Tag Archives: Phoenix Mercury

WNBA Today, 08/20/2012: OT tedium in the East, no surprises out West

It was a weird day of WNBA basketball yesterday. Usually, games which go down to the wire are exciting, however poorly played they might’ve been. The opening game on Sunday illustrated that there are occasionally exceptions. The second game was so predictable, and so uncompetitive, that it set a new record for the fewest notes I’ve ever made about any WNBA game I intend to write about. Then the final contest, between arguably the best and worst teams in the WNBA, was refreshingly entertaining until it turned into a blowout in the fourth quarter.

Sometimes, the world of the WNBA is a strange one.

 

Chicago Sky 71 @ Washington Mystics 75

  • Washington trotted out the same starting five, while Chicago once again went small with Swin Cash at power forward and Tamera Young on the wing. At some point, you wonder if Sky coach Pokey Chatman might try starting the only true power forward on her roster – Le’coe Willingham – in that power forward slot she keeps messing around with. Willingham hasn’t made the greatest start as a Sky player, but at least she’d be a straightforward fit. Maybe that’s just too logical.
  • Michelle Snow picked up two very quick fouls, not that that was ever likely to make a great deal of difference to Washington’s performance.
  • Cash struggled at times defensively, because sliding to the four against Washington means trying to guard Crystal Langhorne. And when the Mystics actually managed to run something coherent and get Langhorne the ball – which wasn’t often – she’s too polished an interior scorer for Cash to deal with.
  • Chicago eventually built something of a lead late in the first quarter, although it was more down to the lack of offense or organisation from Washington than anything impressive from the Sky. If your opponent can’t score, eventually you should move ahead even if your own offense is poor. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/17/2012: They’re baaaaaack!

Yes, with barely time to catch our breath after all the Olympic excitement, the WNBA got back underway last night. Some still seemed to be suffering from an Olympic hangover; some looked rested and rejuvenated; some picked up right where they left off; and one quite literally didn’t even bother to show up. Regardless, WNBAlien is back for the stretch run of the regular season, before we hit the games that really matter in September. Three games last night, and we welcome everyone back with a Bullet Point Breakdown of all of them. Enjoy.

 

Connecticut Sun 66 @ New York Liberty 79

  • As much as anyone in the league, the Liberty welcomed the Olympic break. Without a single player heading to London, they had time to heal from a variety of injuries and try to rebuild some of the chemistry that had been sorely lacking in the first half. Plenette Pierson was back in the starting lineup after recovering from her left calf/knee injury. Kia Vaughn and DeMya Walker, who both suffered with injury issues in July, looked healthier as well.
  • Connecticut, on the other hand, were one of the few teams who would’ve prefered if the season had kept on rolling. With a 15-4 record from the first half, their only fear coming back was that the momentum they’d built would’ve been killed off by the break. Due to a strained achilles, they also had to play without one of their gold medallists, as Asjha Jones was sidelined. Jones is only expected to miss a week or two, and was replaced by backup Mistie Mims.
  • New York made an extra unforced change, promoting Nicole Powell back into the starting lineup over Essence Carson. Possibly an attempt to recapture last season’s form by reinstituting something close to last season’s rotation.
  • It wasn’t exactly a glorious first half to welcome the world back to WNBA basketball. Still, Pierson clearly made a difference for New York. Her hustle, her energy, her interior presence and her basic leadership gives this team something they’d been missing late in the first half of the season. Of course, the Liberty were pretty terrible even in the games she played this year, so it wasn’t all about her. At times it was noticeable that the Liberty had been together as a group for the last couple of weeks, while Connecticut had been without Jones and Tina Charles – New York were a little more cohesive. 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, 07/11/2012: Early Starts, Same Results

Apologies for this piece being posted after subsequent games have taken place, but all these Camp Day games are throwing my schedule out of whack. Everything would be fine if it weren’t for those meddling kids. Anyway, four games yesterday, all witnessed by hordes of screaming children. And the same four teams won that you would’ve expected to win in front of the standard bunch of adults and families. So let’s get to it, and I promise not to whine too much about the high-pitched background noise prevalent throughout every game.

 

Connecticut Sun 77 @ Washington Mystics 70

  • Lineups as expected for both teams. Mike Thibault’s rotation is growing increasingly short, however – both Danielle McCray and Kelsey Griffin failed to log a single second of court time in this game, having been pushed out by other players performing better in their positions.
  • Matee Ajavon got off to a nice start for Washington, being aggressive offensively and knocking down perimeter shots. Mystics GM/head coach Trudi Lacey has been jerking her minutes around lately (and this game was no different), so maybe Matee felt she better get those shots off while she had the chance.
  • After that early Ajavon burst, Connecticut dominated the first quarter. Asjha Jones and Tina Charles were both far too good for Washington in the paint, and while the Mystics were grabbing multiple offensive rebounds, it only led to extra misses. The Sun lead was as high as 14 points.
  • Connecticut relaxed too much over the rest of the half, and allowed themselves to be dragged down to Washington’s level. Charles spending several minutes resting on the bench stalled their momentum as well.
  • Crystal Langhorne, looking only semi-healthy thanks to the ankle she sprained a few games ago, got involved offensively late in the half, and helped Washington hang around. They trailed just 34-30 at halftime despite being largely outplayed – thanks mostly to a 12-0 advantage on the offensive glass (led by Michelle Snow with 6). 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, 07/04/2012: A Steady Diet of Danielle Adams

The solitary WNBA game last night featured the injury-riddled (and/or tanking) Phoenix Mercury, and the suddenly streaking San Antonio Silver Stars. The ever-useless pre-game graphics teased us with the possibility that Candice Dupree might be returning for Phoenix, but ultimately it was the same bunch that have been scrapping their way through recent games (sans Andrea Riley, who was finally cut for not being worth the paycheck). San Antonio, winners of five of their last six games – including inflicting Minnesota’s second loss of the season on Sunday – had the same ten players available that have produced their impressive recent performances.

The very first possession of the game was exactly like what we saw in that Silver Stars victory over the Lynx – Becky Hammon dribbled around a screen, the second defender didn’t show high enough from behind the pick, so she simply nailed the open jumper. But the rest of the first half didn’t go nearly as smoothly for San Antonio. All those perimeter jump shots that had been sailing through the net on Sunday were bouncing off the rim, and several of the passes that previously landed right in the hands of teammates were now finding the first row of seats. They just weren’t clicking.

Phoenix, on the other hand, were enjoying themselves. Or at least DeWanna Bonner certainly was. She’s been the leading light in several of the Mercury’s recent performances, forced into a starring role by the absence of so many top players. Her percentages have taken a hit as a result, but she’s stepped up to the mark and tried to lead the offense. Against San Antonio in the first quarter, she was taking over. She was hitting those long bombs for three. She was pulling up for midrange jumpers. She was driving to the rim and drawing fouls for free throws. Then she had a layup in transition to top it all off. By the end of the period, the Silver Stars only had 16 points; Bonner had 19 (of Phoenix’s 23). It was hard to see her keeping it up, but it was a hell of a start.

It was all pretty ugly in the second period. 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, 06/28/2012: Day or night, injuries take their toll

Just two games in the WNBA on Wednesday, and unfortunately injuries continue to play a key role in how these contests play out. It’s going to be nice to come back in August and see healthier, more complete rosters take the floor.

The early game was in Chicago, where Indiana arrived for their second Kids’ Day outing in succession. Not the greatest piece of scheduling the world has ever seen. The key injury here was obviously Epiphanny Prince, the Sky guard who looked like she might be making ‘The Leap’ into an elite class in the early weeks of the season. Prince was in attendance, but she was hopping around on crutches, not in uniform. She should be back to start the second half of the season along with the rest of us.

Other team news for Chicago had backup post Le’coe Willingham missing for personal reasons (although she was sat right next to Prince on the bench in street clothes), and Shay Murphy back after missing five games to represent Montenegro in EuroBasket Women qualifiers (they went 4-0, by the way). Sydney Carter had been cut after one game, because for the first time since May 19th, veteran point guard Ticha Penicheiro was in uniform and ready to play. Penicheiro’s recovery from her lingering calf injury meant that the hardship exception used to sign Carter immediately expired.

The Sky had lost their previous two games, both played essentially without Prince. But this was their first game back on their own floor without her, and the first one they might’ve felt capable of winning in her absence. The Fever have been inconsistent lately, with both Tamika Catchings and Katie Douglas struggling to find their jump shots. The Fever were also fairly comfortably beaten the day before in Atlanta, so were carrying the fatigue from a back-to-back. With Indiana 2-0 up in the season series already, Chicago needed this one to avoid conceding the tiebreaker that could come into play at the end of the year.

Both teams started the expected groups – without Prince, Chicago presumably didn’t feel they had the players to go small again to match up with Indiana’s ‘Catch at the 4’ lineup. The early stages featured a stark contrast in styles, with Chicago working hard to feed Sylvia Fowles in the paint, while Indiana fired in perimeter jump shots. Largely speaking, the success rates were fairly similar and the game stayed close.

While both teams diversified their attacks, neither team managed to take control throughout a tight first half. Continue reading →