Tag Archives: Phoenix Mercury

WNBA Today, 06/17/2013: Misery deepens for Fever, Shock and Sun while Angel keeps shining

 

After the single relaxing blowout on Saturday, the WNBA threw another quad-game slate at us on Sunday, with matchups staggered throughout afternoon. Once more, it’s a Bullet Point Breakdown to take a look at the key moments and topics raised by all four.

 

Indiana Fever 60 @ Washington Mystics 64

  • It never rains but it pours. With Katie Douglas, Erin Phillips, Jessica Davenport and Jeanette Pohlen all still sidelined for Indiana, rookie guard Layshia Clarendon joined them due to an ankle injury suffered late in their previous game. Karima Christmas moved into the starting lineup, and the Fever were down to eight healthy bodies again, with emergency addition Erin Thorn the only perimeter backup. Washington had everyone available.

 

  • It wasn’t a pretty first half. Both teams shot mid-30% from the field – which isn’t good in anybody’s book – and both fouled far too often on jumpshooters. Ivory Latta hit a couple from deep, while Crystal Langhorne amazingly didn’t take a single shot in the opening 20 minutes.

 

  • Indiana are still fighting, despite being understrength. Their smaller players were repeatedly hitting the deck as they dropped down on switches and fought with far bigger Mystics posts. Christmas isn’t a particularly skilled offensive player, but she’ll make little glue plays and come up with hustle stats that you don’t get from everyone. But they’re so thin, and the offensive weapons just aren’t there. It’s a little sad, after the fabulous playoff run just eight months ago.

 

  • The Fever double-teams were hassling Langhorne whenever the ball found her down low, but there was a clear effort from the Mystics to get her involved offensively in the second half. In her early years it would’ve been easier to keep her quiet, but these days she can step outside and hit a mid-range jumper or drive from the elbow. That at least got her into the game in the second half.

 

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WNBA Today, 06/15/2013: Third-quarters are the charm on four-game Friday

 

Another quadruple-header in the WNBA last night, as the bizarre roller-coaster schedule threw up a heavy evening of basketball. Back to the Bullet Point Breakdown to take a look at them all.

 

Connecticut Sun 68 @ New York Liberty 78

  • The Sun were still without the services of Renee Montgomery and Tan White due to injury, while New York once again had just nine healthy bodies with Essence Carson done for the year and Cheryl Ford still yet to make an appearance. In fact, it emerged after the game that the Liberty will be cutting Ford this weekend, after coming to the conclusion that her knees just weren’t going to allow her to play for them. That will allow New York to add another player, but it’s a disappointing end for a player who was expected to at least contribute after returning to the WNBA for the first time since 2009.

 

  • This was a contest that embodied an oft-repeated cliché in my part of the world: it was a game of two halves. The first ‘half’ lasted through the opening 23 minutes of gametime (I know that doesn’t technically make much sense – work with me here). Through those 23 minutes, the Liberty offense was an ugly mess, repeatedly turning the ball over. Cappie Pondexter missed her first seven shots of the game, being essentially shut down by Kalana Greene, as the Liberty shot 28% as a team. Kara Lawson was left open far too often to hit shots for the Sun. And the only thing keeping the Liberty in the game was that they’d managed to keep Tina Charles very quiet.

 

  • After her 30-point explosion on Wednesday night against Indiana, Charles found life a lot more difficult against New York. Kara Braxton and Kelsey Bone both offered bigger and taller opposition than she faced against the Fever, and with the Liberty sending plenty of help as well the Sun’s star center never found any rhythm.

 

  • But with Connecticut moving the ball around better than New York, and their role players joining Lawson to knock down some shots and generate offense elsewhere, the Sun had built a 40-32 lead when the game-changing sequence occurred. Charles picked up her third foul while fighting with Bone for position in the paint; then added her fourth seconds later on a soft call as Katie Smith tried to drive along the baseline. Only a few minutes into the second half, Charles went to the bench and stayed there for the rest of the third quarter.

 

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WNBA Today, 06/09/2013: Merc off the mark, Mystics pull an upset, and more OT misery for Shock

 

Yesterday was a strange day of basketball. We had the underperforming preseason favourites playing without their prized rookie due to injury – and finally winning a game. Then the Western champs of the last two years barely showed up for their first road game, after looking dominant at home. And finally a tight contest that went to overtime and still managed to be painful to watch. All on the day that ESPN debuted their vertigo-inducing Ref-cam. Let’s get to the games.

 

 

Phoenix Mercury 82 @ Indiana Fever 67

 

  • The big news before tip-off was that Brittney Griner was out with a sprained left knee, continuing a long line of nationally televised WNBA games where star players were on the sidelines for one reason or another. Mercury head coach Corey Gaines told a story after the first quarter about Griner being examined 25 minutes before tip-off and the doctor saying it “wouldn’t be wise for her to play”, but after so much nonsense and disinformation from the Mercury organisation over the last couple of years, it barely seems worth listening. Inevitably, conspiracy theories immediately began springing up among the fans – including the idea that Gaines is so incompetent at working out how to use Griner, he just decided to sit her. That seems distinctly unlikely, but hey, if watching the team play without her leads to improvement when she returns, maybe it was a stroke of genius.

 

  • Alexis Hornbuckle was out as well with her own ankle sprain, leaving Gaines to push Briana Gilbreath into the starting lineup. That was another level of embarrassment for second-year point guard Samantha Prahalis, who was expected to be the starting point guard (and did indeed start their first two games before being benched). Now Prahalis couldn’t even make the starting group with two more rotation players in street clothes.

 

  • Indiana, of course, had their own considerable injury problems. Katie Douglas’s back had taken her out of this game, alongside Erin Phillips, Jessica Davenport and Jeanette Pohlen. The signing of Erin Thorn added a little extra depth, but they’re struggling for useable bodies at this point.

 

  • The positive angle for Phoenix was that without Griner they could stop worrying about how to integrate her into the team and the offense, and find a way back to their old run-and-gun style. It didn’t really work for most of the first half. Indiana helped them out by missing a swathe of layups, and rookie guard Layshia Clarendon continues to look like she needs more development before being anywhere near ready for the role she’s being asked to play, but the Fever still scrambled their way out to a 38-30 lead late in the first half. The Mercury were whining endlessly to the officials, with Diana Taurasi and Candice Dupree both picking up technicals, but the only place they were on top was the glass. Otherwise, they looked like a cross between the poor team of the first three games, and the mess we saw last season.

 

  • But instead of losing their composure, the bitching and moaning about perceived slights from the referees appeared to ignite the Mercury. At least that attitude, especially from Taurasi, shows a level of energy and investment that hasn’t really been in evidence in previous games. They finally looked like they gave a crap. A 7-0 run took them in at halftime down by just a point.

 

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WNBA Today, 06/07/2013: Moribund Mercury mauled by merciless Minnesota

 

Only one game in the WNBA last night. The solitary contest started just an hour before Game 1 of the NBA Finals tipped off, which seemed like an unfortunate bit of scheduling, but our game in Minnesota was over as a contest in plenty of time for fans to switch focus. Which tells you everything you need to know about how uncompetitive this game turned out to be.

 

We haven’t seen much of the Lynx so far this season. They’d played just one game in the opening 13 days, although that glimpse resulted in a dominating win over Connecticut. Their visitors, the Phoenix Mercury, had dropped both their games so far and looked pretty awful in the process. A visit to Minnesota is rarely the best way to reverse a losing slide in the WNBA.

 

The Lynx lined up for the opening tip as expected, with Janel McCarville joining the remaining four regulars, but there was a change for Phoenix. Second-year point guard Samantha Prahalis, who’s had a rocky start to the season (although that’s true of most of the Mercury roster), was benched in favour of wing Charde Houston. That slid Diana Taurasi over to the point guard spot, somewhere she can play but not her most comfortable position. She’s such a key part of their scoring punch that you don’t really want Taurasi bringing the ball up the floor and trying to initiate the offense on every possession. It’s also a switch that can’t help Prahalis’s confidence. The move by Mercury head coach Corey Gaines was essentially singling her out, when the whole team had performed poorly in their opening games.

 

It’s possible that the change in opening lineup was connected with the change in defensive approach that the Mercury tried in this game. They were attempting to trap on ball-screens – a move where both defensive players try to challenge the ballhandler aggressively when she goes around a pick. It’s not something Phoenix have done much of in the past, and certainly not something they were doing a few days earlier in Seattle. Using Houston instead of Prahalis put a longer player on the floor, who theoretically would have more chance to disrupt the ballhandler and block passing lanes on those traps. But obviously, aggressive double-teaming like that leaves a 4-on-3 behind the trap if the offensive player can pass off to a teammate, and in particular it leaves the original screener wide open unless help rotates over quickly. The Mercury have been a terrible defensive team for years, and they especially struggle to ‘help the helper’, i.e. making the secondary rotation to cover open gaps. Plus they were trying this new strategy against one of the smartest and most unselfish teams in the league. Unsurprisingly, the Mercury got torn apart, as passes beat the traps and Minnesota exploited the space.

 

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WNBA Today, 06/03/2013: Shots still falling for Sky; sky already falling for Mercury?

 

Three games on Sunday in the WNBA, but for once they were generous enough to spread them out for us and avoid any overlap. Bullet Point Breakdown time for all three:

 

Atlanta Dream 73 @ Washington Mystics 63

 

  • For once, both teams involved in a WNBA game were essentially healthy. Tiffany Hayes continued to start for Atlanta, but Armintie Herrington was available off the bench after missing their last game due to illness.

 

  • There was sloppy basketball from both teams early on, with misplaced passes and blown layups on either side. Crystal Langhorne won the early skirmishes at the power forward spot over Sancho Lyttle with hustle rebounds and a nice backcut, but that was about all that worked for Washington.

 

  • Barely five minutes into the game, the pattern for most of the afternoon began to take hold. Washington were so desperate to push the ball and find quick offense that they were making mistakes and turning the ball over. It’s a cardinal sin against Atlanta, who desperately want to force turnovers and ignite their running game. Even off Mystics misses they were simply beating Washington down the floor for easy opportunities – an unforgivable failing in transition defense. Atlanta were up 9 at the end of the first quarter and led by as many as 15 in the second.

 

  • The silver lining in the first half for the Mystics was the performance of Belgian rookie Emma Meesseman. She made some hustle plays on the glass and showed off her range by hitting a couple of jumpers from mid-range. At barely 20 years old, Meesseman would still have a year or two of college development left if she was American. As long as she keeps showing up, she could be a useful part of Washington’s future. That said, Thibault seemed reluctant to play Meesseman with Langhorne, presumably worried about the defense they’d put up without a true center. So giving Meesseman extended minutes kept Langhorne off the floor. And this team is rarely going to win games without Langhorne playing a key role for most of the game.

 

  • Atlanta had 12 points off 14 Mystics turnovers in the first half, a ridiculous and suicidal number for Washington. The Dream also had a 16-0 advantage in free throw attempts. Hence the 13-point Atlanta lead.

 

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WNBA Today, 05/28/2013: Griner dunks but Mercury demolished, while Mystics squeak past Shock

 

Memorial Day was a big holiday for the WNBA this year. While the season may have begun for the diehards on Friday night, Monday was the launchpad for the vaunted ‘Three to See’ on national television. ESPN2 rolled out the red carpet for Skylar Diggins in Tulsa’s home opener, followed by the professional debuts for Brittney Griner and Elena Delle Donne. It didn’t all go quite according to the anticipated script, but there was some entertaining basketball along the way. Oh, and a couple of dunks. We mustn’t forget the dunks.

 

First up, Diggins’s Shock hosted the Washington Mystics, making their first appearance of the 2013 season. That meant the 4th overall pick from this year’s draft was involved as well as the top three, with Tayler Hill immediately slotting into the starting lineup for Mike Thibault’s Mystics. Matee Ajavon was late arriving to training camp due to overseas commitments, which may have played into the decision to start Hill, but it also allows them to use Ajavon in a similar sixth woman role to the one Renee Montgomery performed for Thibault in Connecticut. Offseason acquisition Kia Vaughn got the start at center ahead of veteran Michelle Snow.

 

The Shock were down another player, after already starting the season shorthanded. Nicole Powell and Tiffany Jackson-Jones were already out with injuries since the preseason, and Candice Wiggins joined them in street clothes after tweaking her ankle in Saturday’s loss to Atlanta. Point guard Angel Goodrich slid into an all-rookie starting backcourt alongside Diggins. On the bright side, giant center Liz Cambage was ruled healthy enough to start the game, replacing Kayla Pedersen in the lineup.

 

The first play of the game was a heartening sight for Shock fans, with a high-low hook up between Glory Johnson and Cambage. If all goes to plan, that could be Tulsa’s starting frontcourt for the next decade. The quicker they can start building chemistry and learning to read each other, the better.

 

There was clearly a focus on getting the ball in to Cambage down low from the Shock early on – which makes a lot of sense when you’ve just added a 6-8 behemoth with decent touch to your post attack. It worked pretty well when they found her in good position, and she simply gives them something very different to attack defenses with. It’s no longer just small guards trying to break people down and make something happen. It’s still a work in progress though. Cambage isn’t fully fit, and the offense sometimes gets bogged down while they’re desperately looking for her and not even considering anything else. She also sometimes seems to drift out of games if she isn’t actively involved in the play going on. So much of defense, especially for centers, is being in the right place to help, so concentration is key and something she’ll need to improve. The officials are still working out how referee her as well. She’s gangly and a bit awkward, and when she turns into defenders her elbows tend to be at head height of her opponent. Her fault and an offensive foul, or simply tough luck on the defender? It’ll probably vary from night to night.

 

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2013 WNBA Season Previews: Phoenix Mercury

 

PG: Samantha Prahalis

SG: Diana Taurasi/Alexis Hornbuckle/Briana Gilbreath

SF: DeWanna Bonner/Penny Taylor/Charde Houston

PF: Candice Dupree/Lynetta Kizer

C: Brittney Griner/Krystal Thomas

 

Significant gains: Brittney Griner, Diana Taurasi, Penny Taylor, a healthier Candace Dupree, generally giving a crap about basketball games.

Significant losses: Probably threw away their list of injury excuses.

 

Does this bunch even need to be previewed? Since the minute Phoenix won the lottery, everyone’s been talking about the superteam that the Mercury could put out on the floor when they came together. This is what happens when an already talented team has a terrible year (due to injury, ‘tanking’, or a combination thereof) and ends up adding another superstar into the mix. It’s even better when the young phenom fits perfectly into a hole on your roster. The hype for this team has been enormous, but that’s hardly a surprise considering the players they have returning, and they might just manage to live up to it.

 

When healthy, the three pieces the Mercury are essentially ‘adding’ to last year’s squad are all superstars of the women’s game. Diana Taurasi is an elite perimeter scorer, who’s also a willing passer and creator for her teammates. She got plenty of rest last season, and even played a slightly more reserved role for her Russian team while they won everything in sight during the offseason. She should be back to full speed. Whatever the story with Taurasi, Penny Taylor was definitely injured last year. She’s still in the final stages of recovering from her ACL tear, and hasn’t actually played a game yet, either overseas or in the WNBA preseason. At 100%, she’s a tough, versatile small forward, capable of scoring from a variety of angles and making smart passes for her teammates. Hopefully she’ll be back to full speed at some point, but it’s a case of wait-and-see as to exactly what she’ll be able to offer.

 

And then there’s Brittney. An athletic specimen the likes of which the women’s game has never seen before, a 6-8 center who can still move smoothly, rebound, finish and block shots. She’s known for her dunking ability, and it probably won’t be long before she exhibits it in the WNBA, but there’s more to what she can do. On the Mercury, while they’ll benefit from her offensive skills in the halfcourt, her most important role will be at the center of their defense. Head coach Corey Gaines basically can’t coach D – we’ve got years of evidence of that. This team’s been terrible defensively for eons. But when you put a behemoth like Griner in the post it cures a lot of defensive ills. Even when she isn’t blocking shots, she’ll alter a lot of them, and simply make players less keen to drive into the paint. She’ll have to work on pick-and-roll defense (which is a far bigger part of the game in the pros than it is in college), and Gaines will need to establish defensive structures that never take her far from the rim, but that shouldn’t be hard. It’s a marvellous fit for the Mercury.

 

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2013 WNBA Draft Preview, Part 1

Welcome back, everybody! As always, it’s been a long offseason for the WNBA, and WNBAlien took a similarly lengthy hiatus to recharge the batteries. But Monday night sees one of the most highly anticipated drafts in the league’s history, so it’s time to take a look at what might happen. Below is a reminder of the important moves each team has made in the offseason, a look at the remaining holes in each roster, and a guess or two at where the GMs might be leaning with their picks. Not so much a mock draft as a reintroduction to the world of the WNBA.

So here we go, in draft order from the top on down.


Phoenix Mercury

Gains: Very little so far, but an awful lot after Monday night. And they’re likely to be less ‘injured’ this year.

Losses: Also nothing much.

Picks: #1 and #26

 
This has been rehashed countless times in every outlet that pays any attention to the WNBA at all. They tanked, we all know they tanked, but it’s over and it worked. There’s no debate about the pick, with 6-8 Baylor behemoth Brittney Griner the first choice of absolutely everybody. Even Mercury head coach Corey Gaines should be able to improve his defense simply by sticking Griner in the middle of it and letting her play. She won’t hurt on offense, either.

The #26 pick could be anything and is unlikely to stick on the roster through training camp (as is the case with most players taken after the first round in WNBA drafts).

The Mercury have also re-signed DeWanna Bonner and have Penny Taylor returning from a serious knee injury. Plus this season they might actually give a crap about winning basketball games. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 09/22/2012: Lottery positions cemented with trio of tepid contests

It was hard to find many meaningful implications in yesterday’s WNBA games. The playoff matchups and schedule were already decided, almost anyone with the slightest injury or sniffle was being given the night off, and much of the basketball was less than scintillating. But when you’ve stood firm through the first 93 days of the WNBA season, it would be frankly ridiculous to quit on the antepenultimate night. Especially when it gives you an excuse to use the thoroughly pointless word ‘antepenultimate’.

 

Indiana Fever 66 @ Washington Mystics 53

  • Amazingly enough, this game actually had a little meaning for both sides. Washington still needed one more loss to confirm themselves as the worst team in the WNBA this season, thereby securing the best odds in Wednesday’s draft lottery. Theoretically, with two games left, they still had a shot at catching Phoenix. For the Fever, while home-court advantage within the conferences has been decided, home-court in certain potential WNBA Finals matchups was still up in the air. They went into the night tied with San Antonio.
  • Of course, none of that really meant much. Six players who might well have started in this game if they were healthy – and it really meant anything – were missing. Washington had Crystal Langhorne out again due to her left foot strain, Noelle Quinn missing due to her shoulder, and Michelle Snow out due to either her back or her knee (depending on where you found your information). Indiana were still missing Briann January and Shavonte Zellous, who went home to be evaluated for concussion symptoms after hits taken in the game against Minnesota on Monday. Fellow starter Katie Douglas was also out, having gone back to Indiana already due to illness. With Erlana Larkins sliding into Douglas’s spot in the lineup, it was the first time all season that Tamika Catchings was back in her old small forward spot to start a game. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 09/19/2012: Playoff Picture continues to clear, as Sky fade meekly away

Most of the important issues in the WNBA playoff race (and a lot of the unimportant ones) were decided a long time ago, which has made it a struggle to retain interest in the closing weeks of the regular season. However, technically, last night’s three games all still had some relevance to either playoff qualification or home court advantage in the postseason. Which isn’t bad with only six days left. On to the Bullet Point Breakdowns.

 

New York Liberty 66 @ San Antonio Silver Stars 77

  • The night kicked off with the only game where both teams had something to play for. Mathematically, at least. New York were the team who needed it more, with a ‘magic number’ of two heading into the night. They still needed a combination of two more Liberty wins or Chicago Sky losses just to sneak into the playoffs. San Antonio still had faint hopes of stealing home court advantage away from Los Angeles in the first round, but it was going to take wins in their last three games, and LA losing their last two, to get there.
  • Throughout the contest, San Antonio’s best player was second-year point guard Danielle Robinson, who’s had a very impressive season. She’s lightning quick, which both helps her get to the rim and pester opponents defensively. It also means that if she pokes away a steal or breaks out in transition, no one’s catching her. She’s also worked hard on her mid-range jumper, which has been falling consistently all season long. You can’t just leave her open to take that shot any more, because she’s shooting 55% from the field and it’s not just layups. In fact, she’s shooting 47% from both 11-15 and 16-20 feet, way above the league averages. Her control of the team as a point guard has improved as well. Since being drafted she’s benefitted from playing alongside Becky Hammon, who takes on a lot of the creative responsibilities, but she’s not just standing on the wing and watching Becky work any more. She’s legitimately the point guard on significantly more possessions, and has increased her assists while lowering her turnovers this season. The PG spot in San Antonio should be in good hands for years to come.
  • Robinson’s primary partner in crime early in the game was Shameka Christon, who seems to have rediscovered her three-point shooting touch recently. Which is a good thing, because she doesn’t do much else. The Silver Stars run plays designed purely to get her open from her favourite spots for three (diagonal from the rim out on the wing, on either side), and she was converting. Continue reading →