July 9th, 2006: Phoenix at New York

Phoenix Mercury 94, New York Liberty 88

Becky Hammon gets hurt, Shameka Christon probably is hurt, and the Liberty just hurt.


Argh. ARGH, I say.

Becky didn't look good- she grabbed both knee and ankle; I'm thinking the major damage is to her ankle, and she just twisted the knee. If she doesn't sit out the All-Star Game, I'm going to be firing up the Angry Letter Generator (aka Microsoft Word). Again.

I think Shameka's also injured. No WAY she only plays 13 minutes healthy. I'm willing to bet the Evil Hands did not help the twisted ankle after the buttcrack:dawn game against Connecticut, or whatever it was she grabbed after... Sacramento? San Antonio? Jesus, the losses just blur together. I'd shut her down for a while to let it heal.

I'm fully aware that leaves us with Sherill, Loree, and Erin as our starting perimeter, with Kiesha and Ambrosia as the bench, maybe with Cathrine and Iciss sliding to the three (although catering to their small-forward delusions might be bad for the future). Since I'm not as convinced as some of you lot that Erin either has blackmail photos or is fucking the coach as the sole reason for her place on the roster, I'm not as freaked out at the possibility (granted, I also sat through Erin-at-the-power-forward at Radio City... 'nuff said there), but it is still a very, very bad thing. Still, it's not like we're going to magically cease sucking with a gimpy Shameka in the lineup. I'd rather suck with Shameka sitting down, staying awaaaaaaaaay from Lisa White, and getting healthy than suck with Shameka playing hurt and exacerbating her injury.

What this team needs right now is an intervention. Unfortunately, half the people who ought to be giving it are employed by other teams. But if it were possible, I'd have Sue, Kym, Spoon, Elena, Tari, VJ, and Crystal storm the practice facility, throw the coaching staff out on their asses, and declare, "You are NOT LEAVING this building until you learn to set some ----ing screens, hit your ----ing layups, play some ----------ing defense, and show some *long string of bleeps* pride!" Kym, Sue, and Tari could take our bigs aside and do the whole screens/hitting layups bit. Spoon could take Loree in hand. VJ could do the same for Sherill. Crystal would once again take Shameka. Elena would get Cathrine re-aligned towards that whole balance thing. And we would make magic on the Garden court again.

Gah. The anthem was dreadful. DREADFUL. I could have done better, and I'm untrained, tone-deaf, unable to locate a key or a note, and currently nursing a cold. *sigh* At least she knew the words...?

All the cheering from the UConn fans for Diana and the Rutgers fans for Cappie (and I'm sure there was a little tiny Staten Island contingent waving little tiny #34 banners when Derevjanik played her 2:30 and got her rebound) made me think this was a Mercury home game or summat... especially after running into a couple of Brigadiers. It made me SICK, especially when I saw Liberty gear among Cappie's booster section.

It can't be easy being Kamila Vodichkova. It really can't. She's the only true post player active, so she gets all the grunt work. (To me, Rasmussen and Christensen are marginally post players, comfortable mixing it up for rebounds but not so much for the scoring.) It looked like she played a lot more minutes than the boxscore showed. No wonder she couldn't shoot.

During the third quarter, it looked an awful lot like Cappie and Diana didn't want each other to play in their sandbox. I half-expected one of them to throw a toy truck at the other. Westhead yanked Diana, who stomped to the end of the bench and hurled her jacket. She settled down later, though. I think she and Cappie both just panicked because OMG signs of life from the wrecks in white.

I was surprised by Barb's lack of PT, too. Though she was kind of like bringing in a cannon to clear a wall of foam rubber (sorry, Merc fans, but as mentioned, you have less of a frontcourt than we do {HOW did you outrebound us?}), it would have been an advantageous matchup, especially when Vodichkova picked up four or five fouls.

I actually liked seeing Erin's offense and Loree's defense (ESPECIALLY on Taurasi; I don't think Taurasi was ready for someone to be so physical with her, especially not someone with Loree's build), and Loree and Erin have a pretty good rapport, along with them and Cathrine. But Erin's defense leaves a lot to be desired, and Loree has to learn how to not foul. And have I mentioned lately that I love Loree's rebounding? because she was fighting in there with Vodichkova and Taylor. And Patty claims she doesn't play hard and that's why Sherill is starting. Uh-huhhhhhhhhh. I think she only thinks Sherill is playing hard because Sherill goes for flashy steals all the time. And while that's hustle, so is Loree trying to rip rebounds from six-four centers. But... well, you can't start both of them unless Becky is benched, and the warmer parts of Hell will freeze over and the lowest circles sprout palm trees before THAT happens sans injury excuse.

Great shootaround moment: the Mercury are stretching, and suddenly Ashley Battle walks into the scene and she and Taurasi hug like long-lost siblings. Big long hug. It was sweet.

For all that this was "Dads and Daughters Day", the cutest dad and daughter moment I saw was on Mulberry Street. Because all of today's were totally and horribly contrived, and it was painful. Also? Trying to sell people on the joy of the game by saying it's a beautiful day outside? Not a good idea. Not if you don't want them to think "oooooh, I could be at the beach or in Central Park or in Times Square watching World Cup instead of once again inflicting the sweet, sweet pain that is Liberty basketball upon my wounded soul". And let's not even start on the second-string announcer, although his false start on Kamila Vodichkova and forgetting to attribute Erin's first three are shameful gaffes.

BTW, Bridget Pettis had a very sharp suit going on. It had so much going on that at one point Shameka was magnetically attracted to it and there was a collision. I can almost imagine the conversation on the bench afterwards. "See, I wear this, and young beautiful women throw themselves at me. How much would you pay to borrow it?"