Tag Archives: Seattle Storm

WNBA Today, 07/10/2011: I wish I were a gambling man

Everything below was written before Jennifer Gillom was replced by Joe Bryant as head coach of the Los Angeles Sparks late this evening. More on that tomorrow.

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Some nights, it annoys me that I’m not a more adventurous gambler. You see, I don’t like losing money, so I tend to bet small, even when I’m convinced the odds are in my favour. I also don’t have an account anywhere that offers in-play betting, which was the second factor that stopped me making a bundle last night. But let’s just say that if a) I had more guts, and b) somewhere easily accessible actually took the bets, I could’ve made some nice coin out of yesterday’s WNBA schedule.

Some games start off going one way on the scoreboard, but if you’re watching closely enough and know a little about the squads, it’s pretty easy to gauge whether the pattern’s going to last. When one team gets all the breaks, shots are going in that they rarely manage to make, and the other team are contriving to miss countless point-blank layups, chances are things are going to swing round before the night is out. It happened a lot last night. Oh and by the way, gambling is legal where I live. If it happens not to be where you reside, please don’t take this as a suggestion that you break the law. That would be wrong.

The first game last night featured Washington in Indiana, and the first instance of me scouting around for a website that would let me open an account in seconds and bet on a complete collapse by the team in front. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/06/2011: Temperatures rise in the desert, and the Fever stay hot

One event sparked most of the discussion in regards to last night’s three WNBA games, but you know what? It was essentially a minor incident and had very little to do with actual basketball, plus it happened in the middle of a pretty terrible game. So on principle, I’ll cover that game second. It would’ve gone last except that even I can’t come up with a good reason to move Chicago-Washington up the playlist.

So first up, the second and final regular season meeting between the two teams I predicted to reach the WNBA Finals this year, Indiana and Seattle. The Storm won their first matchup fairly comfortably a couple of weeks ago, but that was before Lauren Jackson went down with an injury that could cost her the season. The Fever, of course, are also dealing with injury issues of their own, after starting point guard Briann January tore her ACL in their last game and was ruled out for the rest of 2011. This was the first test of how they were going to cope. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/03/2011: Storming the Capital

Nothing happened in the WNBA yesterday, but seeing as the only game all weekend was early this afternoon, I figured why wait until tomorrow to cover it. The Seattle Storm went to Washington D.C. this weekend knowing that with Lauren Jackson out for most of the season, these are the sort of games where they need to be picking up wins. With LJ missing, the margin of error is significantly smaller and they need to make the most of opportunities against the weaker teams in the league. Washington’s last game was a morale-boosting 20-point win – even if it was over Tulsa – so they were simply hoping to keep that positive energy flowing. There hasn’t been much of it for the Mystics so far this year.

Already without Monique Currie and Alana Beard, Washington suffered yet more bad news on the injury front before today’s game when star post Crystal Langhorne was ruled out with back pain. Obviously the exertion of trying to carry this franchise on her back all season had finally proven too much. Rookie Victoria Dunlap moved into the starting lineup to replace her, weakening the already desperately thin Washington bench. The game was slow and sloppy to start, a Kelly Miller turnover on the opening play indicative of what was to follow. Seattle actually hit a couple of threes in the first quarter – something they’ve been struggling with mightily all season – one from Sue Bird and one from Belinda Snell, appearing in just her fourth game this season. The typical Storm defense was forcing awkward shots by the Mystics but Washington were grabbing all the rebounds, so neither team could pull away. 18-17 Storm at the end of the first. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 07/02/2011: Whistles, whistles everywhere

You know how some nights the games just don’t seem to want to end? Yeah, last night was a long one in the WNBA, even though we only had three games. Maybe a directive went out from the head office that they hadn’t heard enough whistles in the first month of the season, because we sure got plenty of them to kick off July. Sometimes it really feels like they want us to watch the three people out there in those ugly beige-and-orange shirts more than the ten wearing the basketball uniforms.

The first game to tip off at least had a modicum of flow to it, with New York and San Antonio battling it out in the wilds of New Jersey. The sparse crowds at the Liberty’s adopted home (where they’re intending to play for the next three seasons) aren’t providing much of a home court advantage so far, and there was more bad news for New York before the tip. Essence Carson, one of their bright spots this season, suffered an eye injury in warmups and couldn’t play, not even appearing on the bench through the course of the game.

The first half was pretty painful for us neutrals. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/30/2011: Now what do we do?

No games last night, so I thought we’d take a closer look at the major injuries that have struck around the WNBA lately and how the respective teams might deal with the holes that have suddenly appeared on their rosters. Injuries always play a significant role in the destination of the WNBA championship, and less than a month into the 2011 season they’re already starting to take their toll. However, as always, one person’s misfortune can be another person’s opportunity, so who can the teams find to step up and fill the gap?

 

LA – Candace Parker

The good thing here is that it’s ‘only’ six weeks that Parker is expected to miss with a torn lateral meniscus in her right knee. In this case, six weeks would cover over a third of the Sparks’ season, but given the ever-present fear of a torn ACL whenever someone goes down clutching their knee, it could’ve easily been worse. The other positive is that four out of the five real basketball teams in the Western Conference have to make the playoffs. Even last year, when only one of them deserved it, the rules said we had to have four. All LA have to do is cling on to one of those other teams and sneak past sometime before September 12th, and then a presumably Parker-led squad can attack the postseason. It’s not like home court is that big an advantage in this league anyway. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/25/2011: Storm -1 Still Blow a Gale

Sometimes, basketball games are about more than just winning and losing. Sometimes, even just three weeks into a season, a team has to go out on the floor and prove that they still belong. That they’re still the champs, and that the route to this year’s title still goes through them. That without their star player they can still compete with the best teams in this league. And that however horrific their offense might be, you’re still going to have trouble scoring points against them. Ladies and gentlemen, your Seattle Storm!

For anyone who caught yesterday’s article before the late update (or the few of you with the temerity to not even read it at all), Lauren Jackson has been ruled out for ‘a minimum of three weeks’ with ‘a labral injury in her left hip’. They’re going to let her rest, then try physical therapy, and if she doesn’t respond well enough only then will they resort to surgery. So the Storm went into last night’s game at home to Minnesota not just smarting from the ass-kicking they took from the Lynx two weeks ago, but shorn of last year’s WNBA MVP. However, as we all know, in life and in sports – beware of the wounded animal.

Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/22/2011: Night of Celebration finds a Hollywood Ending

It was WNBA madness yesterday, with five games spread from lunchtime until midnight on the US East Coast. I spread the load a little with a Pseudo-Live Game Diary of the early game between Atlanta and Chicago, so now we get to focus on the four late games. Here’s the quick tale of the first three: two decent teams beat two crappy teams even though they were without a key player for most or all of the night; and one mediocre team beat another mediocre team who were missing a key player of their own. The end. Okay not the end, and I’ll cover all three games in a little more depth towards the end of this article, but first we’re going to skip to the night’s showpiece event – New York @ Los Angeles, a rematch of the first ever WNBA game, commemorating the WNBA’s 15th season.

Firstly, this was the most entertaining game we’ve had so far this season, so if you didn’t watch it, I’ll wait while you go and check out the archive. Go on, I’ll still be here when you get back. You can even just click here and it’ll start for you. See how good I am to you?

Anyway, on to the analysis. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/20/2011: Blowouts and Beginnings?

Firstly, apologies for the late hour of posting. Once in a blue moon I actually have other things to do besides watching and writing about the WNBA. Another quadruple-game day yesterday, and three of them ended up in blowouts of one description or another, so let’s start with the only one that didn’t. Indiana visited Phoenix, the last team left in the league without a win (and it’s kind of embarrassing to lag behind Tulsa, even if the Merc had played three games fewer than the Shock due to the quirky WNBA schedule). The Mercury were desperate for a win to get their season started, and after being held to a miserable 54 points on 29% shooting by the Storm in their previous game, the Fever will have been salivating at the prospect of facing some nice friendly Phoenix ‘defense’.

The Mercury got off to their now-customary early lead, pushing out to an eight-point edge behind some transition scores and Kara Braxton actually managing to make a few layups. That made a nice change, after the number of point-blank efforts she’d missed in the opening three games. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/18/2011: Four times the Fun

Four games last night, and the first to tip off was one of two that turned out to be somewhat competitive, with the shorthanded Dream travelling to Minnesota. With Sancho Lyttle off playing for Spain for the next couple of weeks, everyone and their dog was predicting yet another big game for Rebekkah Brunson, and we weren’t to be disappointed. Atlanta went big to start, replacing Lyttle with 6-7 behemoth Alison Bales, and it was reasonably successful for a while – but it didn’t last. A fun back-and-forth first half between two teams that are happy to push the tempo ended up 39 apiece, but in the third quarter the Lynx made their move. With Whalen pulling the strings and Brunson racking up the rebounds, Minnesota went from 43-41 down to a 54-43 lead in the blink of an eye. Brunson made a couple of typically athletic plays, Augustus hit a pretty jumper, Whalen dropped in a couple of buckets and Maya Moore had a steal that led straight into a breakaway layup. That’s the scary thing about this Lynx team – they can hurt you from essentially any spot on the floor. Even when they go to the bench, you’ve got the likes of Candice Wiggins and Monica Wright coming in, but it’s that Whalen/Augustus/Moore/Brunson/Taj starting lineup that’s doing most of the damage. Stop one or two pieces, and they’ll just come at you from another angle.

Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 06/10/2011: Broken Streaks, Broken Dreams

Two interesting games in the WNBA last night, not that I could blame you for being a little distracted by Mavs-Heat Game 5. Of course, the first major breakdown in the WNBA’s LiveAccess system this season meant that no one outside of Key Arena could watch the first half of the late game, which made the choice to go with the NBA game even easier. But more on that one later. First up was the ESPN2 game in Atlanta, where the shorthanded Mystics came in as heavy underdogs against the home town Dream. This one was ugly early, with sloppy passing and terrible shooting at both ends sending the ball careening back in the opposite direction. The first quarter eventually finished with a reasonable-looking scoreline of 22-19 to Atlanta, but that was more through scores off breakdowns, turnovers and defensive mistakes than anything resembling decent offensive execution by either team. Continue reading →