Tag Archives: Indiana Fever

WNBA Today, 08/09/2011: Sextuple Tuesday

Yes, six games tonight in the WNBA, as every team in the league takes to the floor. In honour of that (and the fact that there were no games yesterday), WNBAlien brings you some game notes and things to watch out for in all six contests.


Atlanta @ Washington, 7pm ET (ESPN3 in the US, LiveAccess in most other places)

This one could actually be pretty interesting. The Mystics have played some decent stuff lately, finally grabbing their fourth win of the year against New York on Saturday. They also keep claiming that they’re still chasing a playoff spot, and if they honestly believe that then this is one of the games that they have to win – Chicago and Atlanta are the obvious suspects to track down if they were to somehow pull it off.

Crystal Langhorne and Matee Ajavon have been carrying Washington of late, Ajavon especially exploding against New York, but they may struggle against Atlanta’s weapons. The Dream can match up with the Mystics’ speed, although after Armintie Price hurt her ankle in the last game they might be without the most natural option to guard Ajavon. An increasingly healthy Sancho Lyttle could make things difficult for Langhorne inside, but when she’s in the mood Lang can score against anybody. On the opposite side of the ball, Marissa Coleman’s defense may be improved from what it once was, but it’s still hard to see how she’ll keep up with Angel McCoughtry. The Mystics defense will have to be alive and offer Coleman a lot of help to keep McCoughtry quiet.

After two disappointing losses, Atlanta creamed Seattle on Sunday afternoon, and will be looking to carry that momentum on into this game. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/08/2011: Lesson One – Turnovers are Bad

A quad-game Sunday in the WNBA this week, and we’re going to start at the very beginning – because apparently it’s a very good place to start. Seattle went into Philips Arena in Atlanta on a three-game win streak, but also with a 4-7 road record for the season that’s a little misleading. Two of the wins were in Tulsa, one in Washington, and only the victory in Phoenix just after the All-Star break really meant anything. This is a team that’s still struggling to perform without the support of the Key Arena crowd. That simultaneously makes winning a few of these games even more vital, because they’re in a three-way battle with San Antonio and Phoenix for second-place in the Western Conference. Which would result in home-court advantage for at least one round of the playoffs. Hopefully Lauren Jackson will be back by then, and perhaps lower the Storm’s reliance on their own floor, but that #2 spot could mean more to them than any of their rivals.

Atlanta are in the midst of their own playoff battle, but in their case it’s a matter of overtaking Chicago to even make the postseason. Losses to New York and Connecticut in their last couple of games haven’t helped, so they needed to get back to winning ways. Head coach Marynell Meadors shook up her starting lineup in the hope that it would reenergise her team, reinserting Angel McCoughtry and Sancho Lyttle as the starting forwards. It’s still unclear exactly why McCoughtry was ever removed, but it makes sense to open the game with your leader and star on the floor. With Lyttle, it was just a matter of waiting until she seemed healthy enough to take her place – she’s clearly the best option at power forward for this team, as long as she’s in one piece.

The opening stages were, unfortunately for the Storm, a microcosm of the entire 40 minutes. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/06/2011: Is it a Bird? Is it a plane? Right the first time.

Regular WNBAlien readers may have noticed that unless there’s a compelling reason not to, I typically look at the games in chronological order. Well, when the opening contest is Tulsa being stuffed for the 527th time this season, it gets relegated to footnote status. There was one game last night worth talking about, and it was Connecticut’s trip up to the Pacific Northwest to face Seattle. So we’re going to start there.

Both teams went with the starting fives that have served them well lately, producing four wins in the last five for Seattle, and seven out of eight for Connecticut. The Sun have even rectified their appalling road form of late, winning their last three outside the Mohegan Sun after starting the year 1-5 away from home. This was an intriguing encounter even for those who aren’t fans of the University of Connecticut, who seem to provide most of the players on display.

The first 15 minutes of the game were all Seattle. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/01/2011: Two out of three ain’t bad

We may have only recently passed the halfway point, but the brevity of the WNBA season means that you can already feel the intensity ratcheting up. At least in a lot of games you can. Sunday started out with the first meeting this season between the top two in the Western Conference, a game which inevitably carried a little extra spice as the teams fought it out to be top dog. The day continued with a hard-fought Eastern Conference battle played with the physicality and aggression of a playoff game. And then it closed out with a cross-conference matchup where one team quit after about five minutes. We’ll get to that one later. First let’s deal with the teams who deserve to be talked about.

The opening game featured Minnesota travelling to face San Antonio in Texas. By an odd quirk of the schedule, this is the first of their four meetings this year, and it’s going to be an interesting series between two teams that have proven themselves as strong contenders in the West. Each was without a talented member of their bench for this game, with Monica Wright still missing for the Lynx dealing with family matters (her father reportedly had a heart attack) and Danielle Adams out for San Antonio due to her foot sprain. Considering how little use Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve has made of Wright this season, it seemed likely that Adams would be the more significant loss. Both teams started the same fives that have begun all their recent games.

The opening skirmishes seemed to favour Minnesota. Lindsay Whalen was penetrating at will and creating good scoring opportunities for both herself and her teammates, while San Antonio were firing up threes as their main source of offense. However good a shooting team you are, relying on threes to keep you in games is never a good idea. Late in the first quarter, however, things began to change. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/30/2011: Ohhh, we’re half way there…

You know we’ve hit the meat of the WNBA season when a day with only two games feels like a nice, relaxing, easy evening for me. I’m also reliably informed that while last weekend may have been the official mid-point of the season in terms of date, last night’s games took us to exactly halfway through the schedule. 102 games down, 102 to go. Then the playoffs, of course. And WNBAlien just keeps on ticking.

The basketball gods even made it ridiculously easy to choose which game to focus on last night, offering up one tight contest and one overwhelming, comprehensive blowout. Considering the first game was top vs. bottom in the East, while the second featured last season’s champs against the current Western leaders, you might’ve thought the latter would’ve been the close one. You’d have been about as accurate as a Nicky Anosike fadeaway.

Aw, that’s a little unfair. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/29/2011: Ever decreasing circles, WNBA-style

Five games yesterday in the WNBA, and there were fewer points scored in each contest as we went along. It’s a good thing there weren’t any more games or we might’ve ended up with a soccer score. With so many games I’ll be keeping it reasonably brief today – or at least brief by my standards – so let’s get underway. (Editor’s note (yes that’s me as well, humour me): I intended to keep it brief. Level of success is questionable.)

Camp day for San Antonio meant Phoenix were tipping off at 9.30am as far as their fans back home were concerned. Players don’t tend to enjoy these extremely early starts either. The Mercury at least had the benefit of facing the Silver Stars without Danielle Adams, who was in a walking boot and using a crutch after her right toe injury suffered in the Tuesday’s game. Considering she put up 16 and 22 points in the two previous games between these sides this season, that should’ve been a significant bonus for Phoenix.

The Mercury played the first quarter like they still wanted to be in bed. Too many sloppy turnovers and defense that was leaving perimeter scorers like Becky Hammon far too open. San Antonio happily took advantage, Hammon had 13 by the end of the first and Diana Taurasi capped off a grumpy opening period with her fifth technical foul of the season (remember, numbers seven, nine, eleven etc. carry one-game suspensions). Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/24/2011: Where Trade Winds Might Blow, Eastern Edition

I’m intending to write another installment of ‘Your WNBA Questions Answered’ soon, so send in your queries about anything relating to the league via email, twitter, comments at the end of this piece or anywhere else you can get ahold of me. The first edition was here, if you want some idea of what sort of issues I tackled last time around. Anything about the league or the women’s game is welcome.

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Okay, so the first half of the WNBA season is over, the All-Star game is done and dusted, and there aren’t any games until Tuesday. Also, while contracts may have just become guaranteed, we still have three weeks to go until the trading deadline. Those who’ve followed the WNBA in previous seasons will know that this doesn’t exactly tend to herald a hive of activity around the league. The biggest move last year was the trade that sent Kara Braxton to Phoenix, helping them reach the Western Conference Finals only to get swept by Seattle. Which is probably exactly what they’d have achieved if they hadn’t traded for Kara Braxton. The year before, a Tamera Young/Armintie Price swap was the highlight. We have to go back to 2008 and Detroit’s move for Taj McWilliams-Franklin to find a deadline-week move that had a legitimate effect on the destination of the championship, but that trade at least illustrates that they can happen.

So I thought I’d utilise this brief pause in the season to take a look at what teams need, what they have to offer, and who might be most active in calling around for an extra piece over the next few weeks. There isn’t a single team in the league without any holes, so you never know what might happen. Eastern Conference teams today, Western Conference tomorrow, tackling the teams in order of the current standings (just as a break from my typical alphabetical order). Feel free to comment in the space below the article if you’ve got any better ideas – some of the WNBA’s GMs could use all the help they can get.

 

Indiana

The most obvious place that the Fever might be looking for help is at point guard. With Briann January out for the season after her ACL tear, they’ve been using backups Erin Phillips and Shannon Bobbitt for the last few weeks. Phillips has gotten most of the minutes, and has been doing a pretty decent job. Her shooting’s been markedly better than January’s, and her turnovers are significantly lower, but her assists are far lower than January’s as well. Even taking just her games as the starting point guard, Phillips is only at 3.4 assists per game. She isn’t a natural point, and she isn’t as comfortable in the offense as January was. Katie Douglas, who was shooting the lights out early in the year, has dropped off noticeably since Phillips replaced January, and that’s not a coincidence. Douglas has to create more herself now, and there are fewer easy shots available for her. Still, Phillips makes up for a lot of that with her own shooting.

The fact is that Indy are unlikely to find an upgrade on Phillips on the open market. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/22/2011: Cuts and Blowouts

Before we tackle last night’s game, first let’s take a look at all the roster movement that’s been going on today. As I mentioned here a couple of times this week, any non-guaranteed contract that is still on a team’s roster at the mid-point of the WNBA season automatically becomes guaranteed for the rest of the season. We hit that mid-point today, so several teams waived players late last night and the names have been trickling out all day long. In alphabetical team order:

 

Chicago

Angie Bjorklund was waived by the Sky, which wouldn’t have been a huge surprise even if it wasn’t the day before deals became guaranteed. Rookie wing Bjorklund really hasn’t done much all year, and has barely played. On the rare occasions she’s appeared, she’s looked like the old version of Erin Thorn – the one who couldn’t do anything except stand around and shoot – only with less talent. That’s a fringe WNBA player at best.

There’s been no sign yet as to who the Sky will fill the roster spot with. It’s quite possible it’ll simply be Bjorklund returning, because the mid-point of the season is also when seven-day contracts become an option. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/20/2011: Keeping the Dream alive, and other WNBA stories

Three games yesterday in the WNBA, and we’re back to more camp days so they were scattered throughout the afternoon and evening. Doesn’t this league realise that it disrupts my whole pattern when they play games so early? Frankly I think that packing arenas with thousands of screaming kids should come a distant second to pleasing me, but apparently the WNBA disagrees.

Forced to drag themselves out of bed for an early tip yesterday were Atlanta, coming off the back of their fourth win of the season on Saturday against Chicago, and their visitors Indiana. The Fever had lost two in a row after their seven-game win streak came to an end, so whether they were playing at 2 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning, they would’ve been keen to get back to winning ways.

Indiana head coach Lin Dunn made a couple of switches to her starting lineup in the hope of bringing some fresh energy to her group, inserting guard Shavonte Zellous for ‘power’ forward Tangela Smith, which in effect moves Tamika Catchings to the four in place of Smith. She also re-benched center Jessica Davenport for Tammy Sutton-Brown. Both were interesting changes to make against Atlanta especially. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/18/2011: It ain’t over till it’s over

In theory, there were three WNBA games played yesterday. In practice, there were maybe 75 minutes or so of basketball actually worth talking about. One barely watchable blowout that will only be remembered for the halftime ceremony and for clashing with the women’s World Cup soccer final; one painfully dull blowout that somehow became a game; and one game that was actually a competitive contest from start to finish. So let’s start with the game where both teams actually showed up for all 40 minutes.

After having their seven-game winning streak broken by Minnesota on Friday night, Indiana travelled to Connecticut looking to start up a new winning run. The Sun were undoubtedly happy to be back on their own floor, considering Friday’s win in New York was just their second road victory of the season. In contrast, they’ve won every home game they’ve played so far this year. Tangela Smith retained her starting spot at power forward for Indiana despite missing the entire second half of their last game, while Danielle McCray started ahead of Kara Lawson for the second straight game for Connecticut.

It’s early days for the McCray/Kalana Greene starting partnership on the wing for the Sun (and head coach Mike Thibault does like to mess around with his starters from game to game), but for the first couple of games it’s added some pep to their lineup. Lawson is usually out there just trying to keep everything under control in the early stages of a game, putting up the occasional three if she’s left wide open. McCray is a more athletic, speedier player who’s less concerned with control, and more interested in attacking. Continue reading →