June 19th, 2009: San Antonio at New York

New York Liberty 77, San Antonio Silver Stars 61

Some returns are happy, some aren't, and the Liberty do what they have to do to put a mark in the wins column.


Look, I know San Antonio was hurtin' and lackin' and sick. I don't care. If it takes feeding on carrion and picking on the weakest kid in the schoolyard to get our first win, that's what it takes. Fuck it.

Was rolling with mom today- God love her, she got a hip replacement fifteen days ago, but she was bound and determined to make it to this game. Of course, then VJ had to miss the game (yes, I know, perfectly reasonable explanation, and my heart goes out to VJ and her family).

It's much harder to tell who's who when they're all wearing the same warm-up shirts. I mean, Katie Mattera stuck out from the crowd, and Janel's hair is fairly easy to recognize, but that's about as far as I could go on first glance.

San Antonio is disturbingly pale, except for Sophia Young. She... stands out, especially with VJ not there. It bothers me.

Man, Shanna Crossley can shoot it. Her shots were almost effortless, the way they went up and in, and she put 'em up fast. I don't know that she does much else, but she's damn good at that. Katie Mattera is good at being big, but that's about all she managed. And while you might take the girl out of the Shock, you can't take the Shock out of the girl, or something like that- one of her fouls came on a play where she shoved Shameka to the ground. We are not amused, Mrs. Mattera. Not amused at all. Megan Frazee played quite well in her time on the floor. I can see why they decided to keep her. But the reserve of the game, who played more minutes than three of the starters, was Edwige Lawson-Wade, who took a page out of the Kiesha Brown Handbook On Roaring Rampages Of Revenge and went all out on the Garden floor. She hit one unbelievable shot-clock-beating three, played tough defense, and distributed well. If it hadn't been for her, I don't want to think about how badly the Silver Stars would have gotten beat. I liked her when she was with us.

Erin Perperoglou looked washed out, and I think she was feeling it too, from the amount of time she spent trying to keep herself limber during stoppages in play. Young didn't look as strong as I'm used to her seeing, though she seemed to get better as the game went on. I hope they thought to pick up some chicken soup while they were in New York. We make the best here. Snell looked out of rhythm. Maybe she's not used to starting. Maybe she put too much bleach in. (Sorry, Belinda, but what works for Lauren does not work for you. Go back to black.) It almost looked like Hughes was setting her up to fail so there'll be a reason why she's buried on the bench when they're at full strength, or possibly even the cut when Wauters finally shows up. Darling looks like she's lost the baby weight, but her decision-making was not the best. Somehow, though, she seems to emit the aura of a baby animal in distress; two different times, Liberty players picked her up off the floor. Clearly, none of them were watching the league when we dubbed her the Headless Chicken. This is a dangerous woman if you let her too close to you. Riley got her blocks, and got open in the third quarter for a couple of those pretty little mid-to-long range jumpers she's been swishing since goddamn Tamika fucking Whitmore was the one not defending them for New York, and then San Antonio promptly forgot about her viability as an offensive option.

Ashley. Oh, Ashley. Whatever's wrong with you, whether it's a shortage of Red Bull or a mysterious mental malady, get it the fuck fixed right the fuck now. I'll gladly help. But the bad decision-making, the horrible dribbling- they need to stop. Leilani, while to so effective at our end of the court, stuck to Darling and Lawson-Wade to keep them from being as good as they previously were at theirs, so that's something to be said. Tiffany- yeaaaaah, that's what I'm talking about. Very efficient game. I'm glad to see her getting back into the thick of things, and glad that Coyle was going sporadic with her for caution, not because of stupidity. Very little Erlana, and none of it great. Very little Kia, and most of it unexciting. Very little Spencer, and none of it memorable.

The starters, on the other hand, mostly kicked ass. Cathrine was the exception. STOP SHOOTING THREES, CATHRINE. GET IN THE LANE, CATHRINE. Sorry for yelling, but I figure you might want to get an idea of what it was like over in section 209 tonight. She had one really nice boxout that I remember, and the last three did go down, but damnit, you'd think a football player's daughter who's six-four and broad-shouldered would go inside more often. Janel kicked ass. I think there might have been a little more of it to kick, but 18 and 6 is nothing to sneeze at, and her teammates were sharing it. Loree really hit the boards- it was good to see her looking strong again. Sista Christon's my pick for player of the game, personally- 18 might be more than 15, but 6 equals 6 and six assists beats three assists. Shameka was back on form, and I couldn't have been happier.

Play of the game for San Antonio: Lawson-Wade's three at the shot clock buzzer. Alas for San Antonio, you only get one of those a game, because she needed a second one.

Play of the game for New York: late in the game, Janel, sitting on 18 points, gets a feed into the post. She goes up for the shot... fake and passes to Kia, who puts it in for her first two of the night. A gorgeous fake, and more importantly, a classy move, giving her teammate a shot instead of going for 20.

The referees did not noticeably suck tonight, which I credit to Denise Brooks. While there were little procedural things that didn't get called, nothing got out of hand and nothing got unbalanced. (As an odd aside, is this the first time there's been an all-African-American crew in the W?)

The Liberty All-Star video is hysterical- a parody of "Single Ladies". The synchronization was surprisingly good. Janel was surprisingly smooth. My brain is still slightly broken, though.

There was a Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover for entertainment. No, not really, just some exhibition group from a dojo, but when one group wields nunchuks, a bo, and sais, and the other has three guys and two girls, what else am I gonna think?

Beautiful anthem- nice clear voice, though the vibrato began to wear after a while.

Woo-hoo, we had a Knick sighting. This is the sound of me not giving much of a shit.

Decent crowd, though the groan that came up at the announcement of VJ and Hammon's absence indicates who everyone was there for. I thought there was gonna be a riot.

It was good to see a win, and good to have mom back at the arena. Clearly this was the missing piece, and now that she's off the IR, we can get on with this whole winning thing.