Tag Archives: Seattle Storm

WNBA Today, 06/17/2013: Misery deepens for Fever, Shock and Sun while Angel keeps shining

 

After the single relaxing blowout on Saturday, the WNBA threw another quad-game slate at us on Sunday, with matchups staggered throughout afternoon. Once more, it’s a Bullet Point Breakdown to take a look at the key moments and topics raised by all four.

 

Indiana Fever 60 @ Washington Mystics 64

  • It never rains but it pours. With Katie Douglas, Erin Phillips, Jessica Davenport and Jeanette Pohlen all still sidelined for Indiana, rookie guard Layshia Clarendon joined them due to an ankle injury suffered late in their previous game. Karima Christmas moved into the starting lineup, and the Fever were down to eight healthy bodies again, with emergency addition Erin Thorn the only perimeter backup. Washington had everyone available.

 

  • It wasn’t a pretty first half. Both teams shot mid-30% from the field – which isn’t good in anybody’s book – and both fouled far too often on jumpshooters. Ivory Latta hit a couple from deep, while Crystal Langhorne amazingly didn’t take a single shot in the opening 20 minutes.

 

  • Indiana are still fighting, despite being understrength. Their smaller players were repeatedly hitting the deck as they dropped down on switches and fought with far bigger Mystics posts. Christmas isn’t a particularly skilled offensive player, but she’ll make little glue plays and come up with hustle stats that you don’t get from everyone. But they’re so thin, and the offensive weapons just aren’t there. It’s a little sad, after the fabulous playoff run just eight months ago.

 

  • The Fever double-teams were hassling Langhorne whenever the ball found her down low, but there was a clear effort from the Mystics to get her involved offensively in the second half. In her early years it would’ve been easier to keep her quiet, but these days she can step outside and hit a mid-range jumper or drive from the elbow. That at least got her into the game in the second half.

 

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WNBA Today, 06/15/2013: Third-quarters are the charm on four-game Friday

 

Another quadruple-header in the WNBA last night, as the bizarre roller-coaster schedule threw up a heavy evening of basketball. Back to the Bullet Point Breakdown to take a look at them all.

 

Connecticut Sun 68 @ New York Liberty 78

  • The Sun were still without the services of Renee Montgomery and Tan White due to injury, while New York once again had just nine healthy bodies with Essence Carson done for the year and Cheryl Ford still yet to make an appearance. In fact, it emerged after the game that the Liberty will be cutting Ford this weekend, after coming to the conclusion that her knees just weren’t going to allow her to play for them. That will allow New York to add another player, but it’s a disappointing end for a player who was expected to at least contribute after returning to the WNBA for the first time since 2009.

 

  • This was a contest that embodied an oft-repeated cliché in my part of the world: it was a game of two halves. The first ‘half’ lasted through the opening 23 minutes of gametime (I know that doesn’t technically make much sense – work with me here). Through those 23 minutes, the Liberty offense was an ugly mess, repeatedly turning the ball over. Cappie Pondexter missed her first seven shots of the game, being essentially shut down by Kalana Greene, as the Liberty shot 28% as a team. Kara Lawson was left open far too often to hit shots for the Sun. And the only thing keeping the Liberty in the game was that they’d managed to keep Tina Charles very quiet.

 

  • After her 30-point explosion on Wednesday night against Indiana, Charles found life a lot more difficult against New York. Kara Braxton and Kelsey Bone both offered bigger and taller opposition than she faced against the Fever, and with the Liberty sending plenty of help as well the Sun’s star center never found any rhythm.

 

  • But with Connecticut moving the ball around better than New York, and their role players joining Lawson to knock down some shots and generate offense elsewhere, the Sun had built a 40-32 lead when the game-changing sequence occurred. Charles picked up her third foul while fighting with Bone for position in the paint; then added her fourth seconds later on a soft call as Katie Smith tried to drive along the baseline. Only a few minutes into the second half, Charles went to the bench and stayed there for the rest of the third quarter.

 

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WNBA Today, 06/08/2013: Pleasant homecoming for Thibault as injuries continue to take their toll around the WNBA

 

A quad-game night in the WNBA on Friday, which means we’re keeping things bare bones and going straight to the Bullet Point Breakdown.

 

Washington Mystics 66 @ Connecticut Sun 62

 

  • The story for this game was supposed to be Mike Thibault’s return to Connecticut, the franchise he led for nearly a decade. That was overshadowed slightly by the Sun’s injury woes. Already struggling to plug the gap left by Asjha Jones skipping the season, Renee Montgomery (ankle sprain) and Tan White (broken finger) are now expected to miss several weeks. Making things worse, star guard Kara Lawson also missed this game with a sore back. That pushed Natasha Lacy – their 11th woman a couple of games ago – into the starting lineup.

 

  • The viewers had plenty of problems with this one as well. It was the first game this season to suffer under ‘technical difficulties’ on WNBA’s LiveAccess, and there are still only 15 minutes of game time available via the archive (frustratingly the first 15 minutes of the second half – so the closing stages are cut off). So there aren’t going to be a lot of details in this review.

 

  • After what looks from the numbers to be a pretty ugly first half (the Sun led 30-29 at the break), Connecticut managed to claw out a lead that reached 10 points midway through the third quarter. They were still up by 9 in the middle of the fourth when Thibault called a timeout. He’d been trying the post combination of rookie Emma Meesseman and star forward Crystal Langhorne, which led to some difficulties in checking Tina Charles. Meesseman tried her best, and the Mystics sent plenty of help, but it illustrated some of the reasons why Thibault’s been reluctant to use that pairing in previous games. Veteran center Michelle Snow came back into the game at that timeout, and the Mystics ran off a 15-2 streak in the final 6:20 of the game – Charles didn’t take a single shot in that entire stretch.

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WNBAlien Feature: Trading Tina Thompson

 

Last week saw one of the legends of the WNBA, the sole remaining player from 1997’s inaugural season, announce that this would be her final year. Tributes and glowing assessments of Tina Thompson’s career rightfully flooded in, but because I’m an unsentimental soul my first thought was “does this make it more or less likely that she’ll be traded?” On reflection, it seems like the retirement announcement probably doesn’t make much difference – there was always a strong chance that this was her last season anyway, so any move for her would’ve been primarily about what she could offer in 2013. But it does seem like an appropriate time to look at whether Seattle might find a new home for Tina before the trade deadline on August 15th.

 

Before we look at where she might fit, a few elements that make the possibility worth examining:

a) The Seattle Storm aren’t winning a championship this year. Thompson herself made some noises in preseason about whether Seattle was where she still wanted to be. She signed on for two years, expecting to make championship runs alongside Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson. She ended up on a squad that suffered through all kinds of injury issues in 2012, and now is missing both Bird and Jackson for the entire 2013 season. While there was a hard-fought win over the ballyhooed Phoenix Mercury on Sunday night, this is a rebuilding year for the Storm without their two superstars. If they make the playoffs it’ll be a surprise to many, and developing their young players is really a bigger priority than wins. That makes a trade potentially appealing to both the Storm and Thompson herself. The franchise could get some kind of return for a player who’s about to retire, plus the karma boost of giving her a last shot at “one for the thumb”; Thompson gets to make that final run at a title with a team closer to the prize.

 

b) Thompson might not want to go. Despite those preseason comments, she’s starting in her 17th WNBA season, by all accounts Seattle is a nice place to live, and she seems to have a nice rapport with her teammates and the fans. The return on a trade for her also probably isn’t going to be huge for Seattle – a draft pick, likely second-round unless someone is incredibly desperate, or maybe a fringe player who isn’t fitting in somewhere else – so it seems unlikely they’ll be forcing her out the door unless she wants to leave.

 

c) But one last shot at a ring would have to be tempting. Thompson was a central part of the Los Angeles Sparks team that lost in three games in the Western Conference Finals in 2009, but she hasn’t been to the WNBA Finals since the Houston Comets’ streak of four titles from 1997 to 2000. Sitting on someone’s bench playing 5 minutes a night in garbage time probably wouldn’t appeal to her much, but if there’s a more significant role available off a thin bench or even starting due she’d surely be interested. It’s not like she’d have to be there for very long.

 

Of course, trades don’t happen very often in the WNBA, and meaningful ones are even more rare. With only 12 teams there aren’t many options to trade with, and there are even fewer when you’re only looking at teams with some kind of chance to win a championship this season. That crosses off Washington and Tulsa immediately, leaving just nine teams to consider. In increasing order of likelihood:

 

Distinctly unlikely: Indiana, New York, San Antonio

With all their early-season injuries, Indiana could almost work, and the 3/4 combo-forward who defends in the low-post that Thompson has become would fit in the Fever’s system. But they’ve got a settled core of players, and they’re the one theoretical option who’d have some issues fitting Thompson’s salary under the cap. So I can’t see it.

 

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WNBA Today, 06/03/2013: Shots still falling for Sky; sky already falling for Mercury?

 

Three games on Sunday in the WNBA, but for once they were generous enough to spread them out for us and avoid any overlap. Bullet Point Breakdown time for all three:

 

Atlanta Dream 73 @ Washington Mystics 63

 

  • For once, both teams involved in a WNBA game were essentially healthy. Tiffany Hayes continued to start for Atlanta, but Armintie Herrington was available off the bench after missing their last game due to illness.

 

  • There was sloppy basketball from both teams early on, with misplaced passes and blown layups on either side. Crystal Langhorne won the early skirmishes at the power forward spot over Sancho Lyttle with hustle rebounds and a nice backcut, but that was about all that worked for Washington.

 

  • Barely five minutes into the game, the pattern for most of the afternoon began to take hold. Washington were so desperate to push the ball and find quick offense that they were making mistakes and turning the ball over. It’s a cardinal sin against Atlanta, who desperately want to force turnovers and ignite their running game. Even off Mystics misses they were simply beating Washington down the floor for easy opportunities – an unforgivable failing in transition defense. Atlanta were up 9 at the end of the first quarter and led by as many as 15 in the second.

 

  • The silver lining in the first half for the Mystics was the performance of Belgian rookie Emma Meesseman. She made some hustle plays on the glass and showed off her range by hitting a couple of jumpers from mid-range. At barely 20 years old, Meesseman would still have a year or two of college development left if she was American. As long as she keeps showing up, she could be a useful part of Washington’s future. That said, Thibault seemed reluctant to play Meesseman with Langhorne, presumably worried about the defense they’d put up without a true center. So giving Meesseman extended minutes kept Langhorne off the floor. And this team is rarely going to win games without Langhorne playing a key role for most of the game.

 

  • Atlanta had 12 points off 14 Mystics turnovers in the first half, a ridiculous and suicidal number for Washington. The Dream also had a 16-0 advantage in free throw attempts. Hence the 13-point Atlanta lead.

 

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WNBA Today (belated), 05/27/2013: Storm blown away by red-hot Sparks

 

Apologies for the delayed coverage of the holiday weekend’s games. Watching Great Britain’s women’s team swallowed up a lot of my time (please come home soon, Ms Leedham). Rest assured most game analysis will be more prompt over the course of the season. Coverage of Washington-Tulsa, Chicago-Phoenix, Delle Donne, Griner et al will be coming later tonight. First, Sunday’s bloodbath.

 

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Sunday night saw the opening game of 2013 for two teams with very different outlooks on the season. The Los Angeles Sparks have brought back every meaningful piece from a strong 2012 campaign, and added Lindsey Harding to run the point. Their expectations for 2013 are a lot of wins and a deep playoff run, preferably with a parade at the end. Conversely, the Seattle Storm are without star duo Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson, have only four rotation players returning from last year, and are hoping to scrap their way through 2013 as best they can. Given all that, maybe the way this game played out shouldn’t have been much of a surprise.

 

The Sparks opened the game with the lineup everyone had projected since the Harding signing. Kristi Toliver and Alana Beard slid over to shooting guard and small forward respectively, opening space for Harding to take over the primary ballhandling responsibilities. The fears that Beard’s fitness might not allow her to begin the season on time were apparently unfounded. Seattle had Temeka Johnson replacing Bird, with Camille Little and Tina Thompson paired in the post. The only slight surprise was free agent signing Noelle Quinn starting at small forward, leaving second-year wing Shekinna Stricklen to continue coming off the bench.

 

The opening play of the game was a lovely example of LA starting as they meant to go on. Toliver popped up off a screen, took a feed from Harding, and swished an 18-foot jumper. A pure scorer getting to play off the ball, and being allowed to focus on what she does best.

 

Seattle were right in this game for most of the first half. They were playing with a little more speed in their step than we’re used to seeing – Johnson likes to push the ball, so that could be a season-long trend – and they were pretty effective offensively. Little in particular was going to work. A backdoor cut that mystified Candace Parker, a couple of nice turnaround jumpers and a pick-and-pop three all dropped for a player who’s become an increasingly versatile scoring weapon. Offensively, Storm coach Brian Agler will have been happy with that first half.

 

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2013 WNBA Season Previews: Seattle Storm

 

PG: Temeka Johnson

SG: Tanisha Wright/Noelle Quinn

SF: Shekinna Stricklen/Alysha Clark

PF: Tina Thompson/Tianna Hawkins/Cierra Bravard

C: Camille Little/Nakia Sanford

 

Significant gains: Temeka Johnson, Noelle Quinn, Tianna Hawkins.

Significant losses: Lauren Jackson, Sue Bird, Katie Smith, Ann Wauters (plus Ewelina Kobryn and Svetlana Abrosimova aren’t coming back either). Yeah, ouch.

 

Well if you thought those teams with just one All-Star missing were in trouble, welcome to Seattle. Star post and three-time league MVP Lauren Jackson is taking the season off to rest and finally try to fix all the pieces of her body that needed putting back together. That news was followed up with the announcement that point guard Sue Bird would be having surgery to remove a cyst from her knee, and would also miss the entire season. So the two rocks that this franchise has been founded on for over a decade are both out for the year. They’ve survived without Jackson before for long stretches, and even without Bird for a few games here or there, but a Storm team without either of them just isn’t going to be the same. Winning basketball games is going to be a lot more difficult, too.

 

Give some credit to Brian Agler and the Storm franchise though – this is far from a tank job from opening day. If that was the plan, they wouldn’t have gone out and signed two veteran perimeter options in Temeka Johnson and Noelle Quinn, who’ll join Tanisha Wright in the backcourt rotation. Johnson has the unenviable task of trying to replace Bird, but after a solid season last year in Tulsa she should do a reasonable job. She can run a team, she can hit from long range, and while her defense won’t excite anyone that’s no different from Bird. Quinn will take over the Katie Smith role from last season, playing anywhere required around the perimeter. She’s big for a wing, which Agler will like for defensive purposes, and she’ll make a few shots from outside. She’ll also probably be happy to have escaped Washington, so who knows, maybe that’ll give her a new lease of life. Wright will probably be asked to take on more responsibility with Bird and Jackson gone, and if she were healthy she would probably be capable of that. It feels like quite some time since we’ve seen Wright truly at 100%, featuring combo-guard skills that allowed Bird to play off the ball, and shutdown defense on the opposition’s best guard. If Wright’s in one piece, she’ll be one of the leaders of this team – but at some stage it may make sense to shut her down and let her rest next to Sue on the sidelines.

 

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2013 WNBA Draft Preview, Part 1

Welcome back, everybody! As always, it’s been a long offseason for the WNBA, and WNBAlien took a similarly lengthy hiatus to recharge the batteries. But Monday night sees one of the most highly anticipated drafts in the league’s history, so it’s time to take a look at what might happen. Below is a reminder of the important moves each team has made in the offseason, a look at the remaining holes in each roster, and a guess or two at where the GMs might be leaning with their picks. Not so much a mock draft as a reintroduction to the world of the WNBA.

So here we go, in draft order from the top on down.


Phoenix Mercury

Gains: Very little so far, but an awful lot after Monday night. And they’re likely to be less ‘injured’ this year.

Losses: Also nothing much.

Picks: #1 and #26

 
This has been rehashed countless times in every outlet that pays any attention to the WNBA at all. They tanked, we all know they tanked, but it’s over and it worked. There’s no debate about the pick, with 6-8 Baylor behemoth Brittney Griner the first choice of absolutely everybody. Even Mercury head coach Corey Gaines should be able to improve his defense simply by sticking Griner in the middle of it and letting her play. She won’t hurt on offense, either.

The #26 pick could be anything and is unlikely to stick on the roster through training camp (as is the case with most players taken after the first round in WNBA drafts).

The Mercury have also re-signed DeWanna Bonner and have Penny Taylor returning from a serious knee injury. Plus this season they might actually give a crap about winning basketball games. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 10/03/2012: Crucial deciders produce heartbreak and elation in equal measure

It’d be nice if the WNBA’s playoff series could be longer, purely because this is where the basketball becomes truly exciting. But the one benefit of playing best-of-three is the increased likelihood of games like the encounters we saw last night. Deciding games for all the marbles, where everything’s on the line, and it’s win or go home. These are the truly gripping contests, the games that leave the lasting memories after the season is long gone. This is where the spotlight truly shines brightest, and it’s time to step up.

The evening began back in Indiana, after two road wins had forced a Game 3 between the Fever and Dream. Atlanta had failed to close out the series in their own building, but they had the confidence of knowing that they’d won here only four days earlier, and pulled off a string of playoff upsets over the last couple of years. Indiana were still buzzing from the victory they managed to keep the series alive on Sunday.

The starting lineups were as for Game 2, which meant the Fever were sticking with Erin Phillips in the backcourt and Erlana Larkins at center. Hardly a surprise, considering how effective the lineup changes had been in Game 2. It continued straight through into the early sequences of Game 3. Atlanta were primarily throwing up jumpers, the sort of shots that Indiana would be happy to let them take all night long. Meanwhile Indiana were slicing into the defense via drives or solid ball movement, and creating far higher percentage shots. This was how the Fever came out on top in Game 2, and it led to a quick 9-2 lead.

After the improved rebounding from Indiana and superb performance of point guard Briann January in Game 2, Atlanta head coach Fred Williams had a couple of twists to his defense for Game 3. He switched his posts defensively, letting Erika de Souza take Tamika Catchings in the early minutes while Sancho Lyttle was on Erlana Larkins. It put a big, bulky defender on Catchings, who hadn’t been shooting well for much of the series (meaning the Dream weren’t too worried about her simply firing over de Souza before she could get out to challenge). It also, theoretically, should’ve allowed Lyttle to freelance a little more and disrupt all over the floor, because Larkins poses less of a direct offensive threat than Catchings. There was also a change on the perimeter, where Armintie Price slid over to guard January and hopefully slow her down, moving Lindsey Harding on to Phillips and Angel McCoughtry over to guard Katie Douglas. Price is a longer defender than Harding, so had more chance to make life difficult for January, plus it should’ve helped save Harding’s energy to contribute more offensively. They were reasonable moves.

The problem was that, despite her high reputation as a defender, McCoughtry couldn’t restrict Douglas the same way Price had in the first two games. Douglas shot 5-18 combined in the previous two games, and only played 18 minutes in Game 2 because other options were more effective for Indiana. Game 3 saw her get off to a much better start, with a couple of threes and some points in transition in the first quarter. This wasn’t going to be another invisible performance from Catchings’s usual key sidekick. Continue reading →

WNBA Today, 10/01/2012: A night of drama forces deciding games

I have a long-standing theory that the NFL has become the most popular American sport because every game means more. People in the modern world, where there are so many other options begging for our attention, don’t want to waste their time with 82-game or 162-game regular seasons, where each individual contest is almost meaningless. Even with just 34, the WNBA became a bit of a slog this year, because most of the important matters were decided long before the end. But Sunday offered up two examples of why we all watch these wonderful sports. This is what we wait for through all those dreary games. Crucial contests where everything’s on the line, and no one’s ever going to quit.

We opened up in Atlanta, where Indiana had made their lives very difficult. After dropping Game 1 at home, the Fever needed to steal back Game 2 on the road just to keep their season alive. Indiana head coach Lin Dunn made a brave move, because the easy option for any head coach in the playoffs is just to keep riding what worked in the regular season. Instead, she shook up her starting lineup, going with the group that had almost pulled off a remarkable comeback in Game 1. Erin Phillips came in for Shavonte Zellous in the backcourt, and Erlana Larkins replaced Tammy Sutton-Brown at center. It made them smaller, but quicker and more aggressive. It also put a natural rebounder in the paint to join Tamika Catchings in the fight on the glass. After losing the rebounding battle 40-29 in Game 1, that was obviously a concern. Larkins is undersized for a post, but she makes up for it with pure hustle and boundless energy. Atlanta, of course, had the same starting five as in Game 1. Why change a successful formula?

From the very early moments, Indiana had more energy and drive to their play than in Game 1. They were pushing the ball down court with speed, driving into the paint and forcing the action far more. Catchings, inevitably, was the initial spark, but the speedy backcourt of Phillips and January was right there with her. Dunn still took two timeouts inside the first six minutes of the game, concerned about her team’s rebounding, and Atlanta were hanging right with Indiana on the scoreboard, but this was how the Fever had needed to start the game. The Dream were hitting jumpers to keep even, but that wasn’t likely to last.

The game remained surprisingly close in the second quarter – surprising because it felt like the Fever were in charge. They were penetrating and creating contact, forcing their way to the free-throw line. They had January curling around ball-screens and knocking down jumpers or slicing to the basket. They had both Sutton-Brown and Zellous providing nice energy off the bench, rather than pouting about being relegated from the starting lineup. In fact, the only things that weren’t working out were their stars and typical scoring leaders. Neither Catchings nor Katie Douglas could get a shot to drop, and by halftime they were a combined 2-14 for 8 points. Douglas hit the opening basket of the game on a Catchings kick-out; Catchings hit the final shot of the half with a pull-up three over Sancho Lyttle. That was all they had. Good thing their teammates were 14-16 for 39 at the half. Continue reading →