Tag Archives: Phoenix Mercury

The Daily W, 05/23/2014

 

There often won’t be columns on the days when there’s no WNBA action to report, but enough has happened in the last couple of days to be worth talking about so here’s a little bonus piece. With four games tonight, there are also some mini-previews to be found if you scroll down.

 

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League News

 

Epiphanny Prince has reported to the Chicago Sky, been unsuspended, and is expected to return for the team tomorrow night. There’s still been no explanation beyond ‘personal reasons’ for her absence, but it’s understandable that some of these players need a little time between their overseas commitments and the WNBA just to breathe. Due to the World Championships this year the WNBA season started early, which meant anyone playing a full European season had virtually no break. Maybe Prince just needed a little time to sort her head out. The Sky cut Aaryn Ellenberg to make room for her on the roster. They wouldn’t have needed to, but Sylvia Fowles was also quietly unsuspended on Monday. Exactly why they did that remains unclear, although hopefully it means her recovery from hip surgery is going well.

 

Prince, fortunately for the Sky, isn’t in Russia’s squad for their EuroBasket Women 2015 qualifiers this summer. But there are other WNBA players who might be required. Kristi Toliver was just naturalised by the Slovak Republic, whose qualifiers begin in just over two weeks. She’ll likely be gone from the Los Angeles Sparks for at least a couple of weeks in June. Phoenix has several players who might go missing for a while, including Ewelina Kobryn already confirmed as leaving to help Poland in their games. Shay Murphy is Montenegrin these days, and Anete Jekabsone-Zogota is still part of the Latvian set-up, so it remains to be seen if they’ll stay with the Mercury rather than heading to Europe. Both Emma Meesseman and Farhiya Abdi have committed to staying with their respective WNBA teams rather than playing for their countries this year. Ironically, Abdi might gain some playing time with the Sparks while her ‘Slovakian’ teammate is overseas.

 

Sadly our first in-season year-ending injury occurred this week, with San Antonio guard Davellyn Whyte ruled out with an ACL tear. After partially tearing an Achilles tendon late last season, it’s unfortunate for her that another serious injury has taken her down again so soon. San Antonio started the season with eight perimeter players on their roster, so they’ve got plenty of guard cover to fill the spot, especially if Becky Hammon returns from her ankle sprain soon. But with Whyte a fringe backup, there’s also the option to cut her (while paying her off for the remainder of the season) and sign a replacement. They have the cap space to do that, as long as the new player is relatively cheap. They may well just roll with what they’ve got for now, and save that option for later in the season if an extra player becomes a necessity at a certain position.

 

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Tonight’s Games

 

Seattle @ Connecticut, 7pm ET

If the Storm play like they have in their first two games, and the Sun replicate their first half performance from Wednesday’s loss to Chicago, this one will be virtually unwatchable. Hopefully, with both teams yet to record a win, there’ll be a sense of desperation fueling them and it’ll be a little better than that. The Storm have been off since Saturday night, and they needed the practice time to develop some much-needed cohesion after looking like they barely knew each other’s names in their opening games. Crystal Langhorne has barely been heard from so far in a Storm jersey, which needs to change, but basically the whole team’s attitude and level of competence needs to improve. Sue Bird doesn’t usually run teams that look this disorganised.

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The Daily W, 05/19/14

 

Connecticut Sun 87 @ Minnesota Lynx 90 (OT)

 

Lineups: Same again for Minnesota, with Damiris Dantas continuing to fill in for Rebekkah Brunson. Connecticut promoted rookie forward Alyssa Thomas into the starting lineup in place of point guard Alex Bentley. Part of that may have been to have an extra perimeter defender with some size on the floor to handle Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore, but it’s also a move that wouldn’t exactly be miles outside the box against anyone. Allison Hightower has been handling many of the point guard duties for Connecticut for years now, and can comfortably slide over, while Thomas’s development is a big part of the Sun’s future.

 

Story of the Game: As this was Minnesota’s home opener, the pre-game festivities involved raising the 2013 championship banner and handing out the rings. The Lynx then proceeded to play the first half like they’d drunk too much wine at the party. They were uncharacteristically sloppy, giving up too many cheap turnovers, and leaving too much space to exploit in their defense. The Sun shot unsustainably well, but Minnesota helped them find that rhythm. Chiney Ogwumike also had far too much room to work in the paint. While in some ways it was just a bad half, and those happen to every team, we’re going to see more defensive breakdowns from the Lynx early in the season than we’re used to, simply because they’ve got a lot of new pieces in the mix once you get past the four returning starters. It’s difficult to play on-a-string defense when not everyone knows which way (and how far) that string is meant to stretch.

It took a while for the expected comeback to kick in during the second half – Connecticut’s lead rose as high as 16 – but it arrived eventually. Maya Moore was the unsurprising catalyst, drilling several shots late in the third quarter, while the team defense also started to force turnovers and create transition chances.

It briefly looked like the young Sun squad were going to be overwhelmed by the charging Lynx, but they pulled themselves together and stuck around in the fourth quarter. After Janel McCarville turned an ankle while trying to bring the ball up the floor, it took a ridiculous second-chance basket by Moore, a Lindsay Whalen baseline jumper, a dreadful Katie Douglas turnover, and a tough leaning jumper over defenders from Seimone Augustus to tie the game and send it to overtime. Whalen dribbled the ball straight out of bounds on an inbounds play in the middle of all that, too.

It was all Ogwumike early in OT, scoring the first five points of the extra period, but from there Whalen took charge. She’d generally had an awful night of missed layups and turnovers, but isn’t the kind of character to sit down and hide on the end of the bench. Her driving finishes and earned free throws turned the game in Minnesota’s favour, before she hit a deep jumper to give the Lynx a three-point lead with 12 seconds left. Douglas found Alyssa Thomas wide open for a three to potentially tie it, but shooting from deep is not exactly the rookie’s forte. She airballed it, and the Lynx had pulled off the comeback win.

 

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The Daily W, 05/18/2014

 

Atlanta Dream 90 @ Indiana Fever 88 (2OT)

 

Lineups: Angel McCoughtry came off the bench due to a minor hip problem picked up the night before (I’ve never understood why not starting helps in any way with a niggling injury, but that’s what happened). Matee Ajavon started in her place. Indiana were still without Tamika Catchings and Layshia Clarendon, so opened with the same five as the previous night.

 

Story of the Game: The Fever got off to a hot start, just like the night before, led by Briann January. She seemed to be avoiding her problems with finishing at the rim by just sticking to jumpshots, and they were all dropping. Indiana led by double digits early in the second quarter.

However, Atlanta never looked in that much trouble, and the game always seemed like it would come back to them. The Fever had some problems containing the Dream in transition, with Erika de Souza picking up points simply by running hard from basket-to-basket. Shoni Schimmel, for the second night in a row, was exciting everyone with her shockingly successful entry onto the pro level. The assists were flowing again, and she was drilling those shots from deep that she always loved firing in college.

It was tight for most of the second half. Fever head coach Lin Dunn went small on the perimeter after losing any confidence in Marissa Coleman or Shavonte Zellous, preferring the double-point guard look with January and Sydney Carter, often with diminutive off-guard Maggie Lucas as well. That left someone thoroughly undersized having to cover McCoughtry – usually January.

A pretty messy half of basketball was finished off by several shambolic broken plays to close regulation. A steal eventually gave Karima Christmas the chance to break away and win the game for Indiana, but she blew the layup and sent us to overtime.

Rookie forward Natasha Howard, who’d already had a strong night, was the star for the Fever in OT. She attacked and finished through contact several times to produce points for Indiana. Then Schimmel, who’d had less impact on the game  since halftime, converted a ridiculous finish on a drive to tie it up late in the first extra period. Both teams contrived awful shots in the final minute, before the Fever failed to even get one off on the final possession. On to double overtime.

Howard was still the main offensive threat for Indiana, and she gave them a one-point lead with 30 seconds left, but missed the and-one free throw. McCoughtry curled off a high screen at the other end, took the pass, and drilled a three for the lead. In general, opposing teams want Angel shooting threes – but she’s never scared to take or make the big shot, from anywhere on the floor. Lucas ended up with the final shot for the Fever, but she airballed it and the Dream held on.

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WNBA 2014 In-Depth Previews: Phoenix Mercury

 

Erin Phillips/Tiffany Bias
Diana Taurasi/Anete Jekabsone-Zogota/Shay Murphy
DeWanna Bonner/Penny Taylor
Candice Dupree/Mistie Bass
Brittney Griner/Ewelina Kobryn

 

Significant additions: Phillips, Bass, Jekabsone-Zogota, Murphy, maybe more from Taylor, new head coach Sandy Brondello
Significant losses: Briana Gilbreath, Krystal Thomas, Charde Houston, Alexis Hornbuckle and Lynetta Kizer are all gone – but like the changes in LA, no one’s exactly weeping for what’s been lost

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After being the darlings of many experts and fans in preseason a year ago, the Mercury have been lost in the shuffle a little bit this time around. The Lynx have the proven track record, LA have the new owners and refreshed depth, even New York and Atlanta have engendered more discussion with their changes since last year. But like the Sparks, Phoenix have retained their core while rebuilding the pieces around them and attempting to upgrade the supporting players. They’ve got a new head coach in place from the start this time – rather than finally realising they needed to make that change in midseason – and Brittney Griner’s got a year under her belt as a pro. Maybe coming at this season as a little bit of an underdog is just what they need.

 

The first and most important addition – the only one who’ll start, barring injuries – was Aussie point guard Erin Phillips. After spending last season with Diana Taurasi constantly on the ball running the offense – because there was no one else around who was a viable option – the key need in the offseason was someone else who could handle the point guard spot, and hopefully hit some open shots. Phillips should be a good fit. She’s not a pure point by any means, but she’s feisty, she’s quick, she can get the ball up the floor, and she’s a 38% three-point shooter over her WNBA career (including 45% over her last three seasons). That’s just about exactly what Phoenix needed, especially considering they’re in win-now mode, and there wouldn’t have been anyone available at the 9th pick in the draft (the pick they traded for Phillips) who could’ve filled the spot to the same standard.

 

Health is going to play a major role in determining how good Phoenix can be this season. That’s always true for every team in this league, of course, but it’s more of a concern for the Mercury than most of the others. Phillips battled knee problems last season, being troubled by recurring pain even once she returned from a torn meniscus. Griner kept picking up minor issues that limited her play and prevented her from settling in as a pro. And of course, Penny Taylor is a constant question mark at this stage in her career. Apparently Taylor’s been a participant in much of their preseason work and is looking good, but won’t start the season in uniform. We’ve heard the ‘looking good’ and ‘returning soon’ messages with Penny so many times now that it’s hard to take them seriously until we actually see her on the floor, and even then there’ll be constant fears that she’ll break down. She was a wonderful player in her prime, capable of doing pretty much everything from either forward spot, but sadly that player is probably gone. Still, if she can get healthy enough to provide solid backup minutes late in the season and into the playoffs, she could be a significant contributor to the Mercury’s success again. But it’s reached the point where no one’s counting on it.

 

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WNBAlien Special – Grading the Trade: Phoenix filch Phillips from Fever for 1st

 

After months waiting for the WNBA and the Players’ Association to agree on a new collective bargaining agreement finally ended last week, a compressed offseason calendar began on Monday. But teams have until March 15th to make qualifying offers (and core designations), then until March 19th to negotiate, before actually being able to sign players from March 20th onwards. So the only way teams can provide any entertainment for the fans at this stage is via trades of players already under contract, and the Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever were the first to offer something for us all to talk about. The Fever sent Australian combo-guard Erin Phillips to Phoenix along with their second-round pick in the upcoming draft (17th overall), receiving the Mercury’s first-rounder (9th overall) and forward Lynetta Kizer in return.

 

The most prominent piece in the deal is Phillips, and it’s easy to see why the Mercury wanted her. The one obvious hole on their roster was in the backcourt, where Diana Taurasi was forced to become the de facto point guard far too much last season. While Taurasi’s certainly capable in that role, they desperately needed another reliable ballhandler who could allow Taurasi to play off the ball and focus on playing her natural game, rather than constantly having to facilitate for everyone else. It also became clear on several occasions last season that they simply didn’t have enough shooters to space the floor around Taurasi and Britney Griner – so it was important that whoever they found to fill their hole could shoot, not just bring the ball up the floor.

 

Phillips should be a good fit. She’s a feisty, aggressive guard, who’s never quite managed to solidify herself as a starting point guard in her WNBA career. But the Mercury don’t need her to be a pure point. They need her to bring the ball up the floor, hand it to the right people when she’s supposed to, and knock down open shots – all of which she should be capable of. She’s a career 38% shooter from three-point range in the WNBA, including 45% over her last three years in Indiana. The first figure’s well above average, the second’s truly elite – either should prove very useful to the Mercury. Heading into last season, Samantha Prahalis was supposed to be the Mercury’s answer at point guard, and one of the central reasons that didn’t work out was her inability to knock down the open shot (although her deficiencies in other areas also played a part). Phillips should be able to make those, and bring an extra edge to the Mercury’s backcourt defense that’ll be distinctly welcome alongside a sieve like Taurasi.

 

Of course, there are still some risks. Phillips tore a meniscus in her right knee last season, missing over a month, and then was repeatedly in and out of the lineup for the rest of the season. She generally looked fairly mobile when she played, but kept skipping games when pain flared up in the knee, or other ailments cropped up. In November she was released by her Polish team Wisla Can-Pack, again due to lingering injury – possibly the same one still hanging around – in favour of signing Danielle McCray. Phillips hasn’t played anywhere else since. The positive angle on that is that she’s had time to rest and recuperate, so should be ready for the WNBA season. The pessimist would say she might still not be healthy and it’s worrying when injuries won’t go away (or continue to mount up).

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WNBA Today, 09/30/2013: Dream and Lynx complete sweeps to set up 2011 Finals rematch

 

Unlike the first-round, where we had three upsets out of four opening games to start the 2013 WNBA playoffs, both higher seeds held serve to begin the conference finals. So Sunday afternoon saw the lower seeds trying to keep their seasons alive back on their home floors. While there had been differing levels of defeat in their respective Game 1s, both Indiana and Phoenix had obvious things they had to fix if they wanted to avoid packing their bags and waving goodbye to their title chances.

 

As usual, we opened in the East, where the issue for the Fever was pretty obvious. Atlanta were ridiculously efficient offensively in Game 1 of the series, repeatedly slicing through Indiana’s defense after breaking defenders down off the dribble. Turnovers were a problem for the Fever as well, but they didn’t ignite that many Atlanta fastbreaks – it was largely a basic case of failing to contain penetration in the halfcourt, and everything spiralling from there. Indiana’s offense had been good enough if their defense had been anywhere near its typical level.

 

Game 2 began in a very similar vein. Indiana’s offense was productive enough, with Tamika Catchings hitting a couple of shots, and the team getting inside and drawing some fouls. The whistles even seemed to be going their way. but Atlanta were still piercing their defense with far too much ease. All afternoon we saw the Dream run a simple weave action out on the perimeter, which virtually all defenses – including Indiana’s – cover by simply switching assignments. You almost become the top half of a 3-2 zone and just cover the space, watching the handoffs happen in front of you. But then the Dream would toss in a screen at one of the elbows, and suddenly there was enough space to drive a bus down one side of the lane. Atlanta were again doing a good job of spacing the floor, but not in the typical way teams ‘space’. You normally do that with shooters, who can take a kick-out pass and knock down a shot if the defense drops away from them. The Dream’s small lineup – they’d obviously stuck with the four-perimeter-player format that worked so well in Game 1 – just spread out and created as much room as possible for each other to drive. Indiana were still sticking too close to them, failing to clog the lane, and allowing Atlanta to beat them off the dribble.

 

However, the Dream were missing a little more when they made it to the rim. Indiana were doing a slightly better job of at least challenging the finishes inside, putting the Dream drivers under pressure, and forcing misses. Atlanta had grown in confidence, and were attacking with speed in transition, but the misses allowed Indiana to keep pace and the score was tied at 19-19 at the end of the first quarter.

 

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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: Western Conference Finals – Minnesota Lynx vs. Phoenix Mercury

 

By the numbers (over entire regular season):

 

Minnesota Lynx (26-8) vs Phoenix Mercury (19-15)

 

Points scored per 100 possessions: 106.46 (1st in WNBA) – 99.46 (4th)

Points conceded per 100 possessions: 94.55 (3rd) – 100.4 (10th)

Rebound percentage: .522 (2nd) – .486 (10th)

 

Season series between the teams: Minnesota won 5-0

06/06 @Min, Lynx win 99-79

06/19 @Pho, Lynx win 80-69

07/07 @Min, Lynx win 91-59

07/21 @Pho, Lynx win 82-77

07/24 @Min, Lynx win 81-69

 

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For all the talents of the Los Angeles Sparks, in many ways this was the matchup that everyone wanted to see. In one corner we have the dominant Minnesota Lynx. They were a powerhouse for the third year in a row, once again finishing with the best record in the WNBA. They’ve got three years of chemistry, the smoothest offense and one of the most cohesive defenses in the league. They’ve even got a little bit of extra incentive this season, trying to regain their crown after slipping up against Indiana in the Finals last year when heavily favoured. They’re the ones who were always meant to be here. In the opposite corner, the team who were practically crowned before they set foot on a basketball floor, then had to re-shape themselves after things didn’t go to plan. This isn’t the old Phoenix Mercury, the team that lost the last 12 games they’ve played against the Lynx. Russ Pennell made some changes after he took over in midseason, and now ESPN gets the leader of their ‘Three to See’ in the conference finals after all. We’ve got the reigning champs who were almost forgotten, against the team everyone rushed to anoint as their successors. The Sparks might be out, but Hollywood easily could’ve written this script.

 

Let’s start with what we know. The Lynx are very, very good. They had some occasional struggles getting past Seattle in the first-round, but that was a veteran team with exceptional discipline who know how to make a game messy. And Minnesota still held on to beat them for the sixth straight time this year. With Lindsay Whalen at the point, and Seimone Augustus and Maya Moore on the wings, the Lynx have arguably the most dangerous perimeter trio that the WNBA has ever seen. They can fill it up from outside, they can drive past you, Augustus and Moore have both worked on their post game, and in transition they’re even scarier than the LA team Phoenix just snuck past. This has been one of the central problems for the Mercury in the past in dealing with Minnesota – even if they managed to get their own offense rolling, they couldn’t stop the Lynx to save their lives. It was a team that could play at both ends of the floor against a team that only showed up at one.

 

But while Minnesota have those 12 consecutive wins over Phoenix stretching back to 2011, they’re yet to face the Russ Pennell Mercury. Since taking over he’s gotten the team to engage on the defensive end, and at least expend the energy required to put up a fight when they don’t have the ball. It’s not always been perfect – it takes a while to remember how to follow defensive concepts, and some players on the roster are just basic bad defenders – but they’ve been competitive ever since he took over. Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve will have her team prepared for the changes in the Mercury, but you can never entirely understand what you’re going to face until you see them on the floor. In the end, maybe it was a positive for Phoenix that they played all five regular season games against Minnesota before the All-Star break. It helped get Corey Gaines fired, and the Lynx never got a taste of the new Mercury.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/24/2013 (Part Two): Sparks dreams dashed by Mercury in dramatic decider

 

So Atlanta were in – now it was on to the decider in a series that had provided rather more offense. The Mercury and Sparks had thrown haymakers at each other, both stolen a game on the road, and ended up here. After the season began with everyone talking about the power of the top three teams in the West, it seemed only appropriate that the first-round should be completed by this. One game to decide who’d face the Lynx in the Western Finals, and who’d be left considering their season a significant disappointment.

 

There was a change in the starting lineup for Phoenix, with the visible pain Penny Taylor was in at the end of Game 2 keeping her out of Game 3 entirely. Returning from her knee surgeries has been a problem all season, and if she was missing a deciding playoff game you know she really wasn’t able to move on it at all. Briana Gilbreath came back into the lineup, which changed up some of the defensive assignments. Kristi Toliver now had Gilbreath to hide on, so she didn’t have to spend as much time worrying about covering DeWanna Bonner (not that Bonner had done much to attack that matchup during this series). Lindsey Harding isn’t much bigger than Toliver, but she’s generally a better defender, and she slid over onto Bonner. But it also gave Phoenix an extra perimeter defender that they could rely on, and Gilbreath started the game on Harding. That allowed Diana Taurasi to move over onto Alana Beard, who she could help away from more consistently than Harding. Losing Taylor could never be a positive, but it had the potential to make Phoenix a more effective defensive team.

 

But the most noticeable difference in the opening stages from the previous games was Kristi Toliver’s offense. She came in a dismal 4-22 from the field in the series, bricking endless jumpers in Game 1 before disappearing entirely as Game 2 wore on. But she was firing away again, hit a step-back over Candice Dupree to open her account, then a transition three shortly afterwards. This was a scary prospect for Phoenix, because Toliver being icy cold had been a big help to them so far in this series. With Taurasi and Brittney Griner missing several decent looks in the opening period, it was some surprising success from Bonner and the usual smoothness of Dupree that kept the Mercury even at 19-19 at the end of the opening period.

 

The second-quarter was kind of insane. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll have seen that it even provoked me into a little ditty, which went along the lines of “I can’t guard you, You can’t guard me, Let’s all score, together!” LA looked like they were taking control early on, led by Candace Parker. Phoenix have struggled to guard her through much of this series, with Dupree their best option but rarely a particularly successful one. Parker abused her on a series of drives, and helped push the Sparks into an eight-point lead.

 

But then there was the other end of the floor. As it has been for much of the season – and probably should’ve been for even more of the season – the Taurasi-Dupree pick-and-roll became Phoenix’s go-to play. While Dupree couldn’t really guard her, Parker was being even more embarrassingly roasted in the reverse matchup. Her pick-and-roll defense was neither one thing nor the other – she wasn’t staying with the roller to cover the finish, or jumping out on the ballhandler to cut off the pass. She was just sort of watching while Dupree went sailing past (and the rotation to help behind her was pretty awful as well). Dupree also beat her on a couple of straight-up isolation drives and a jumper or two, and just kept piling up points. By halftime she was 10-13 for 20, and the Mercury were shooting 58% for a 42-40 lead.

 

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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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