tamika Catchings took the day off to rest a sore back (I’ll resist making the standard joke about how it was caused by having to carry this team all season); Briann January sat out to rest a sore shoulder; and Shavonte Zellous was excused to attend a funeral. The Zellous issue was presumably legitimate, but if they really wanted to win this game, Catchings and January undoubtedly would’ve played. It left the Fever with just seven healthy bodies, and a distinctly makeshift lineup.

 

  • The moves made plenty of sense for Indiana. While Chicago have clearly been the best team in the East this season, the Fever have a great record against them over the years and went 3-1 against them this season. It also made sense in planning for the future, because a loss would give them a strong chance of the #5 overall pick in next year’s draft, while a win might move them down that order. If they were happy to play the Sky instead of the Dream, you could argue the players should’ve ‘rested’ for more than just this one game.

 

  • Of course, Indiana had a decent chance to win anyway. All of Connecticut’s injuries had them down to seven players as well, with Tan White the latest casualty due to a broken finger. And while you can rest as many players as you like, once you take the court instincts tend to kick in. No one’s going out on the floor playing to lose.

 

  • The reason I didn’t expect Indiana to rest so many players was the return of Katie Douglas. This was just her second game back after missing almost the entire season with a back problem, and it seemed like they’d want her to rebuild chemistry with the other key players on the roster. Clearly they didn’t think that was a big deal, presumably due to the number of years Douglas has already played with most of these teammates. There were some communication issues during this game, most noticeably between Douglas and Karima Christmas, where switches and defensive rotations weren’t particularly smooth. While she’s been watching from the sidelines all season, turning that into movement on the floor is very different, and Douglas needs to get up to speed very quickly. It’s a transition for Christmas right now as well, because she’s being asked to play some power forward after Indiana were forced to release Jessica Breland due to Douglas’s return. Christmas has been playing small forward all season, and while the amount of switching within Indiana’s defense means she’s had practice sliding inside, it’s not quite the same thing. Her help instincts and rotation moves aren’t quite those of a player used to playing in the paint.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/14/2013: Friday night resolves nothing as WNBA decisions go to final weekend

 

There’s an awful lot to cover in the closing days of the regular season for those of us who write about the entire WNBA. While continuing to follow the remaining games, there are end-of-season wrap-ups, playoff previews, and award articles on top of the usual stuff. And the teams aren’t making it any easier. On the antepenultimate day of the regular season we had four games last night, and three of them had at least some influence on the playoff picture. Yet resolved exactly nothing. So we’re going to try to keep the individual game coverage brief(ish), and then detail the remaining issues to be decided at the end of the article. You can skip to the ‘What it all Means’ section if you don’t want to hear about what happened last night.

 

New York Liberty 63 @ Indiana Fever 66

  • Indiana opened the evening in a flat tie with Washington for the #3 seed in the East, with two games remaining. But that was overshadowed by the return of Katie Douglas, who’d missed virtually the entire season with a back problem. As covered in this space before, while getting Douglas back for the playoffs was a very nice boost, by rule they were required to release hardship exception signing Jessica Breland when Douglas returned. This would be the first test of whether the gain of Douglas outweighed being down to Jasmine Hassell as their only backup post. Douglas went straight into the starting lineup, replacing Karima Christmas, while New York were still without star guard Cappie Pondexter. Playing for nothing besides lottery positioning (which could only be improved by losing), there was no need to rush Pondexter back.

 

  • It wasn’t long before the issues around losing Breland were highlighted. Erlana Larkins picked up two fouls in the opening 99 seconds, and had to go to the bench. That brought Hassell in, and in her 10 minutes of action over the course of the evening she did little beyond illustrating why she’s barely played for most of the season. We also saw Tamika Catchings forced to play some center later in the game, and Christmas having to slide over for occasional spells at power forward. When those lineups were in, the Fever looked desperately small. New York had some foul trouble of their own, which kept them smaller than usual in the paint at times, but they still punished Indiana inside for long stretches. Larkins and Catchings have been fighting their tails off all season, and they did most of the work as a pair during the Fever’s eventual run to a title last season. But the likes of Sylvia Fowles and Erika de Souza are likely to be in their way in the postseason, and this game showed how much danger a modicum of foul trouble can cause for Indiana. It’s going to be an awkward balancing act for the Fever in the playoffs.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/12/2013: Narrow victories for Sun and Sky as Delle Donne adds another buzzer-beater to her highlight reel

 

Last night’s pair of WNBA games had very little meaning in the grand scheme of things, but still produced tight, exciting finishes. What more can you ask for while teams are playing out the end of the regular season?

 

We opened in Connecticut, where Atlanta were the visitors. Both teams had the expected players available, i.e. Atlanta with everyone bar power forward Sancho Lyttle, who’s looking less and less likely to return for the playoffs; Connecticut with Charles, Lawson, Hightower and Faris out, leaving eight in uniform. The Sun had shown in their last couple of games that both the +/- statistics and the eye-test that suggested they’ve been better with Charles on the bench this year might have some truth to them. Atlanta had a couple of solid wins to start September, then went right back to looking shaky again. Connecticut are playing for pride and each other; Atlanta want to pick up their form heading into the postseason.

 

One word showed up an awful lot of times in my notes from this game. ‘Turnover’, often with an expletive or something like ‘crappy’ attached. Atlanta were staggeringly sloppy all night long. They started out the game committing several turnovers by trying to make the extra pass when they should’ve just kept going to the rim or taken the open shot. That’s okay. For a team that sometimes fails to move the ball enough, you can live with them making a few mistakes by trying to move it too much. But as the night wore on they were just making error after error, with passes flying out of bounds or straight to Sun players. They can’t expect to win playing like this.

 

Of course, they were playing Connecticut, so the Dream stayed in the game anyway. Atlanta led by as many as nine points in the opening period, but with useful production from Kayla Pedersen and Iziane Castro Marques off the bench Connecticut eased back into the game. This is how the Sun have been playing since Charles was shut down for the season. They’re working hard, playing as a team, and competing. They go through stretches where you wonder where their next point is going to come from, because there just aren’t that many obvious scoring options left on the team, but they move the ball around and scratch out enough to stay alive. Their last three games have probably been more impressive than the first 29. Atlanta led 37-36 at halftime.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/10/2013: Mercury road win and Mystics’ meanderings overshadowed by record-breaking Riquna

 

Sunday was an odd day of WNBA basketball. Three games, two of which had at least some relevance to playoff qualification and positioning – and yet by the end of the day the only game anyone was talking about was the apparently irrelevant matchup that closed out the weekend. We’ll stick to chronological order as usual, and build to the big finish just like a certain diminutive Shock guard.

 

Phoenix Mercury 79 @ Atlanta Dream 71

  • With Seattle dropping another game to Minnesota on Saturday night (and looking distinctly unlikely to change that pattern when they play the Lynx again on Tuesday), Phoenix’s hold on the #3 seed in the West was looking increasingly secure. At this point, their run-in is more about trying to build chemistry, and become more comfortable playing in Russ Pennell’s system. They came into this game 6-2 since he arrived, but that record had been pieced together against some weak and undermanned teams, and masked some pretty shaky performances. Going on the road to face a playoff team who’d put up some decent performances recently looked like being a more legitimate test. Three straight wins for Atlanta had shown some hints of the old Dream performances from early in the season, when they broke out to a 10-1 start. Now it was a matter of trying to keep that momentum rolling – plus they were still playing to maintain their hold on the #2 seed in the East, ahead of Indiana and Washington.

 

  • Phoenix tried to run that set play off the opening tip again, where Brittney Griner wins it, then Briana Gilbreath sets a pick on the opposing center, and Griner rolls right to the hoop. It basically worked – Atlanta apparently hadn’t bothered preparing for it – but Griner missed the finish inside.

 

  • Angel McCoughtry hit a couple of deep jumpers early on, then reverted to her standard pattern of bricking them. She also provided yet another example of the half-assed defense that drives me crazy. While she’s nowhere near as good in the halfcourt as her reputation would suggest – she freelances constantly for steals, which is fine when it’s part of the defense, but she gets beaten easily off the dribble far too frequently – it’s the abject laziness that’s horrifying. She’ll miss a shot or a layup, and then just drift back towards the other end of the floor whenever she feels like it, while her teammates play 4-on-5. Sometimes she’s not even complaining to an official about a call – she just can’t be bothered to work back. It’s pathetic, especially for a player who’s supposed to be a leader and a superstar. Move. She’ll happily run the floor hard when there’s an opportunity for her to score on the end of it; she just can’t be bothered when it’s required to help her team play defense. Embarrassing. Spoiler alert – McCoughtry won’t be on my All-Defense Team when I pick it in about a week.

 

  • On a far more positive note, the first quarter of this game saw the return of Penny Taylor from her second knee surgery, playing her first game since mid-July. She was clearly rusty, but getting back such an important and talented player could be just the boost the Mercury need heading into the playoffs.

 

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