July 22nd, 2006: Seattle at New York

Seattle Storm 89, New York Liberty 54

Keyword of the game? Substitute.


Well, at least I'm sure the Seattle fans enjoyed it. Lord knows someone had to.

I'm seriously convinced that Blaze has a yen for Sweet Adelines- either she wanted to be one when she grew up, and she was tragically turned from the calling because she just didn't have the voice for it, or it's her secret turn-on. Whatever the reason is, it's a harmless vice, and the groups tend to do a beautiful job on the anthem. However, seating them in, essentially, the rafters at a game with less than 50% of the tickets sold is tacky beyond all belief. They were up in the 300s, the highest level sold. Even if it's center court, that's just not on.

Crowd ambiance? We don't have that anymore, not until they start throwing t-shirts, and I've noticed that they're doing that later and later in the game- I think someone's noticed that during blowouts, people leave as soon as the t-shirts are thrown. Personally, I wouldn't want those people hanging around to the end of the game; I think those are the boo-birds, and if I were in charge at MSG, I wouldn't want boo-birds hanging out at the end. It could get ugly. Of course, I also have issues with playing the rally song when down 39 points, but I recognize that it, just like everything else about my gameday experience, has been commercialized.

Keyword of the game? Substitute. Substitute announcer, substitute Maddie (surely I wasn't the only one who noticed the body language was all wrong), and lots of time for the sub players. (Except for Seattle, who has very few sub players, and lost one when Barbara Turner got hurt.)

I had a bad feeling about the way this game was going to go when Betty Lennox opened up on fire. I figured she'd be streaky, so maybe we'd have a chance with LJ and Bird hurting, and Burse benched with the shoulder. Of course, then Lennox hits her first few shots and Sherill can't do a thing to stop her. Mmmm, feeling of impending doom. Also, LJ played amazingly well for a woman who looked like going off the ground hurt like the devil. There was very little elevation in her jump shot, and she was kicking out her feet unusually after the release. She's got a surprisingly soft touch for a big player, I must say. Leaving Bird alone is, of course, a terrible idea, because that jump shot of hers is beautiful, but in a different way from LJ's soft touch. Not too much with the fancy passing, though, not tonight. Tiffani Johnson set one amazing screen for her on a coast-to-coast play that bloody well better make SportsCenter. I miss seeing open court Screens of Death. TJ was hustling more than most of the Liberty players, which is a sad state of affairs indeed. She was the starter who drew the short straw on being the starter running with the benchies. Turner demonstrated a peculiar love of dives early in the game- worked for her, too- but got hurt later on a real fall. It looked like she hit her tailbone- mucho ouch! I think I'm in love with Izi's jumper. I love me those high arching rainbow shots, especially when they're three-pointers. It took me the longest time to notice her scoring, and then suddenly I turned to my boyfriend and said, "When the hell did Castro Marques put up 23?" She got a little fancy at times, though. Ashley Robinson had one monster block that I think later resulted in a shot clock violation, absolutely stuffed… um, someone… clean as a whistle. Of course, she later threw a shoulder into Cathrine Kraayeveld, which did not make me a happy camper. I'd forgotten how much I liked Edwige- she was with the Liberty for a while, you know, before she was –Wade. I like her speed, I like her court vision, and I don't really mind her distributor mindset. Tanisha Wright, on the other hand, didn't impress me. Erin got a lot of her points on her, and also defended her well, and really, what does it say about your offensive skill set that Erin Thorn can successfully defend you?

Seriously, though, if I hear one more denigration of Erin Thorn on any of the message boards I frequent, I think I'm going to resort to violence. Save it until after Becky comes back and she returns to scrub status. Right now, she's our only consistent scorer, and for long stretches seemed to be the only Liberty player who gave a flying about the game. Loree, of course, was our leading rebounder again, and at one point snatched one away from Cathrine, who at times seems to think that this rebounding thing is beneath her; however, she has GOT to lay off the fancy dribbling. Sherill=ball hog. She took a lot of ill-considered shots on breaks where she was outnumbered, or simply didn't have the angle. I think she has about as much faith in the rest of the squad's chances of putting the orange-and-oatmeal thing in the round thing as we do, and feels that she has to do it herself. She needs to ease up on that a bit, and stop trying to be fancy. Barbara had one of her better games as a Lib… which doesn't say much, considering that she had 8 and 5, while her presumptive defensive assignment, Johnson, had 9 and 4. I honestly cannot remember a damn thing Shameka did. Not.a.damn.thing. Iciss looked lost, but Christelle looked fiery. Why isn't she getting more minutes again? The eternal question on all Liberty fans' minds when looking at the front of our bench and the end of our bench. Kiesha is way too fond of the sideline by the press table. She spends an awful lot of time over there, either attempting to hassle the opposing point guard or being hassled herself. She also seems to like looking for her own shot. It was very nice seeing Ashley Battle get extended playing time, especially against a couple of her college mates. She reminded us that we didn't hire her for her shooting prowess, but for her toughness on the glass and her dogged defense. Again, minutes? It was very nice to see Ambrosia play- she's so enthusiastic. I wish she'd look for her shot in her minutes; today she kept passing out, although she was in position. She had a nifty steal within a minute of coming in. I think I like her, so long as she learns how to be confident on the offensive end. Perhaps pairing her with Erin, instead of putting her in when Erin leaves, would work better, unless Patty's afraid of being countermanded.

Some very classy moves by the Storm. I think Donovan was aware that with all the injuries, she was going to have to play starters even in the midst of an utter blowout. I also think she ordered her team to slow it up so as to not run up the score. Granted, part of it may have been so she could figuratively look her former coach in the eye without shame, but I think it was mostly because Donovan is old school and smart. I have a lot of respect for her.

The refs were letting a lot of things go, especially traveling. Some rather ticky-tack fouls, I thought, and some blatant mistakes- a foul before the inbounds is FTs and the ball, hello? I also think Iciss running down one of the Seattle players (I'm remembering high socks, a double name, and a single digit jersey, but that only brings it down to Izi or Edwige) should have been a flagrant. Running players down is not cool. But really, I shouldn't have expected any less from Lisa Mattingly.

Still looking on the bright side, I got to meet several charming Stormfans, a couple of whom brought signs supporting the [b]Seattle[/b] Storm. I like them. They're shiny. I also got a load of cards from a friend who was looking to unload her non-Liberty stuff, which means I now have enough Kedra Holland-Corn rookie cards to possibly trade with God for world peace, or at least a Katie Feenstra auto (the only way I can get it without utterly shredding my dignity).

I'm trying very hard not to think about the 37-point margin of defeat. Trying hard. Trying… oh, frell.