Tag Archives: San Antonio Stars

WNBA Today, 09/10/2011: Liberty keep Sunday interesting and assorted other contests

Before the excitement of the Western Conference home court decider between Phoenix and Seattle last night, the East had some fun of its own. Considering I’ve already printed the resulting playoff scenarios, I’m sure you already know the result of Indiana’s trip to New York. But after covering every single game of the WNBA regular season for its first 97 days, I’m certainly not going to skip any with only three days remaining. Which means you not only get the Fever’s clash with the Liberty in this piece, but the three completely meaningless games that have also taken place over the last couple of days. If nothing else, I’m at least a completist.

Indiana seemed primed for New York to take advantage of last night. The Fever had nothing to play for, having sealed the #1 seed in the East days earlier. They’d lost their starting point guard to a nasty-looking ankle sprain in their last game (that’s the second starting point guard, after the first one blew out her knee a couple of months ago). They had no real reason to care about this game. New York, on the other hand, still had plenty to fight for. Opening the game in fourth place in the East thanks to Atlanta’s recent winning habit, two wins in their last two games had the potential to bump the Liberty as high as 2nd in the conference. That would obviously come with the added bonus of home court advantage in the first round, and after a slow start in their new home out in Jersey, the Liberty have settled in and entered this game 11-5 at the Prudential Center. After spending practically all year chasing after Indiana and Connecticut in the standings, sneaking into second on the final day of the regular season would be a nice bonus heading into the playoffs.

Third-string point guard Shannon Bobbitt took Phillips’s place at the point for Indiana – Phillips is expected to be ready for the playoffs, but there’s no point risking that ankle until then. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 09/07/2011: Becky’s a beast; Indiana seal the East

It’s about time the playoff picture in the WNBA was given at least a little clarity. Last night, San Antonio had the chance to complete the final eight, by mathematically eliminating Los Angeles with a win on the Sparks’ own floor. Tonight, Indiana had the chance to seal the #1 seed in the East with a win over basement-dwellers Washington. At least then the maths would become slightly easier.

San Antonio went into last night’s matchup with a two-game edge on Los Angeles. An LA win would’ve tied the season-series between the teams, and given the Sparks the edge in the next tie-breaker (conference record). They’d still have needed the Silver Stars to slip up in one of their remaining games against Washington and Tulsa, but it would’ve piled the pressure on San Antonio. However, the Silver Stars had actually produced a couple of decent performances in the last week, achieving comfortable wins over Connecticut and Phoenix before falling to Seattle. LA, on the other hand, had lost three of their last four and were still playing defense that could’ve been generously described as ‘rubbish’. San Antonio must’ve arrived at Staples Center feeling they had every chance to cement their postseason spot.

The expected starting fives opened the game, which meant Kristi Toliver remained at shooting guard for LA, and the 5’8” Jia Perkins at pseudo-small forward for San Antonio. With Tina Thompson, DeLisha Milton-Jones and Candace Parker out there as LA’s frontcourt, Perkins had to guard one of them, and the Sparks were noticeably trying to take advantage of that mismatch in the early stages. It was usually Thompson that they were trying to force-feed, and she’s at least four inches taller than Perkins, but as Jia showed in battling Swin Cash last week she’ll put up a fight against anyone. The first time LA tried it, the possession blew up in their face when Perkins tipped the ball and created a turnover; the second time Thompson had an easy finish. Of course, the opposite side of the coin was that Thompson had to chase Perkins around at the other end, which was never likely to turn out well. Perkins nailed a three in the early going, and she was wide open when she took it.

Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 09/04/2011: Western battles roll into final week

It was all about the West in the WNBA last night, with the battles for second and fourth in the conference played out across two games. In the end, everyone survived to fight another day. Which is a slightly more generous way of saying that absolutely nothing changed. But at least there was some reasonably entertaining basketball along the way.

Leading off the evening, Seattle travelled to San Antonio for the second game of a back-to-back. The first game may have been in Tulsa but it was still a taxing journey, especially for star Lauren Jackson, who’s continuing to work her way back to full fitness. However, at 5-1 since Jackson’s return, and with a win from the previous night against the Shock in the bank, Seattle were hoping to show some more road improvement against the Silver Stars. The Storm have been atrocious on the road this year, especially while Jackson was out, which is what makes these final few games so important. Currently holding a half-game edge on Phoenix for second place in the West, if Seattle can cling on to that spot they’ll host games 1 and 3 (if necessary) in the first round of the playoffs. Game three in Key Arena, versus game three anywhere else on the planet, makes a huge difference to Seattle’s chances of advancing.

For the Silver Stars, the game was just as important. Having broken a six-game losing streak against Connecticut on Tuesday, then carried that momentum into a win over Phoenix two days later, they’d reestablished a two-game edge on LA for the fourth playoff spot in the West. A win here and a loss for the Sparks in the late game would’ve left San Antonio three up with three to play, and heavy favourites to reach the postseason. It might even have given them a shot at overtaking Seattle or Phoenix and avoiding a first-round clash with Minnesota. But that was something they couldn’t concern themselves with just yet. First make the playoffs, then worry about who you might be facing.

The starting fives were as expected – Seattle featuring Lauren Jackson despite fitness concerns about her playing on consecutive days, and San Antonio continuing their three-guard set with Jia Perkins as the nominal ‘small forward’. After making me so happy with their opening possessions against Tulsa the day before, Seattle were a complete shambles immediately after winning the tip in this game. Jackson was caught in the air with nowhere to go before offloading the ball to Sue Bird, who promptly threw a pass straight out of bounds. Uh oh. Turnovers have been the Storm’s bête noire this season, especially on the road, and that wasn’t a pretty way to open up. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 09/01/2011: When key pieces are missing, wins don’t come easy

A WNBA double-header tonight, and just for a nice change, you’re getting WNBAlien coverage of both games only hours after their conclusion. The first game to tip off was in Washington, where a miniscule crowd watched their Mystics take on Atlanta. For Washington, these games don’t mean anything. Having traded away their 2012 first-round pick, even tanking to improve their lottery odds isn’t worth the effort. However, the fans did have the prospect of Monique Currie returning from her ACL injury and seeing her first action of the season tonight. If that’s enough to make you want to renew your season tickets, more power to you. Atlanta had bigger issues on their minds. Just half a game behind New York for third in the East, and 1.5 behind Connecticut for second, the Dream’s late charge has given them a shot at improving their seeding for the playoffs. Also, mathematically, they haven’t even made the postseason yet. Although it’s going to take something dramatic from both Atlanta and Chicago to take the spot away from them.

Making Atlanta’s task more difficult was the loss of their starting center. After stepping on Jessica Davenport’s foot and spraining her ankle, Erika de Souza was on the bench in t-shirt, shorts and a walking boot. Why on Earth she even bothered to travel with the team for a one-game roadtrip she was never going to participate in, I have no idea. Can’t be much fun flying coach when you’re 6’5” with a sprained ankle. She was replaced by Alison Bales in the Dream’s starting lineup. For the second straight game, Mystics coach Trudi Lacey tinkered with her starting lineup as well, although her moves have been through choice, not injury. The three players she promoted from the bench for the last game – Jasmine Thomas, Kerri Gardin and DeMya Walker – all retained their spots, but Matee Ajavon was benched for Kelly Miller. Nope, I have no idea why either.

Once again, the most interesting aspect of the opening minutes was a defensive decision by the Dream coaching staff. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/31/2011: Postseason positioning still a perplexing puzzle

As you near the end of any regular season in a sports league, some games naturally don’t mean an awful lot. The WNBA is no exception, but thanks to tight standings in both conferences most of the teams are still fighting for something as we head into the final two weeks of the season. Still, there are certainly some games that aren’t as important as others right now, so even I’m intending to limit the depth of coverage on certain matchups. Of course, we’ve seen how that’s gone throughout the course of the season, so let’s just be thankful that there aren’t any Tulsa-Washington games left on the schedule. I’d probably have found some reason to write 2,000 words about it.

The key New York-Chicago contest from last night was covered in yesterday’s column, but taking place hot on the heels of that one was Indiana‘s visit to Atlanta. With the tip-offs only 30 minutes apart, Atlanta obviously didn’t know that Chicago would lose to the Liberty and drop two games behind them in the standings, so this was a crucial game for them coming in. Even given that Sky loss, Atlanta’s place in the postseason was hardly a mathematical certainty, so they need to keep fighting for every win they can lay their hands on. The Dream have also been on such a streak lately – 12 wins in 16 games – that they’ve crept up on the other Eastern Conference playoff teams. They entered this game just half a game behind New York, and 2.5 behind Connecticut. Rising above the fourth seed that seemed their highest target a few short weeks ago is no longer beyond the realm of possibility. Indiana have had some troubles lately, losing to LA on the road and then Atlanta on their own floor when these teams met on Saturday. Minnesota are almost out of sight for home court advantage throughout the playoffs, and Connecticut have pulled within 1.5 games for the top spot in the East. More to the point, this Dream squad is a potential first-round playoff matchup for the Fever, and they’d lost both previous games against Atlanta this season. You don’t want to head into a playoff series with a dismal recent record against your opponent.

The starting fives were the same as Saturday, the same as they’ve been for both clubs for a while now. The intriguing aspect of the opening minutes was that Atlanta had clearly come out with an effort to ‘hide’ Angel McCoughtry on defense. She suffered with foul trouble in both of Atlanta’s previous contests with Indiana, and played limited minutes as a result, so the Dream had her on Tangela Smith and Sancho Lyttle stepping out to cover Tamika Catchings. It was a smart move by the Atlanta coaching staff, but not exactly a positive statement about McCoughtry’s ability to play smart or avoid trouble on her own. Considering Angel’s defensive reputation, you shouldn’t have to hide her on a more limited offensive player.

The most positive aspect of the early stages for Indiana was that Katie Douglas looked interested. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/29/2011: Playoff race intensifies with quintuple feature

As the WNBA approached the final two weeks of the regular season, the five-game slate on Sunday carried significant importance for a variety of playoff battles. We’ve got teams fighting for position, teams struggling to even reach the postseason, and one or two still showing enough pride to battle it out for victories when their fates have been sealed for weeks. The final positioning was clear as mud before Sunday, and pretty similar by the end, but for individual teams these games are becoming vitally important to the success – or failure – of their 2011 seasons.

The first game to tip off was in San Antonio, where fans, players and coaches alike must have been growing increasingly worried over recent weeks. Having lost five in a row, and nine of their last eleven, a team that led the Western Conference in the opening weeks of the season is now under threat of missing the playoffs. LA’s loss at home to Tulsa on Friday night had helped them out, and maintained the gap at 1.5 games, but the fear remained. Considering Sunday’s visitors were Minnesota, that fear was well-warranted. Winners of their last four, and 22-6 overall, the Lynx were one game away from officially sealing the top seed in the Western Conference. Three games clear of Indiana, home court advantage throughout the playoffs isn’t far away either. They’re not the team you want to see step off the plane when you’re fighting for your playoff lives.

As ever, the Lynx opened with their typical starting five, while Silver Stars coach Dan Hughes kept faith with his recent lineup starting Danielle Robinson at the point. The rookie speedster has started their last couple of games, and the change has failed to snap their losing skid, but Hughes shows no signs of switching back to veteran Tully Bevilaqua. The scoreline stayed reasonably close throughout the first half, but managed to be simultaneously frightening for the Silver Stars. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/27/2011: Playoff chase still has some Shocking twists

Okay let’s face it, the big WNBA event of Saturday night came late in the evening, when many saner people than I had already gone to bed. But we’re going to build up to it, Shock fans (oops, spoiler alert). Every game yesterday had at least some level of playoff implications, so it’s not like we can just ignore all the basketball that went before in favour of those few final seconds. However much we might want to.

Having already covered the Phoenix-Connecticut matchup in yesterday’s column, next up was San Antonio’s trip to face Minnesota. While the Lynx are still playing to mathematically win the West and seal home court advantage throughout the playoffs, their regular season is already winding down. Everyone knows they’ve won the conference, and they’ve got a couple of games on Indiana for home court. Their last few matchups are more about preparing for the playoffs than anything else. The situation in San Antonio is a little different. Having lost eight of their last ten, the Silver Stars were only 1.5 games ahead of LA for the fourth and final playoff spot in the West heading into this one, and the gap seems to have been decreasing by the day. A road game against the Lynx obviously wouldn’t be your first choice to turn a spiralling record around – in fact it might be just about last on this list this year – but it’s dire straights for San Antonio at this point. They need to scrap for any possible win they can find, and if they can snatch a couple in unlikely places it’ll be an added bonus.

Helping the Silver Stars out for this game, Danielle Adams was finally back in uniform after missing 11 games due to her mid-foot sprain. Bear in mind that Seattle went 10-10 without Lauren Jackson, while LA went 5-10 without Candace Parker – San Antonio were even worse, at 3-8 without Adams. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/24/2011: Cappie explodes; San Antonio sink; Tulsa toil.

For anyone who missed it, I covered two of Tuesday’s games in yesterday’s column. Now it’s time for the remaining three. Chronologically, Minnesota’s trip to Tulsa came first, but let’s face it, top vs. bottom doesn’t mean a great deal at this point in the season. So we’ll get to that game at the end. First, the two contests that involved teams still fighting it out for playoff positions, and even to make sure they reach the postseason to begin with.

Live on ESPN2 in the US, Cappie Pondexter returned to Phoenix with her New York Liberty squad for the second time since forcing a trade prior to the 2010 season. When she went back last season the teams ended up in a scuffle that led to Pondexter being ejected from the game, so it was an interesting choice for national TV. If you’d had to assign probabilities of a brawl for every game all season, this one might’ve had the highest value on the schedule. Maybe they were working on the age-old maxim of “any publicity is good publicity”, and hoping there might be some extra-curricular activity. The chances of any kind of scuffle decreased a little when news filtered out that Diana Taurasi would miss her second straight game due to back spasms. Apparently she wanted to play, but the Mercury medical staff decided against it. Probably a good idea considering how chippy the game was always likely to become.

After winning four of their last five games, Phoenix had moved 1.5 games clear in second place in the West. However, with a four game road trip coming up, this would’ve been a nice game to win to send them out on their travels on a positive note. For New York, the win Atlanta completed over Chicago just before this game tipped off gave them a little breathing room to make the playoffs, but made their grasp on 3rd place even more tenuous. It’s still a combination of trying to hold Atlanta off while trying to chase down Connecticut for them, just as it’s been for several weeks now. They were helped out a little for this game by the return of backup center Quanitra Hollingsworth, deepening their post rotation and reducing their reliance on recent acquisition Kara Braxton. It was Braxton’s first appearance back in Phoenix since being dumped for pennies on the dollar by the Mercury earlier in the season, due to her attitude and a physical altercation with Olayinka Sanni. Judging from the boos that greeted her when she entered the game, the Mercury fans didn’t exactly welcome her back with open arms. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/21/2011: Wild West heating up

Saturday was a big night for the WNBA’s Western Conference, as all five teams still in with a shot of the playoffs featured. With one superstar having already returned, another making her first appearance in months, and a third taking the night off due to pain, it’s all gotten a little extra-interesting as we head into the final weeks of the regular season. The one East-only matchup had an exciting finish as well, but we’ll get to that at the end. First, the West.

Opening up our Western slate, the Los Angeles Sparks travelled out to face the league-leading Minnesota Lynx. With Candace Parker back in the fold, LA – somehow – managed to beat East-leading Indiana on Thursday night. To my eyes, as regular readers will remember, it was far more down to an inept performance from the Fever than a particularly impressive one from LA. Still, it had to give them extra confidence heading into the game with the Lynx. Compared to San Antonio, LA’s schedule is very straightforward for the rest of the season, meaning their playoff hopes are still alive despite being three games back prior to Saturday night. A win in Minnesota would get that playoff push off to a heck of a start. It hardly mattered, but the Lynx went into this game knowing that a win would officially, 100% statistically confirm that they’d made the playoffs for the first time since 2004. It’s been a foregone conclusion for weeks, but when you’ve been on the outside looking in for so long, it’s always nice to make these things official. There’s also still the small matter of home court advantage throughout the playoffs to fight for.

Minnesota’s starting five has barely changed all season, and nothing was any different for this one. LA stuck with the five that ‘worked’ against Indiana. The Sparks’ defense immediately presented itself as the exact same style and concept that they offered against the Fever. They were switching on everything, not bothering to fight over or around any screens regardless of the players involved. Lindsay Whalen’s not dumb. She brought Taj McWilliams-Franklin out to set screens on three Lynx possessions within the first three minutes of the game. Each time, LA switched and Taj was left being defended by Ticha Penicheiro. Yeah, that’s not going to work. Three easy buckets resulted, two for Taj on layups and one for a wide open Rebekkah Brunson when the ball was kicked to her. I hate this LA defense with a passion. It’s dismal.

The scary thing was that Minnesota started messing it up. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 08/16/2011: Liberty stop the rot; Fever keep rolling

Nothing happened in the WNBA on Monday, but there were five games Tuesday night so I figured I’d offer a little quick-fire coverage for once. We’re going to look at the games featuring Washington in New York and Indiana in San Antonio in this piece, with tonight’s other three games coming in tomorrow’s article. Apologies for the fact that this piece will only truly be released on August 16th for those on the US West Coast. Or maybe Alaska. It’ll be a nice little taster for you over breakfast if you only found it the following morning.

So first up, the latest round between the Washington Mystics and the New York Liberty. All four meetings between these two teams have occurred within the last three weeks, and tonight’s game was the third in the space of eleven days. They were probably sick of the sight of each other. After losing their last two encounters with the Mystics, both at home, New York desperately needed to win this one. They were starting to fall away from Connecticut for second-place in the Eastern standings, and dropping perilously close to the likes of Atlanta and even Chicago behind them. More simply, you’re just not supposed to lose to the freaking Mystics three times in a row. Once is pretty bad, twice is a nightmare. Three times would’ve been verging on the ridiculous. Washington are essentially playing for pride at this point, but they’ve been showing a fair amount of it lately, with some decent performances. Playing spoiler with the pressure off can be fun.

The starting fives were the usual groups for these teams, but New York’s bench was a little shorthanded. Quanitra Hollingsworth, who’s been doing a solid job as Kia Vaughn’s backup at center (and lately stealing some of her crunch time minutes as well), was out with an ankle sprain. She’s listed as day-to-day. That put extra pressure on the remaining post players – starters Vaughn and Plenette Pierson, recent addition Kara Braxton and emergency option Ta’Shia Phillips – to produce.

The early stages made it look like New York were determined to avoid that third straight defeat to the worst team in the East. Continue reading →