May 26th, 2004: Detroit at New York

New York Liberty 64, Detroit Shock 52

The Game Notes rejoice in victory and despair at Shameka Christon.


WE JUST BEAT THE DEFENDING WNBA CHAMPIONS!

I spent the entire trip marinating in the pleasure of that simple statement. The Liberty, calculated by most to be in the latter half of the Eastern standings, took on a full-strength Detroit team, faced all the tricks they could pull out of the book, and stopped them cold on offense. Hustle, heart, passion: these were all on display at MSG tonight. I'm sure that somewhere there are excuses for the effort Detroit put in, but I genuinely don't care. We brought it, and verily it was broughten.

Tamika who? Ann who? I admit being one of DeTrina White's doubters- WTF were the Liberty doing, taking someone who couldn't even make Indiana's team out of training camp? She's steadily won me over with her hustle, her fearlessness, and her tenacity, with the way she forces jump balls and brings down rebounds, and chases the ball all over the court. And yes, takes out Detroit staff too. That move, with her flying over the scorer's table and accidentally kicking the poor Detroit staffer, showed more determination in ten seconds than *insert your derogatory nickname of choice for Tamika Whitmore here* could in ten weeks. She reminds me a bit of an undersized and somewhat less developed Ben Wallace, though Melissa's description of her as "Tot without the pot" is equally valid- she's not a big scorer, but she'll rebound 'till the cows come home, and then she'll fight the cows for the rebound. Now, if she finds an offensive game...

Elena makes me very happy. You know we'd been hearing all these rumors about the unstoppable Elena Baranova, the best player in Europe, but the version that would show up in the WNBA was a mere shell of that who showed just enough flashes of greatness to frustrate WNBA fans. Well, the real Elena is making her way back to the W. Liberty fans have dubbed her Supernova, and I think it fits. She's rebounding, and even if she isn't looking for her shot as much as she would in Europe (right?) she's taking the shot just enough times to make the defense respect her- and hitting enough deep shots to make the defense respect her well past the three-point line, and handling it just enough to make people pay attention to her. She's finally fulfilling the promise she showed so many of us. And it feels good.

The Liberty is clicking, making passes that the 2003 model wouldn't have tried unless it was Spoon to VJ (one friend of mine says they had ESP, and I'm not inclined to disagree). Crystal's no-look to Elena was the early icing on the cake, but the passing was, for the most part, BRILLIANT! (Keegan, hellcat, luuuc, stop giggling back there.) There's chemistry. There's teamwork. There's enough gel to make Dr. Scholls jealous. Becky doesn't have to carry the team, VJ doesn't have to caryr the team, Tari doesn't have to carry the team. Everyone pulls their own weight, and no matter how much they shove Becky in our faces, Liberty fans know that.

Well, almost everyone pulls their weight. Poor Erin is in the doghouse, and Bethany seems to have ended up in there as well. Poor Bethany, and after she got the front cover of New York Sports Express, no less. And Shameka... look, I will be very pleased if she lives up to the hype of being the next Swoopes, but right now she looks completely and uttterly lost. Until she adjusts to the league, I've dubbed her Tall, Dark, and Useless and groaned when she comes in. So far the only use I've seen her put to is making the lineup taller and making sure the rest of the team doesn't get fouls. Again, I hope she doesn't turn into a flop, but every time I see her settle for a deep three, I wince. And usually scream. Loudly.

I'm dying to see how raven finds a way to get on Crystal's case, and the inevitable flame wars that break out over Becky (though the on-court situation seems to have settled to 'Becky, give Vickie the ball and she'll handle things' or 'Becky, you have five seconds to move this offense, so pass it!'; in other words, Becky distributes the ball on the break, while VJ handles the halfcourt offense) I'm also dying to know how SFO took the 'Kill Bill Volume 25 posters Stark and jersey_stupka had up, because I saw him talking.

The Shock looked... disorganized. Rattled. Somewhat confused. And yes, disgruntled at certain foul calls. And yes, there were some craptastic calls against the Liberty, but I found that the bad calls in the first half were balanced out in the second half. I thought for sure Deanna Nolan was going to slap someone's face off before the end of the game, and Becky was thisclose to a tech. So was Richie, but I think it's more noteworthy when he *isn't*. Speaking of questionable calls regarding fouls, what in the sweet bejesus heck was Cheryl Ford doing on the floor after the fourth? Or the fifth? Logically, if Detroit needed to get physical, a lineup of Riley and Farris would have done it, and saved Cheryl for critical rebounds at the end of the game. And what happened to Chandi Jones for the second half? And Tillis seemed about as useful as Shameka, only taller.

But there are negative vibes. For one, the damn building was only half full, for the Liberty and the defending WNBA champions. (Maybe the other 5000 people drank the 'Sparks are defending champions' Kool-Aid and thought these were the bad Shock?) For two, most of those people were awful quiet. It's like, dude, we just took a fifteen-point lead on the f---ing defending champions and you're just going to sit there and chat on your cell? For three, where the hell is Sue? Unless she's taking finals (at last rumor, she was taking classes at Rutgers to stave off the boredom), she should be at the games. She'd appreciate the passion, the hustle, the occasional backcourt trap, and the all-out rebounding, even if we did get beat on the boards tonight. If the situation with Spoon and the front office soured Sue on the team (and I realize that's a biiiiig leap in logic, but you know, I just can't see her getting that steamed over Whitmore leaving), then I'm even more soured on Teresa and Blaze than I was before. For four, I keep getting the feeling that it's all going to fall apart when Ann deigns to report, because Richie is going to think he has to play her, or Blaze is going to make him play her, and Elena's effective minutes will be cut, and so will D-Train's, and we're going to have a situation like last year where people weren't happy and made it abundantly clear that they weren't happy.

Aiite. People-spotting, one of my favorite timeout activities. Spotted LilBeckyOnTheUp and jersey_stupka (both espn.com board junkies) with the Kill Bill V.25 takeoffs. Stark, man, we need to talk, because the intranational crack I spreading; my brain came up with costume ideas for smoovie to draw. Spotted Kate (wnbatalk.com admin) in a very classic number- an Elena Baranova Utah Starzz #28 jersey. Danni, sorry I didn't get to see you, but I didn't know where you were sitting. I did get to schmooze my way up from section 15 back to my seat in 210- knowing people is such a beautiful thing, even if they aren't famous people. Sunny, it was a pleasure. A brief pleasure, but one naetheless. Edgar, dude, come by and visit sometime, I'm right downstairs from your section, you can probably hear me from where you are. I promise not to commit too much violence against you unless you make some harebrained proposal to get rid of Tari.

WE JUST BEAT THE DEFENDING WNBA CHAMPIONS! goddess, it feels good to say that.