July 15th, 2007: WNBA All-Star Game

East 103, West 99

The West has flash but the East has grit. Stargazing and awe at All-Star as the Game Notes hit the road.


We arrived safely in Washington around ten-thirty and proceeded to find our way to the hotel and to the site of the Be Tour. It's not a great neighborhood- there were homeless guys wandering and out most of the day. Not the vibe I'd want, but that's just me.

I liked the selection of activities, although I'll have more information on them tomorrow. I think. We may be playing tourist that morning. It was fun to watch people shooting around and having fun. Sparse crowd; I expect it to be higher tomorrow. Mad love to the Chicago fan with the awesome shoes, the Houston fan in the Cynthia Cooper shirt (even if she wouldn't let me take her picture), and to anyone who came out from the West Coast.

The Western Conference players seem to be both having more fun and taking the game more seriously than the Eastern Conference players, judging from the way the activities they chose and the way they interacted with the crowd. When the East came out for availability, Bill had them do some shooting drills and then do a dance off. I wish I'd gotten pictures of DeLisha Milton-Jones all up on Kara Braxton. It was... wow. Something else, to be sure. They had a better autograph set up, although I don't blame th eteams and I think it might have had something to do with the fact that half the East team was otherwise engaged. The West was scattered all over the place, as far as I could tell, but I didn't get to stay long.

See, one of The Usual Suspects wangled an invite from The Prima Donna to bring some diehard fans to the West practice, and I said duh. It was a bit of a ways out, just over the border in Maryland. We weren't the only fans who had gotten the memo, and there were clinic kids all over the place, too. We arrived in the middle of media availability and the madhouse that always is. I was pleased to see some out of town reporters- the boy and I had chatted with the guy from San Antonio, so we knew they were in the house, and I stayed after to fangirl at Jayda Evans, 'cause she's one of those people I kinda want to be when I grow up. After that madhouse, the practice began. Coach Boucek had them run some sorta plays, then (in some order) there was a modified three-on-two into which the clinic kids were brought after a while (TT swatted one kid's shot hard, snort. One kid shot through Taurasi's arms. They really liked the kids.), two rounds of Five Spots that the starters won after coming back from two spots down both times, a halfcourt contest that TT was rather stupid in losing her $100 on a double or nothing bet with Jenny Boo, and a game of knockout that resulted in Taj and Becky both schmoozing with the crowd.

Lots of luminaries there in their official capacities. No sign of The Prima Donna, though we saw her at the Tour. Carla McGhee was there as director player personnel. Nancy Lieberman and some guy were covering the event for NBA-TV. Rebecca Lobo was covering for either ESPN Sports or wnba.com. Ann Meyers was wandering around. Adrienne Goodson, I guess, is covering All-Star for Slam. (Was this the first time that all three Rebecca/Rebekkahs who have played in the league have been in the same gym at the same time?) There was a woman there with gorgeous eyes who I will swear on a stack of media guides was either Sophia Young, Marie Ferdinand-Harris, or had to be related to one of the above.

The All-Stars were really having fun with folks. Taj was especially sociable. What a smile that woman has. My God, she could light up a dark room with that smile. I think we're going to see a very good game from the West.

There's nothing quite like the first time, but there's something about this win that makes it even more satisfying than last year's was. We brought in a team that was seriously hamstrung by two subpar selections and we still won. Yes, I know it's only an All-Star game, and I know I'm going to hear whining from fans about how the East takes the game too seriously and how it's supposed to be fun and an exhibition, and things like that. My opinion is that it's a showcase of the best that the WNBA has to offer. We're not going to beat the guys at showboating, and we suffer in comparison to them. What we bring to the game is defense and wicked ball movement. If the West wants to keep playing the boys' game, fine. We'll play the women's game out here.

Ahem. Sorry about that. I'm a fan of defense, so I tend to, um, defend it.

I don't think I like the free thing they did this year. A book of postcards is awfully chintzy when compared to the programs that have been given out at every previous ASG. And apparently there were programs for sale. If that's true, that's not a trend I'd like to see continue. I like getting my freebie, thank you very much.

Skills challenge. We had fun with Betty having trouble with the passes, and Nikki T needs to work on her dribbling skills. Seimone and Becky tore up the court, and Becky got all pumped up about getting to play alongside Lauren Jackson in the actual game. Watching the final runs was amazing- if Seimone had been just a hair faster, we might have had to go to hundredths or a knockout round. Looks like the difference between All-Stars and non-All-Stars is about eight to ten seconds.

Three-point shootout. Wish they'd held it at both baskets, but I understand the concern. Still, we had a crappy view from our seats in the arena. If Penny Taylor's shots had been just a little faster, she might have given Koehn a run for her money. Then again, Koehn might have decided to go for 30 and really show off. There was one point where she must have hit twelve or thirteen in a row- she had the last round won before she went to the last rack, she was so dead-on. If you were watching the contest at home, you heard the crowd chanting her name; it was even more powerful in person. I get the feeling a lot more people are going to know who Laurie Koehn is… and that it's not going to change the way she plays her game in the slightest.

The West was a lot more into the contests, but that might have been because there were more Westerners than Easterners in the challenges, and also because all the shooting and the skills challenge start and finish line were at the West's end of the floor.

Scottie B. persists in being very annoying, but the Mystics' MC is right up there. Plus, dude, come on, you're not supposed to wear the number of an active player; you're certainly not supposed to stick a corporate logo on it right under your name which shouldn't be there in the first place.

We need to do something about the color repetition in team colors. Way too much blue in the East, way too much purple in the West. If this keeps up, we won't need All-Star uniforms because everyone will be wearing the same colors anyway.

Beautiful anthem by the naval officer. Clear, sweet, and true, and of course she didn't mess up the lyrics the way so many singers do. Usually the All-Star Game goes for name recognition in its anthem singers, but I'm glad they didn't this time, especially with all the discussion I've seen regarding Mya's… ahem, performance.

So in the first half, there were a lot of times when it looked like the West ws going to deliver the anticipated spanking to the East and we were going to be back to the same old same old. The funny thing was that this time around, the East kept getting back into range. Cheryl Ford was hitting, or Catchings was hustling back, or someone was making a big defensive play.

And then there was the second half, in which everyone took their turn stepping up. If it wasn't Beard, it was Douglas. If it wasn't Douglas, it was Dupree. If it wasn't Dupree, it was Jones. And it was pretty much always Ford and Catchings.

It was easy to tell which players were taking the game as seriously as they take the rest of the schedule and which ones were just there for the laughs. I suspect that the initial tone was actually set with the selection of the East reserves. Most of them are top-notch defenders who take no crap from anyone. Not that the West wasn't ready to grind when they had Brunson and Thompson on the roster (yes, I know Brunson didn't play), but the West's historical edge has made them much looser and less hungry to win the game. And yes, there were also moments where the East was all 'fuck it, this isn't for keeps' (I'm thinking specifically of one of Becky's drives to the hoop). It's also helped the East that the coaches who have won the conference these last couple of years have been driven, demanding, guys who want to win everything and anything.

A few player thoughts. Cappie was playing like she wanted to be ASG MVP- not necessarily like she wanted anything else out there, just the big glass ball. Taurasi and Taj were having a lot of fun- whether they were taking the game even half seriously was another issue entirely. LJ and TT seemed to have found the happy medium between enjoying themselves and kicking arse. LJ had one spectacular block that took our collective breath away. Poor Lawson looked like her teammates were trying to force-feed her in order to get her some points in her home town, and the shots just weren't falling.

Not that I disapproved of Ford getting All-Star MVP. She played a helluva game, and there were an awful lot of plays when there were four orange jerseys and Ford under the basket. The only thing that gave me pause was her brain freeze in the fourth quarter when she couldn't keep her hands on the ball. I don't even want to think about how many turnovers she had in the fourth. Catch was playing all out, of course, and if that isn't an advertisement for this league, I don't know what is. Douglas seemed so quiet, but she buried the shots that sunk the West for good. Dupree- ah, so beautiful to watch, that hook shot makes my heart sing. Milton-Jones had a lovely finger roll. Beard was all over the place, fierce and proud and determined to win. Laimbeer went with almost three power forwards for long stretches of the game, playing Dupree or Jones with Ford and DMJ. I guess when your centers are Braxton and Sutton-Brown, that might be the best option.

Coach Boucek, please give Linda Hill-McDonald back her shoes. I think she's been wondering where they got to for seven years now.

Philosophical aside: the East's first basket was by Braxton, the last by DeForge, the latter being DeForge's only basket. Strange bookends.

So much star-gazing to do! At least four '96 Olympians were in the house, what with Carla McGhee working for the league, Rebecca Lobo working for ABC, Dawn Staley as the 2006 three-point champion, and Ruthie Bolton working the Be Tour. If Jen Azzi had stuck around after her Saturday work, we might have had a quorum. We also had three-fifths of a very good starting lineup in the house with Kym and Spoon (that puts Lobo at the four, so all we need is a shooter or two). One of my neighbors spotted a few Huskies in the house, Thomas, Houston, and McLaren, and Epiphanny Prince might have been in our section. We spotted Terrapins after the game, outside the Verizon Center; ironically, though my first reaction was 'wow, we're passing a lot of tall people', Toliver was the first one I recognized. Of course, there were also Mystics around, at least for the challenges; we spotted Gillian Goring (has she changed her name?), Nikki Blue, Tamara James, and a tall blonde who we thought might have been Teilane, though I didn't find it likely.

But as y'all might know from my previous descriptions of All-Star time, my favorite people to spot are the fans. So much love for the woman in the Kim Perrot jersey. Shoutout to all the Rocker fans in the house- there were three or four of them I spotted, including a woman in a pretty awesome sweatshirt a few rows down from me. Loved the "TSB" Sting jersey. And how hardcore is a Tonya Washington Mystics jersey? There were three or four of us rocking the #50, and another girl I met at the Tour who happened to be working in the neighborhood. I was so proud of the Los Angeles turnout, and the rest of the West Coast was well represented. I saw gear from every team- I hesitate to say whether I saw fans of every team, because I'm very cynical about East Coast people wearing Becky's San Antonio colors. Cleveland and Charlotte were both well represented. Gotta love the flags that the Indiana fans in the next section over waved so proudly. And I loved the number of Dupree jerseys I saw- that woman needs to be appreciated, because she's so beautiful to watch. (Oh, yes, there will be pictures. You have GOT to see these shoes I found.)

Here's what I took away from the actual game, not from the offcourt stuff: the block by LJ, the drive by Becky, the no-look pass by Diana… and the East win. Take that as you will.