Tag Archives: Phoenix Mercury

WNBA Today, 09/20/2013: Atlanta embarrassed, LA exploited, as Mystics and Mercury open playoffs with road upsets

 

It was a slightly strange opening to the WNBA playoffs this year. Kind of a cross between a whimper and a bang. Upsets always shake things up and make things a little more interesting, with the best-of-three format immediately putting pressure on everybody. But the crowds weren’t great (often a problem in the first-round when teams are selling tickets on such short notice), and the first game was so lacking in energy (and shot-making) that it threatened to send everyone to sleep. Which if you think about it, just makes this article all the more important. Maybe you dozed off during the game, and require this informative piece to let you know what happened. On with the coverage.

 

The postseason began in Atlanta, where the Dream played host to the Washington Mystics. With both sides finishing at 17-17 there obviously wasn’t that much between these teams, although Atlanta have a much more successful recent history than Washington. The Mystics hadn’t made a playoff appearance since 2010, and hadn’t won a playoff game since 2004. They’ve won one playoff series in the franchise’s entire 16-year history. Having made the Finals twice in recent years, Atlanta had the pedigree, but they’d also struggled in the second half of this season after their 10-1 start. A team photo with Sancho Lyttle in uniform had raised faint hopes that she might be returning from her broken foot for the playoffs, but she was in street clothes yet again (it’s 9 1/2 weeks since her surgery, by the way. Recovery was supposed to take 6-8). Armintie Herrington’s shoulder problem was presumably a little more serious than initially believed, because Tiffany Hayes started the game in Herrington’s regular spot. Herrington was available off the bench, but it was a change to their regular lineup that probably wouldn’t have been made if she was fully healthy. Hayes is their bench energy, and Herrington’s something of a stabilising force for the starting group. It works better that way round.

 

Washington opened the game in a 2-3 zone, which briefly made me wonder if head coach Mike Thibault was going to go heavily against the typical coaching manual and use that defense consistently throughout the game. Zones against Atlanta can be effective, because the basic tenet when facing the Dream is to make them beat you from outside. But the zone was gone after just one possession. We saw it a couple more times during the night, just to keep Atlanta a little off-balance, but it was a change-up move rather than the regular defense.

 

Frankly, Washington didn’t need to make many changes from their basic man-to-man, because Atlanta struggled to break them down all night long. The Dream got out on the break a couple of times in the first quarter, even opening the game with a 4-0 run when Matee Ajavon was twice stripped by Angel McCoughtry for steals. But Thibault called an early timeout to calm his team down and remind them to take care of the ball, the Mystics became more careful and made sure to work back in transition, and Atlanta’s offense utterly collapsed. Between Kia Vaughn, Crystal Langhorne and Michelle Snow, the Washington posts where bodying up Erika de Souza in the paint and forcing her further from the hoop than she wanted to be. When she threw up shots after the ball was tossed into her in the post, she had someone right on top of her and nothing went in. Similarly, Atlanta’s perimeter players weren’t creating anything easy. If they managed to get anywhere near the rim, they were forced to attempt the finish under heavy pressure and missed consistently. Angel McCoughtry couldn’t get around Monique Currie, so penetration was difficult, and if she managed to force an effort towards the rim Currie was right in her face. With little pace to their game, Atlanta couldn’t score.

 

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2013 WNBA Playoff Previews: Western Conference First Round – Los Angeles Sparks vs. Phoenix Mercury

 

By the numbers (over entire regular season):

 

Los Angeles (24-10) vs Phoenix (19-15)

 

Points scored per 100 possessions: 102.73 (2nd in WNBA) – 99.6 (4th)

Points conceded per 100 possessions: 93.99 (2nd) – 100.4 (10th)

Rebound percentage: .494 (7th) – .486 (10th)

 

Season series between the teams: Tied 2-2

06/14 @Pho, Mercury won 97-81

07/14 @Pho, Sparks won 88-76

07/18 @LA, Mercury won 90-84

09/15 @LA, Sparks won 89-55

 

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Since back in the preseason, the 2-3 matchup in the Western Conference’s first-round looked appetising. With three teams expected to be real powers in the West, whichever two were forced to play each other were going to have a real fight on their hands. Then the Phoenix Mercury went and changed the script, in a variety of ways. Initially it was by failing to live up to expectations, producing a mediocre team despite the return of several important players and the addition of Brittney Griner. Then a midseason coaching change led to a new outlook and a new philosophy, and ultimately kept them in that same top-three they were always supposed to be a part of. Meanwhile, all the Los Angeles Sparks have done is produce their second consecutive 24-10 season, while exhibiting a variety of strengths and frailties along the way. Eventually, we’ve been left with a first-round playoff series that looks just as intriguing as it did back at the start of the year.

 

Phoenix are a strange team to figure out. Since Russ Pennell took over, they’ve gone 9-4 and exhibited a much greater willingness to actually put some effort and concentration into playing defense. They’ve still had breakdowns at times, and that record doesn’t show the cupcake schedule they’ve faced since Pennell arrived, but there’ve definitely been noticeable improvements. Although at times under Pennell they’ve struggled on the offensive end. He’s left much of the offense alone, with a tweak here or there, but they’ve had games where turnovers have piled up and the players looked like they barely knew each other. Now they’re in the postseason, they don’t have any more games against weak opposition, and they’re unlikely to get away with performances like that.

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WNBA Today, 09/16/2013: Regular season ends as Mystics take #3 seed and Fever happily settle for #4

 

Sunday saw the conclusion to the WNBA’s 2013 regular season, with a surprising amount still to be decided. There were some minor questions around home-court advantage in theoretical WNBA Finals matchups, but the main issue remaining was in the Eastern Conference playoff race. With the #3 and #4 seeds still to be decided, the matchups in the first-round were also still up in the air. And there was still a chance that Indiana and Washington could finish off their games, and be left waiting around for the Atlanta result to decide their fate. It was a strange state of flux to be sitting in, heading into the final day of the season.

 

Indiana Fever 80 @ Connecticut Sun 82

  • Playing in the first game of the day, the Fever made the first conspicuous move in relation to deciding the seeding for the Eastern playoffs. If you want to be generous, you could say that their decisions suggested that they didn’t mind whether they faced Chicago or Atlanta in the first-round. After all, neither a win or a loss would definitively decide their opposition. But more accurately, it seemed like they wanted the Sky. Tamika Catchings took the day off to rest a sore back (I’ll resist making the standard joke about how it was caused by having to carry this team all season); Briann January sat out to rest a sore shoulder; and Shavonte Zellous was excused to attend a funeral. The Zellous issue was presumably legitimate, but if they really wanted to win this game, Catchings and January undoubtedly would’ve played. It left the Fever with just seven healthy bodies, and a distinctly makeshift lineup.

 

  • The moves made plenty of sense for Indiana. While Chicago have clearly been the best team in the East this season, the Fever have a great record against them over the years and went 3-1 against them this season. It also made sense in planning for the future, because a loss would give them a strong chance of the #5 overall pick in next year’s draft, while a win might move them down that order. If they were happy to play the Sky instead of the Dream, you could argue the players should’ve ‘rested’ for more than just this one game.

 

  • Of course, Indiana had a decent chance to win anyway. All of Connecticut’s injuries had them down to seven players as well, with Tan White the latest casualty due to a broken finger. And while you can rest as many players as you like, once you take the court instincts tend to kick in. No one’s going out on the floor playing to lose.

 

  • The reason I didn’t expect Indiana to rest so many players was the return of Katie Douglas. This was just her second game back after missing almost the entire season with a back problem, and it seemed like they’d want her to rebuild chemistry with the other key players on the roster. Clearly they didn’t think that was a big deal, presumably due to the number of years Douglas has already played with most of these teammates. There were some communication issues during this game, most noticeably between Douglas and Karima Christmas, where switches and defensive rotations weren’t particularly smooth. While she’s been watching from the sidelines all season, turning that into movement on the floor is very different, and Douglas needs to get up to speed very quickly. It’s a transition for Christmas right now as well, because she’s being asked to play some power forward after Indiana were forced to release Jessica Breland due to Douglas’s return. Christmas has been playing small forward all season, and while the amount of switching within Indiana’s defense means she’s had practice sliding inside, it’s not quite the same thing. Her help instincts and rotation moves aren’t quite those of a player used to playing in the paint.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/14/2013: Friday night resolves nothing as WNBA decisions go to final weekend

 

There’s an awful lot to cover in the closing days of the regular season for those of us who write about the entire WNBA. While continuing to follow the remaining games, there are end-of-season wrap-ups, playoff previews, and award articles on top of the usual stuff. And the teams aren’t making it any easier. On the antepenultimate day of the regular season we had four games last night, and three of them had at least some influence on the playoff picture. Yet resolved exactly nothing. So we’re going to try to keep the individual game coverage brief(ish), and then detail the remaining issues to be decided at the end of the article. You can skip to the ‘What it all Means’ section if you don’t want to hear about what happened last night.

 

New York Liberty 63 @ Indiana Fever 66

  • Indiana opened the evening in a flat tie with Washington for the #3 seed in the East, with two games remaining. But that was overshadowed by the return of Katie Douglas, who’d missed virtually the entire season with a back problem. As covered in this space before, while getting Douglas back for the playoffs was a very nice boost, by rule they were required to release hardship exception signing Jessica Breland when Douglas returned. This would be the first test of whether the gain of Douglas outweighed being down to Jasmine Hassell as their only backup post. Douglas went straight into the starting lineup, replacing Karima Christmas, while New York were still without star guard Cappie Pondexter. Playing for nothing besides lottery positioning (which could only be improved by losing), there was no need to rush Pondexter back.

 

  • It wasn’t long before the issues around losing Breland were highlighted. Erlana Larkins picked up two fouls in the opening 99 seconds, and had to go to the bench. That brought Hassell in, and in her 10 minutes of action over the course of the evening she did little beyond illustrating why she’s barely played for most of the season. We also saw Tamika Catchings forced to play some center later in the game, and Christmas having to slide over for occasional spells at power forward. When those lineups were in, the Fever looked desperately small. New York had some foul trouble of their own, which kept them smaller than usual in the paint at times, but they still punished Indiana inside for long stretches. Larkins and Catchings have been fighting their tails off all season, and they did most of the work as a pair during the Fever’s eventual run to a title last season. But the likes of Sylvia Fowles and Erika de Souza are likely to be in their way in the postseason, and this game showed how much danger a modicum of foul trouble can cause for Indiana. It’s going to be an awkward balancing act for the Fever in the playoffs.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/12/2013: Narrow victories for Sun and Sky as Delle Donne adds another buzzer-beater to her highlight reel

 

Last night’s pair of WNBA games had very little meaning in the grand scheme of things, but still produced tight, exciting finishes. What more can you ask for while teams are playing out the end of the regular season?

 

We opened in Connecticut, where Atlanta were the visitors. Both teams had the expected players available, i.e. Atlanta with everyone bar power forward Sancho Lyttle, who’s looking less and less likely to return for the playoffs; Connecticut with Charles, Lawson, Hightower and Faris out, leaving eight in uniform. The Sun had shown in their last couple of games that both the +/- statistics and the eye-test that suggested they’ve been better with Charles on the bench this year might have some truth to them. Atlanta had a couple of solid wins to start September, then went right back to looking shaky again. Connecticut are playing for pride and each other; Atlanta want to pick up their form heading into the postseason.

 

One word showed up an awful lot of times in my notes from this game. ‘Turnover’, often with an expletive or something like ‘crappy’ attached. Atlanta were staggeringly sloppy all night long. They started out the game committing several turnovers by trying to make the extra pass when they should’ve just kept going to the rim or taken the open shot. That’s okay. For a team that sometimes fails to move the ball enough, you can live with them making a few mistakes by trying to move it too much. But as the night wore on they were just making error after error, with passes flying out of bounds or straight to Sun players. They can’t expect to win playing like this.

 

Of course, they were playing Connecticut, so the Dream stayed in the game anyway. Atlanta led by as many as nine points in the opening period, but with useful production from Kayla Pedersen and Iziane Castro Marques off the bench Connecticut eased back into the game. This is how the Sun have been playing since Charles was shut down for the season. They’re working hard, playing as a team, and competing. They go through stretches where you wonder where their next point is going to come from, because there just aren’t that many obvious scoring options left on the team, but they move the ball around and scratch out enough to stay alive. Their last three games have probably been more impressive than the first 29. Atlanta led 37-36 at halftime.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/11/2013: Playoff contenders finalised as Mystics make it in; Mercury and Lynx wins cement West seeding

 

While they largely confirmed things that had become inevitable, the combination of last night’s three WNBA results cemented several elements of the upcoming playoffs. We now know exactly what’s coming in the Western Conference, and there’s only one unknown holding up the East. We might see a lot of players grabbing some rest over the next few days.

 

Washington Mystics 69 @ Indiana Fever 67

  • Washington came into this game still needing a win to confirm their playoff participation. Undoubtedly Mike Thibault and his squad were as aware as anyone that New York were incredibly unlikely to run the table and make them require that win, but earning your way into the postseason with a victory would feel much sweeter than waiting for the Liberty to lose. Sitting just one game ahead of the Mystics prior to this game, Indiana could claim at least the #3 seed with a win, but would drop into a tie with Washington if they lost. Their outstanding record against Chicago makes you wonder if they might not prefer the #4, but playing well and winning games heading into the playoffs was clearly worth more to them than trying to finagle the matchups. Otherwise Tamika Catchings would’ve taken the night off, and Erin Phillips wouldn’t have returned so quickly from her eye injury. They were still without Katie Douglas, however, despite reports that she was virtually ready to return.

 

  • There’s one important element to the Douglas situation that seems to have gone largely overlooked. Remember way back at the start of the season when Indiana were allowed to keep 12 players due to injuries, without ever seeming to establish who the ‘exception’ 12th was? Well at some point, it became clear that the 12th player was Jessica Breland. Unfortunately, the Fever appear to have painted themselves into a corner. Breland has become their only viable backup post behind Catchings and Erlana Larkins, with Jessica Davenport injured and Jasmine Hassell barely ever used. But their roster’s healthy enough now that when (and if) Douglas returns, Breland would have to be immediately released because the ‘hardship exception’ would no longer apply. So while Douglas has been their second-best player for several years, having her back for the postseason would mean going into the postseason with only Hassell to spell Catchings and Larkins (or Karima Christmas sliding over in an incredibly small lineup, in a role she hasn’t played all season). It’s an unfortunate Catch 22. Chicago avoided something similar by waiving Avery Warley 10 days ago, giving them time to cut someone else and re-sign her for the playoffs. Maybe Indiana should’ve done the same, but it’s too late now (there’s a 10-day waiting period between cutting someone and being able to re-sign them, and there are now fewer than 10 days left in the season). Keeping Breland may have become more important to Indiana than adding a likely half-fit Douglas to the playoff roster.

 

  • But back to last night’s game. Washington started well, looking for Kia Vaughn inside to use her height advantage on the Indiana posts, and penetrating far too often for Indiana head coach Lin Dunn’s liking. The Mystics get themselves into trouble sometimes by settling for jump shots, especially when there’s minimal ball movement before they just fire away. This was better than we’d seen in several recent performances.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/10/2013: Mercury road win and Mystics’ meanderings overshadowed by record-breaking Riquna

 

Sunday was an odd day of WNBA basketball. Three games, two of which had at least some relevance to playoff qualification and positioning – and yet by the end of the day the only game anyone was talking about was the apparently irrelevant matchup that closed out the weekend. We’ll stick to chronological order as usual, and build to the big finish just like a certain diminutive Shock guard.

 

Phoenix Mercury 79 @ Atlanta Dream 71

  • With Seattle dropping another game to Minnesota on Saturday night (and looking distinctly unlikely to change that pattern when they play the Lynx again on Tuesday), Phoenix’s hold on the #3 seed in the West was looking increasingly secure. At this point, their run-in is more about trying to build chemistry, and become more comfortable playing in Russ Pennell’s system. They came into this game 6-2 since he arrived, but that record had been pieced together against some weak and undermanned teams, and masked some pretty shaky performances. Going on the road to face a playoff team who’d put up some decent performances recently looked like being a more legitimate test. Three straight wins for Atlanta had shown some hints of the old Dream performances from early in the season, when they broke out to a 10-1 start. Now it was a matter of trying to keep that momentum rolling – plus they were still playing to maintain their hold on the #2 seed in the East, ahead of Indiana and Washington.

 

  • Phoenix tried to run that set play off the opening tip again, where Brittney Griner wins it, then Briana Gilbreath sets a pick on the opposing center, and Griner rolls right to the hoop. It basically worked – Atlanta apparently hadn’t bothered preparing for it – but Griner missed the finish inside.

 

  • Angel McCoughtry hit a couple of deep jumpers early on, then reverted to her standard pattern of bricking them. She also provided yet another example of the half-assed defense that drives me crazy. While she’s nowhere near as good in the halfcourt as her reputation would suggest – she freelances constantly for steals, which is fine when it’s part of the defense, but she gets beaten easily off the dribble far too frequently – it’s the abject laziness that’s horrifying. She’ll miss a shot or a layup, and then just drift back towards the other end of the floor whenever she feels like it, while her teammates play 4-on-5. Sometimes she’s not even complaining to an official about a call – she just can’t be bothered to work back. It’s pathetic, especially for a player who’s supposed to be a leader and a superstar. Move. She’ll happily run the floor hard when there’s an opportunity for her to score on the end of it; she just can’t be bothered when it’s required to help her team play defense. Embarrassing. Spoiler alert – McCoughtry won’t be on my All-Defense Team when I pick it in about a week.

 

  • On a far more positive note, the first quarter of this game saw the return of Penny Taylor from her second knee surgery, playing her first game since mid-July. She was clearly rusty, but getting back such an important and talented player could be just the boost the Mercury need heading into the playoffs.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/07/2013: Postseason four become official in West, reach brink in East, on five-game Friday

 

Another quintuple-game night in the WNBA on Friday, and all five of them had playoff implications of some description. Whether it’s officially confirming your spot in the postseason, fighting for seeding, or just playing spoiler while you look forward to the lottery, the regular season isn’t quite done yet.

 

Washington Mystics 70 @ Connecticut Sun 77

  • Although if you happen to be a Connecticut Sun fan, you could’ve been forgiven for thinking your team had already decided the season was over. With the mathematical calculations finally confirming that the Sun’s chances of making the playoffs were finished (realists had confirmed that eons ago), two more Sun players were shut down for the season. The team confirmed that Kara Lawson wouldn’t be returning for the rest of the year with lingering issues from her bruised knee, while Tina Charles was shut down with sore knees and various other aches and pains that everyone’s always feeling by this stage in the season. Making sure they stay below everyone else in the standings would also help Connecticut’s lottery chances, of course (and give them the #1 pick in a dispersal draft in the unfortunate event that any other team ceased operations over the offseason).

 

  • But in case you haven’t noticed me pointing it out several times over the course of the season, both here and on Twitter, the Sun have invariably been a better team with Tina Charles on the bench this season. Plus, when a team hears that their opponent is missing virtually their entire starting five (remember, Asjha Jones, Danielle McCray, Allison Hightower and Kelly Faris are all out for various reasons as well as Charles and Lawson), they tend to relax. The Mystics came out with very little energy, and we saw what might well have been the quickest timeout of the season. Mike Thibault brought everything to a halt after just 45 seconds, with his team trailing 5-0.

 

  • Washington struggled to find any of their usual energy and focus throughout the first half, but they did at least crawl into a pretty tedious contest. They didn’t hit many shots, but they managed to drive into contact enough to earn trips to the free throw line and gather up some points. Connecticut had a drought in the middle of the half where their basic limited level of talent was highlighted, but over the course of the half they shot significantly better than Washington. The rotations and help in the Mystics defense weren’t crisp at all, and Tan White led the Sun to a 36-34 halftime advantage.

 

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WNBA Today, 09/01/2013: Favourites all take care of business as playoff picture continues to clear

 

Four games on Saturday night in the WNBA, all four won in varying degrees of comfort by the favourites. So the playoff picture is continuing to resolve itself – mostly by default because we’re running out of games – but there weren’t exactly a lot of shocks to go around. With two weeks to go in the regular season, if you can’t make a pretty good guess at what’s coming by now, you haven’t been paying attention.

 

Los Angeles Sparks 80 @ San Antonio Silver Stars 67

  • At stake in this one: Los Angeles continue to chase Minnesota for the #1 seed in the West, coming into the day one game back. As a sideline, Chicago are right up with the pair of them for home-court advantage in a theoretical WNBA Finals. San Antonio were still in with a mathematical chance of chasing down Phoenix or Seattle for a playoff spot, albeit a very small chance. Bizarrely enough, a Silver Stars loss in this game would confirm Seattle’s place in the postseason, while Phoenix would still be catchable – despite Seattle sitting in fourth while Phoenix were in third. Schedules, tie-breakers and mathematics can be strange bedfellows.

 

  • LA had their usual starting lineup, and their roster as healthy as ever, but San Antonio began the game with yet another new starting unit. Danielle Robinson was still out with strained/sprained knee (the team have used both words to describe it), and now her replacement Davellyn Whyte was missing as well (reportedly with a foot problem). That shifted Shenise Johnson over alongside Jia Perkins in the backcourt, with Shameka Christon coming in to start on the wing. It’s a perimeter that had some success in their win over Tulsa the night before, but obviously their bench became even shorter.

 

  • While LA led by as many as 11, it was ultimately a fairly tight first half. The Sparks were looking to push whenever they could, but becoming a little ponderous and static when forced into halfcourt sets. San Antonio started slowly but came back into the game late in the first quarter through better defensive energy and Jia Perkins making plays on offense. Dan Hughes would love to have Perkins as his sixth woman energy from the bench, but the injuries have forced her into a much bigger role this season. She’s not always the most efficient scorer, but sometimes she can be electric.

 

  • The other place where San Antonio found success in the first half was on the offensive glass. With Candace Parker and Nneka Ogwumike, LA have a clear athleticism advantage in this matchup over players like Danielle Adams, Jayne Appel and Cathrine Kraayeveld. While Parker was doing her typical job of filling the stat-sheet in a number of areas, the Sparks were getting outworked on the glass and the Silver Stars were staying alive with second-chance opportunities. They took 11 more shots than LA in the first half, thanks to a 10-2 advantage in offensive rebounds, and it allowed the Silver Stars to trail only 35-30 at halftime.

 

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WNBA Today, 08/24/2013: Eastern playoff picture beginning to clear, while Storm complete Mercury sweep

 

Last night’s WNBA slate featured an upset that really shouldn’t have surprised anyone; another extraordinary gambling cover; a team finally celebrating a playoff berth three days after they actually clinched; and a team everyone wrote off before the season began completing a season sweep over the preseason darlings. Just another night in our favourite little league, ladies and gentlemen.

 

Atlanta Dream 64 @ Washington Mystics 74

  • This is the one we all should’ve seen coming (I was kicking myself all night for missing this one and only going 3-1 with yesterday’s picks as a result). Atlanta came in on a three-game winning streak, including a win over the Mystics, but they did it all at home. They were 11-1 at home and 3-8 on the road before this game, and those three road wins came way back at the start of the season when they were rolling. The lineups were as expected, with Kia Vaughn retaining her starting spot ahead of Michelle Snow after Vaughn’s offensive explosion in their last game after becoming the starter.

 

  • The first half was rather less than gripping. It started off okay, with both teams creating more layups that the opposing defenses could’ve been comfortable with. But both sides shot poorly from outside, and the officials didn’t help with a seemingly endless stream of whistles. When they couldn’t create any momentum, moving Angel McCoughtry’s first half rest to later in the second quarter didn’t work as well for Atlanta as it did in their previous game. Instead of avoiding their offensive lull without her on the floor, it just shifted it a couple of minutes later. Outside of McCoughtry, no one on either side stood out, and the game crawled to a 37-35 halftime scoreline. The highlight was an Ivory Latta crossover dumping Le’coe Willingham on her butt before a layup, and Willingham getting her revenge with a comprehensive block on the next possession.

 

  • The second half wasn’t all that different. Both teams had a little success when they went inside to their centers, with Vaughn and Erika de Souza converting at the rim, but both squads were still firing up a host of bricks. Neither team could gather any momentum and sustain a run.

 

  • The pivotal moments came early in the fourth quarter, and unsurprisingly it was inspired by someone finally making a couple of shots. Atlanta were 0-13 from behind the arc to that point, with Washington 3-8 (those makes were hard to remember), when Ivory Latta nailed a triple with seven minutes left in the game. There’d been nothing between the teams for most of the night, but it was immediately after the 13th long-range miss from the Dream and created a six-point gap that felt huge. When she hit another one a couple of minutes later, pushing the Mystics’ advantage to 10, the game felt finished even with five minutes remaining. There were several offensive rebounds for Washington in that sequence as well, as the Mystics outworked and outshot the Dream. They did a solid job all night keeping Atlanta away from the rim, and it was the old story for the Dream – they couldn’t hit anything from outside to punish the collapsing defense. Atlanta’s own defense was solid enough, but the scoring they’d managed in their recent run of victories just wasn’t there.

 

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