After a crazy finish on Monday forced a deciding game, last night saw the Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun meet in a winner-takes-all decider for the Eastern Conference title. The victors would be heading straight to Minnesota for Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Sunday night; the losers would be packing their bags and scattering around the globe for their offseason gigs. All that work over the hard slog of the regular season, and this 40 minutes would decide who got to play for the ring, and whose season was over.

The starting lineups were the same once again, and the most obvious thing to take from the opening exchanges was that the officials were going with a distinctly laissez-faire approach – they were going to “let ’em play”, especially in the paint. While there were some brief positive signs for Connecticut – Tina Charles was beating Erlana Larkins to rebounds, Asjha Jones had a pretty spin move around Tamika Catchings to open the scoring – it was Indiana who found their rhythm quicker. They knocked down a series of jump shots, with Catchings, Katie Douglas and Erin Phillips all accurate from the perimeter early, forcing Sun head coach Mike Thibault into a quick timeout with his team trailing 9-2.

Moments later came something no one wants to see, especially in the playoffs. Douglas drove into the lane, contriving a way to create a left-handed shot from the right side of the floor, as is often her style. The finish rimmed out, but far more important was Douglas’s landing. She came down on Tan White’s foot, and Douglas’s left foot twisted nastily. The idiotic rule that doesn’t allow the referees to stop the game meant Catchings hit a three before Phillips intentionally fouled to stop the game – all while Douglas was flat out on the court in agony. After a long pause while the trainers looked at Douglas and teammates surrounded her in support, she was helped from the floor while putting virtually no weight on her injured foot at all. That was the last we’d see of her for the rest of the night, bar the footage of her being stretchered into an ambulance so she could be taken to a local hospital for x-rays.

So the Fever were up 12-4 and had come out shooting well from outside, but they’d lost one of their key players barely five minutes into the game. They also had point guard Briann January looking uncertain and committing unusually weak turnovers. And Tina Charles looking good on the glass for the Sun. But amazingly, the Fever were still on top. They were still the ones knocking down every outside shot imaginable, with Shavonte Zellous coming in and smoothly filling Douglas’s shoes. Connecticut couldn’t hit from the perimeter, and were even struggling on basic finishes inside or putback attempts from offensive rebounds. They were lucky to be as close as 18-10 at the end of the first quarter. Continue reading →

After Minnesota assured their spot in the WNBA Finals by completing a sweep over LA on Sunday, the Connecticut Sun had the chance to follow suit last night. But it was never going to be easy against an Indiana Fever team that clawed back from 1-0 down in the previous round and is led by the WNBA’s ultimate competitor, Tamika Catchings. If the Sun wanted the extra time off before the Finals begin on Sunday, they were going to have to hold off a Fever team fighting for its life in front of their own raucous fans. It turned out to be a hell of a battle.

There were no immediate, dramatic changes from the head coaches, as both Connecticut’s Mike Thibault and Indiana’s Lin Dunn stuck with the same starting lineups. The early minutes went Connecticut’s way, as the Sun broke out to a 13-2 lead. They’d opened the scoring with Tina Charles throwing up a three-pointer to beat the shot clock that dropped in, and kept the momentum going by knocking down jumpers and completing three-point plays at the rim. There was a quick pace to the game and the Fever were creating some opportunities in the paint, but failing to convert under pressure. It wasn’t a promising start for the team whose season was on the line.

However, as the first quarter progressed, Indiana settled down and started to ease their way back into the game. Big center Jessica Davenport saw her first minutes since the opening first-round game against Atlanta, coming in as the first post off the bench instead of Tammy Sutton-Brown, and provided a different look. She offers a big target for the offense to work around, and a soft touch when her shot’s falling. Then Tamika Catchings started drilling jumpers, with one from mid-range and a pair of threes to follow. Considering the number of poor shooting games Catchings has had in the playoffs – admittedly while driving the team in every other area – it was a significant positive for the Fever to see her start hitting early. Katie Douglas was looking sharp as well, and closed out the first quarter with a finish through traffic at the rim. Kara Lawson was already looking scarily hot from the perimeter for Connecticut but Indiana were right back in it after 10 minutes, trailing just 24-20. Continue reading →

While the first round of the 2012 WNBA playoffs in the Eastern and Western Conferences mirrored each other in many ways – one team came through with ease, the other had a hell of a fight – there was one key difference. Los Angeles may have made it through to opening round comfortably, but they then had to go on the road to open the Conference Finals. Connecticut had a similarly straightforward first round, but they got to open the Eastern Finals on their own floor. While that gave them an extra comfort level that the Sparks didn’t have, it also made the game even more crucial. Dropping the first game at home would’ve dug a big hole that would”ve been tough to climb out of.

The Indiana Fever were their opposition, a team happy to still be alive after salvaging their first-round matchup against Atlanta. Indiana opened Game 1 against Connecticut with the same lineup that turned the Dream series, with Erin Phillips and Erlana Larkins starting the game. The Sun were also unchanged, featuring the same starting five that they used whenever possible in the regular season.

The opening quarter went well for Indiana, although in very different ways from how they battled past Atlanta. While they were keeping the pace high and pushing the ball down the floor as they had against the Dream, the first period saw a return to the perimeter attack that the Fever relied upon for much of the regular season. Either on penetration and kicks, or on simple ball rotation and passing, Indiana were finding wide open shots around the outside and knocking them down. While you’d typically prefer more of your shots to come from nearer the rim, Lin Dunn’s team weren’t going to turn down the kind of open looks that Connecticut’s defense was giving up, and Indiana were capitalising.

At the other end, Connecticut were firing up a lot of shots from similar range, but without the space Indiana were finding. For the Sun it was more a matter of settling for outside shots and being kept out of the paint by the Fever, rather than taking jumpers because they were open. Tina Charles and Asjha Jones were being double-teamed if they attempted to post up on the low block, and were beginning to simply stop bothering to venture down there. Indiana were already 4-10 from three-point range after 10 minutes of play, and led 22-14.

The Fever double-teams on the low block have been a feature of their defense all season, so Connecticut should’ve been ready for them. Rather than coming from the high defender on the same side of the floor as the ball, the extra defender comes from the baseline. The initial defender overplays the high side, knowing where her help is coming from, and then the attacking player tries to turn into the space on the baseline – only to run into the second defender. It’s especially effective because the player it leaves open is on the opposite side of the floor, in the deep corner, who is hard to rotate the ball to before the defense can recover and jump back out. In the opening stages of this game Connecticut rarely managed to find anyone open or create anything useful against the pressure of those double-teams. Continue reading →