An interesting cast of characters in New York.
It's been a long time since I've been excited at a Liberty game. I forgot how nice the feeling was. And hey, it looks like some of our players realized that the season started!
Today was absolutely miserable weather in New York. My hair should not be wet an hour after I've fled into air conditioning. This is completely and totally unrelated to the game, except that it might explain whether I'm a little cranky or not.
Today's laugh of the day: part of the loop of music and announcements are little "Hi, I'm *insert name here* of the New York Liberty. Welcome to Madison Square Garden, the World's Most Famous Arena! Enjoy the game!" blurbs from various Liberty players. Taj McWilliams-Franklin managed to arrive right when her blurb came up in the loop. As the loudspeaker boomed out, "Hi, I'm Taj McWilliams-Franklin..." Taj looked up in startled surprise. It was hilarious.
I forgot how much I dislike the obsessive fan culture that surrounds UConn when it's in my way. I don't necessarily have high expectations for fan knowledge, but if you're going OMG Tiiiiiiiiiiiinaaaaaaaaa and OMG Reneeeeeeee and OMG Kaaaaaalaaaanaaaaaaaaa, I shouldn't have to remind you that Asjha Jones is a UConn alumna, nor should I have to tell you what year she graduated. At least they recognized Rebecca Lobo (who looks fabulous for expecting again).
We're two for four on young anthem singers. Today's 12-year-old had an incredibly deep voice for a 12-year-old girl and did an excellent rendition. I think she's one of the Lil Torches, or at least performs professionally- she handled herself like she had had professional training.
Don't believe the box. It was a very nice crowd, but it was thirteen thousand at the most, not 15,293. Come on, New York. Most teams would kill for the number you really had- why exaggerate? It's like Lisa Leslie throwing elbows- you're good enough to stand on your own merits without resorting to dirty pool.
The good news was that the Garden didn't manage to throw anything in the face of NYC Pride today. The bad news was that they didn't acknowledge it, either. But given this franchise's spotty record with the lesbian community, I'll take it.
Kelsey Griffin looks much, much better as a brunette. Strawberry blonde doesn't suit her coloring at all. I hope she realizes this at some point and goes back to her natural color. Judging from the two threes she hit, I think her transition to the three is going well. Stunningly, she didn't take any charges. DeMya Walker appears to have fallen off the same cliff as Tangela Smith and Kelly Miller. About the only part of her arsenal that was in full effect was her amazing acting talent. I think her knees and the baby and that rear bumper have caught up to her. Tan White was wilder than usual today. Most of her shots were all over the place, like she was trying for trick shots and couldn't get them to fall. She got tagged with what I thought was a bad charge call, too. I was disappointed that Sandrine Gruda didn't mix it up inside as much as I recall seeing her do in the past- she spent most of her time taking outside jumpers and occasionally swatting shots with her long arms. Most of her scoring came from people inexplicably fouling her while she took jumpers. (What is one of the primary rules of defense? Don't foul a jump shooter, remember? I think she got fouled three times on jumpers.) Allison Hightower got extended second-half minutes for reasons I don't think I understand- if it was for her defense, it didn't work, and if it was for her offense, it definitely didn't work. I know Mike Thibault had to improvise, but I think that was one improvisation he could have done without.
I hope Anete Jekabsone-Zogota is all right. We never got any word about why she played so little and never got back into the game. That was a major factor for the Sun- that's the kind of shooter you like to have as a backup option when things go wrong. Asjha Jones didn't look quite back to herself, but still, you can't leave her alone for that elbow jumper- she can hit that from a stationary position. Tina Charles came out like gangbusters in the first half, enough that I wanted to see a lot of missed shots in the second half so she'd have a chance to break Holdsclaw's record, but between Thibault's benching of her and the Liberty's sudden willingness to box out, she completely disappeared in the second. Renee Montgomery... seeing this team back to back with the Lynx provided an interesting perspective, and I'm now thinking that despite all the local ties and the perceptions of the players involved, Whalen and Montgomery should never have been traded for each other. They don't fit each other's old team, old system, old colleagues. Wright and Charles might be the right players for their teams, so that part of the trade works, but the showpieces just don't. Kara Lawson showed flashes of her old football career, but despite the numbers, it never felt like she could take over the game for Connecticut.
I thought the Nikki Blue experiment was over, but she's back again. Give her credit, she almost hit a three on a beautiful series of passes, and she wasn't too awful for the limited time she was in. There was also a brief Essence Carson sighting, which was nice, even if she didn't do much with it. She's got to get her head on right if she wants to stay in New York, because otherwise she'll probably be out of the league (honestly, if she weren't a first-round pick and a Rutgers alumna, I think she'd be off this team already, but we all know about Blaze and her willingness to admit mistakes). Kia Vaughn looked slightly better than she had in the last couple of games, at least until she started fumbling rebounds like she thought she was supposed to be at the beach volleyball tournament down in Brooklyn. Plenette Pierson did her job- she got rebounds, got a few baskets, and got into her opponents' heads. I definitely wouldn't like her if she weren't on my team, but whether I like it or not, this would appear to be my team, which means I have an appreciation for what she does. Kalana Greene started slow, but kicked into a higher gear as the game went on. (Full disclosure: I had Kalana in Pick One.) She stepped her game up with crucial plays.
Nicole Powell! So nice of you to join us! I'm starting to think someone gave her the wrong calendar, and part of her lackadaisical play has been because she thought this was an unusually long preseason, and she couldn't figure how the preseason had gotten so long so suddenly. Now that she knows the games count- her shots aren't necessarily falling at the clip I'd like, but she's being more aggressive, and she's getting more points, and she's really crashing the boards. I also like that she's started chasing loose balls- she wasn't doing much of that at all early on. Leilani Mitchell had a quiet game- at least by the standards she's set for herself recently- but her fearlessness is second to none. When someone with her build gets up in DeMya Walker's grill- DeMya Walker who once threatened Lisa Leslie in profane language- there's really only way you can describe her: tiny, but fierce. Janel McCarville still doesn't look like herself, or at least not the self she was last year for us, but her hands have been great, and she's hitting the deck like her life depended on it. Taj McWilliams-Franklin's hair was normal- a long straight ponytail- but her game was on point. She was in the right place at the right time. Cappie Pondexter had another of her games where she fills the stat sheet, shoots inefficiently, makes dazzling moves, and commits stupid mistakes. She plays pretty much the same game every night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I can't get excited about that.
The officiating got really weird in the third quarter. It started to look like the referees were letting the crowd get into their heads, and that's really not a good way to run a game. Coach Thibault was absolutely furious, and I can't say I blame him on some of those calls. For that matter, some of the calls that had the Liberty fans livid were good calls. (Nicole, if you use your rump to smack someone, that is a foul. If your foot is out and someone trips over it, you will be called for the foul.) Some dicey calls in the fourth quarter that put Connecticut into the bonus made me think that the officials were trying to make things up to the Sun. It doesn't, or shouldn't, work that way.
Things I never want to see in the on-court entertainment again: a dance-off held in wedding dresses. They weren't even attractive dresses. We had 50-50 odds on the winner actually using her "wedding planning package" prize- too much was dependent on state laws and whether she was the marrying kind under any state law.
It was nice to see everyone working together for a change. I don't give any credence to this whole notion that the team needed time to gel and that's why Blaze could start making her usual excuses. I do think that a few people got reminded that their jobs are not guaranteed, up to and possibly including Donovan, and that's what's with this sudden attack of give a damn.
Of course, just when they're fun to watch again, they're going on the road for two weeks on the West Coast, and they don't even have Ashley Battle with a camcorder this time. I'm sure that between the inevitable failures of LiveAccess and the inevitable failures of this team, all that enthusiasm will have washed away by the time they host Chicago again. So I'll savor it while I can, and let the torch burn in my heart once more.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
June 27th, 2010: Connecticut at New York
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
June 22nd, 2010: Minnesota at New York
All aboard the failboat!
Someone needs to tell the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx that there's no point in either of them trying to get into the lottery and win Maya Moore, because there's no real way to fit her in with Pondexter or with Wiggins and Augustus. More importantly, someone needs to tell them that before the next time that they play, or it could be extremely ugly.
I apologize in advance for any incoherency in these notes. I'm running on so little sleep that I left my clipboard downstairs and a friend had to find me and hand it to me. And that was four hours and the adrenaline of a game ago. I don't really want to think about my mental state now.
Dear MSG: please stop bringing kids in to do the anthem. The first one was good. The last two have been painful. It hurts to hear the anthem sung badly, and I can't imagine that it does the kids any good to be trotted out in front of several thousand people to perform. Blaze's Sweet Adelines fetish was one of her few redeeming qualities; the fact that we've lost that makes me sad.
Best moment of the pregame: as Charde Houston came off the floor during shootaround, Kalana Greene suddenly jumped on her back and made like an airplane. So if Houston goes on the imaginary injured list with a back problem, it's our fault. Sorry.
The Lynx played a really short rotation tonight. I had forgotten just how much of a... well, "black hole" has unfortunate racial implications even if they're unintentional, so let's say quantum singularity instead... Charde Houston could be. I think she jacked up three straight shots on her first series. Charde, you have teammates, some of whom are quite talented. Passing to them is not the worst idea in the world, especially when you decide to go for the fancy lay-up that proceeds to fall off the edge of the rim. Monica Wright suffers from a slightly less severe form of the problem. I don't want to be the one who tells her that, though. She has very impressive muscles. Hamchétou Maïga-Ba works unsurprisingly well with Rebekkah Brunson. There were points when I was sure that the two of them were running old Monarchs plays. It's not so much that statistically she does anything, but good things seem to happen for her team when she's on the floor for them. That's a good thing for a bench player.
Best wishes and good vibes go out to Candice Wiggins, who did something painful-looking to her ankle in the waning seconds of the game and had to be carried off the floor by the trainer and a teammate- first Lindsay Whalen, then Monica Wright was deputized to take over once they got off the floor. Before that, I thought she was being ignored in the Lynx offense. There are definitely worse shots for Candice Wiggins and the Lynx to take than a lightly-at-best contested corner three, with the defender wandering off towards the paint. Rebekkah Brunson was stupendous on the boards, and her outside jumper was working, at least early on. I wish we had taken her in the dispersal draft. Stupid FFO. But I digress. Lindsay Whalen just doesn't seem to be the right point guard for this team. I don't know whether she hasn't meshed with them yet or they still miss Renee Montgomery or whether there's some deep philosophical difference between her and the rest of the team, but this is not working. She's drawing fouls, but I don't know that that helps the flow of the offense. Nicky Anosike's defensive play on the perimeter continues to amaze me. She has such great hands. The Lynx don't win this game without Seimone Augustus getting her feet under her in the second half. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I had a bad feeling about her only having two points at the half.
I'm not all that sure about the Nikki Blue experiment, but Coach Donovan seems to think it's working. She looks like she's in over her head. So does Kia Vaughn, and it's harder to be over her head. It was nice to see Essence Carson get extended minutes again, even if nothing really worked for her. Kalana Greene appears to have found the rookie wall and smashed into it as enthusiastically and rapidly as she could. I hope this means she'll run through it or leap over it or something. Plenette Pierson was also off her game, though she ran some beautiful... I was about to say routes, but that's a football term, even if she did look like a wide receiver on some of her breaks. And she did her job getting under the skin of the Lynx posts- Brunson's productivity definitely dropped in the second half.
Nicole Powell! You finally decided to join us for the season! So nice to see you, even if you will never win a Miss Congeniality award and your taste in music is excreable. And you could still work on that bit where you chase loose balls instead of watching them go by, and maybe lay off the fumbling. But hey, maybe I'm just picky. Sailor Liberty Taj McWilliams-Franklin continues her quest to have a different hairdo for every home game- this time she went with two small knots on either side of her head, similar to Nykesha Sales's legendary Afro puffs, though smaller and not bleached blonde. (Please don't let this give her any ideas.) She really had her hands full with the young posts, and all things considered, she did better than I thought she would. Janel McCarville needs to realize that those wild crazy driving shots that she's absolutely in love with don't always go in. She has to simplify things at some point, go back to basics, and stop getting it into her head that she's Lindsay Whalen (because that's sort of weird when Lindsay Whalen is across the court). Leilani Mitchell was definitely overmatched, and she answered that by getting feistier and more aggressive, chasing rebounds and bodying up on everyone and anyone up to Anosike. That's the kind of answer I like. (That's the kind of answer that used to wear #23.) A lot of the turnovers that were credited to her weren't her fault. The passing in general was atrocious, and it was like none of them knew where any of the others were supposed to be. Cappie Pondexter seemed more interested in drawing the foul than finishing the shot. I can think of three lay-ups off the top of my head where she could easily have gotten an and-1, but the shots went off the rim.
Officiating started to get wacky in the third quarter, as usual. I'm starting to wonder just how susceptible to exhaustion referees are. Sure, they're not involved in the physicality of the game, but all that running up and down with no subs and only brief rests can't be good for the brain.
C. Vivian Stringer was in the house, and there was a rumor going around that Ashley Battle had been sighted.
I honestly don't think either of these coaches knows what she's doing with her team. Anne Donovan seems unlikely to care, given that she has no commitments past this season and was halfway out the door for this year. So there are some really dumb play calls. At the end of the game, down 4 with one possession left on the clock, you pretty much have to go for three. Instead, Janel fiddle-farted around with the ball before driving and handing it off to the out-of-bounds marker. Not conducive to winning games much. Cheryl Reeve, on the other hand, has too many chiefs and not enough Indians, if you don't mind me borrowing a somewhat outdated phrase. Whalen's doing her own thing, more or less, which isn't good because she needs to be involved in the overall offense. Brunson and Maïga-Ba have their own thing from Sacramento that they make work. Anosike's doing her own thing on offense. And so's everyone else, pretty much. That's on the coach too. She needs to get them to work together and figure things out.
Friday, June 18, 2010
June 18th, 2010: Seattle at New York
You should probably be reading this at Swish Appeal. If it's not up yet, then comment. Or wait 'til it's up at Swish Appeal. This is my backup.
I keep trying to get away from this team. I keep telling myself that I'm not going to get attached, that they belong to Foxwoods now and if the casino wants them, they can have them. I keep reminding myself that Shameka Christon is gone and I don't particularly like Nicole Powell. And yet they keep dragging me back into loving them and wanting them to succeed (even if sometimes I think it's just so I don't have to redecorate).
Le'Coe Willingham is still adjusting to being #34 after years of being #43 on two different teams- she had to pause mid-autograph to remember what her number was. Like many teams, Seattle is very amenable, though Lauren Jackson didn't come out for practice. I was disappointed, and not just for the ink- I wanted to see the red hair up close and personal.
I dropped something beyond the rail in the confusion and crowded space, and Carol Blazejowski was kind enough to pick it up for me. Of course, then she was cruel enough to withhold it until I begged her please. Sue Bird didn't make me beg, Blaze. Is this how you treat all your fans in Liberty gear, or just the ones in black uniforms?
The Garden caught lightning in a bottle once with a twelve-year-old who could sing the anthem well and sound trained about it. Tonight, they did not manage to catch it twice. I appreciate the nerve of a twelve-year-old girl who's willing to sing the anthem at center court at Madison Square Garden, but that doesn't mean I have to like her singing in a tinny voice and forcing every note through her nose. My nose was hurting by the end of the performance.
Has Svetlana Abrosimova always had this chip on her shoulder, or is this a recent phenomenon? She looked like she didn't particularly like any of the people on the floor with her, up to and including her teammates, when she was out there. Her stroke is as pretty as ever. Ashley Robinson played briefly and committed two fouls without scoring a point, thus continuing a long and proud streak. I can't say too much bad about her, though; she was helpful and useful as an intern at WNBA headquarters during the draft. Jana Veselá got in a few quality minutes. Are there any old-school Storm fans who have an opinion on her wearing Kamila Vodichkova's #7? On one hand, Vodichkova was an original Storm player; on the other hand, Veselá is Czech and may well be wearing it because of Vodichkova. In any case, despite the bootleg accent mark (dear WNBA: apostrophe after the vowel is not an acceptable substitute on an official uniform), I like Veselá's game- she's physical enough to bang in the post but has that European outside jumper. Le'Coe Willingham wasn't much of a factor- if nothing else, New York is a very bad matchup for her.
I'm grinding my teeth when I write this, but Sue Bird is the reason Seattle won this game, and the reason that New York lost it. She ran the team well in the first three quarters, with nine assists before the fourth. When the Liberty made a game of it, Bird answered with clutch shots. You can look at the line and know she had a great game, what with the twenty-odd points and the double-digit assists- what you'd need to see from the play-by-play is when three of those field goals came, and that was in the fourth quarter, to salt away the game for the Storm. There was one play where I questioned her maturity, though: she was driving to the basket and got knocked to the floor without a call, which had her so disappointed that she didn't even get up and run to the defensive half of the floor. Tsk, tsk, Suzanne. Camille Little was completely taken out of the game- two fouls in the first two minutes will do that to a player, but like Willingham, her undersized but blocky build doesn't match up well against New York, especially a Liberty team with the addition of Plenette Pierson. Lauren Jackson was Lauren Jackson- it's hard to quantify her game sometimes, you know? She's just there, like a force of nature, grabbing rebounds, hitting jump shots, or powering in lay-ups. She needs to touch up her hair; her roots are showing. Tanisha Wright quietly had an excellent game. She did a lot of her damage in the third quarter, when she shook off Kalana Greene and started canning threes. As for Swin Cash, I admire her skill and her athleticism, but while you can take the Bad Girl out of Detroit, you can't take the Detroit out of the Bad Girl. When she wasn't moving her screens or throwing her elbows and forearms, she was whining about the calls against her and kvetching about the ones she wasn't giving. Bill would be so proud of you, Swintayla.
Brian Agler, please give Lauren Jackson more rest. With the red hair, exhaustion makes her look like a lobster. Lobster is one of the few looks Lauren Jackson cannot carry off properly.
We came to the conclusion that Anne Donovan is not thrilled with the idea of Cappie Pondexter playing at the point, and therefore, Nikki Blue saw extended minutes. This idea might not last very long. While I applaud Nikki's guts in contesting a pass thrown high to Lauren Jackson (and almost snagging it- good on a five-eight guard!), that was the only sterling play I can recall from her. Kalana Greene was off defensively, and in the first half, her offense was also out of sync. In the second half, her shots started falling (as did most Liberty players'), but she was still losing her assignments defensively. Essence Carson's brief cameo had nothing of note. Kia Vaughn had a very nice offensive play against Lauren Jackson, at least until she blew the lay-up. Sidney Spencer's few minutes were nothing to write home about, and a couple of times she looked surprised that the basketball was actually in her vicinity- she did such a job boxing out that she forgot to rebound.
Plenette Pierson gets her own paragraph because she's new. She started slowly, looking very out of place, but heated up in the second half. This will be a fairly common refrain. Already I can tell she has a edge that we're going to need in the paint. I never quite realized how good a defender she was until I saw her completely and cleanly seal Lauren Jackson out of a Storm play (of course, Janel McCarville's failure to seal Swin Cash out of the play allowed Seattle to score, but we take our small victories where we can). I look forward to Tuesday and her further integration into the Liberty's scheme.
I hope Taj McWilliams-Franklin is actually okay, and not just putting on a brave face because she's a military wife and she's determined to be an example for her team. It looked like she dislocated that left shoulder in the first half- it was out of line with the rest of her body and her left arm was completely motionless- but she came back in the second half and swatted a shot with that arm, so I guess it was okay to move. She did a nice job of getting to the line. Leilani Mitchell's play tonight reminded me of a recurring line in Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, about one of the characters: "Tiny. But fierce." I don't know what's gotten into her lately, but I like it. She's running this team with authority, she's hitting threes like she's Erin Thorn, and she's willing to grapple with Lauren Jackson. Tiny. But fierce. Janel McCarville started getting the notion in her head that outside jumpers were a good idea, and they weren't always. Foul trouble kept her from being as effective as I thought she could have been, although Swin Cash is a very bad match-up for her at the three/four. Nicole Powell continues to be maddening at best and "why are you here?!" at worst. The urge to scream, "Don't make us want Spencer in the game!" should never come up regarding an All-Star small forward. Again, Cappie Pondexter's stat line looks great, but she took a lot of ill-advised shots against double-teams or superior defenders.
The officiating went to pieces sometime in the third quarter, when Eric Brewton and Denise Brooks inexplicably got their NBA and WNBA rulebooks mixed up. There is no charge circle in the WNBA. Spencer was set. Powell was set. Bird tripped without Leilani touching her- a soccer ref would have carded her for diving. Booing the call with extreme prejudice was sort of hilarious when a Liberty ticket rep was in the section in front of us.
Tasha Humphrey was at the game, sitting a couple of sections down from yours truly.
I don't think Donovan's got as good a grip on the strengths of her team as I thought she would at this point. Some of her sub patterns didn't make sense, and I have the awful feeling she might be using the acquisition of Plenette as an excuse to experiment with a few other things while she has some leeway. I mean, not that it matters what Donovan's doing to this team when she's going to be gone in two months or so. Of course, it also doesn't help that we don't have a go-to player who's as reliable as Bird- or, for that matter, that we don't have players who are potent enough to be threats so that the go-to player can get to it.
It's weird not to be disappointed with a loss in a game I got emotionally invested in. But the Liberty played pretty well, and I like Leilani's development. And it wasn't like I was expecting them to beat Seattle. They gave the Storm more of a game than I hoped. That, in the end, is the best you can hope for when you buy your ticket.
Friday, June 11, 2010
June 11th, 2010: Atlanta at New York
Popcorn, exhaustion, and the ebb and flow of scoring can be yours if you click the link.
The New York Liberty are becoming a fascinating team to watch once much of my emotional detachment has been dispersed. There's the potential for something good to happen- if all the pieces fall into place. There's the potential for something disastrous to happen- if all the pieces fall out of place. And there are nights like tonight, when some of the pieces fall into place, and some hover like the last flakes before an avalanche, and you know they could fall but haven't yet.
Maybe the team rules have changed, or maybe they're just lax in enforcement these days, but I remember the days when players had to be inside two hours before the scheduled start of the game, and that time seems to have changed. Taj McWilliams-Franklin was running through the gates (in heels and a calf-length dress, to boot; it was less of a run and more of a very fast skip) at six o'clock (for a seven-thirty tip), and Essence Carson didn't make an appearance until six-twenty or so. I don't know if that says more about the team's priorities or the professionalism of their approach or what.
As an autograph collector, Atlanta is quickly becoming one of my favorite teams to deal with. They seem to actually like people. Again, everyone on the team was willing to stop and sign, which means that we are now the proud owners of a t-shirt signed by, among many other people, the entire roster of the Dream. That kind of behavior is good for the league. Plus, you get the added hilarity of Iziane Castro Marques noshing on popcorn and hurriedly wiping her fingers off on her shooting shirt between signatures and apologies.
Anthem singer wasn't half bad for being eleven. She needs a little more vocal training, and for her voice to settle into its adult range, but she'll be all right.
I don't know where Coco Miller got this burst of energy from, but for the Dream's sake, I hope she manages to keep it up. She was bound and determined to break the Liberty's back in the second half. Kelly Miller was working hard on the boards, but wherever she got this notion that she's a three-point shooter from, she should probably put it back. That's really not the strength of her game. Likewise, Alison Bales. Yes, I know statistically she's been shooting the three well, but I suspected that that was a statistical anomaly, and she's regressing to the mean. Her biggest problem is that she plays like she doesn't realize she's 6'7"- she doesn't look like she knows how long her arms are sometimes. Yelena Leuchanka was a non-factor, and has less of an excuse for being one this time than she did three weeks ago. Armintie Price's lack of discipline didn't help Atlanta in this game, but her somewhat unorthodox style was a help to them on defense. Brittainey Raven played very little and did even less. I will say that I like the group dynamic among the subs for Atlanta. They play well together.
Sancho Lyttle is remarkably stealthy. She put up the quietest 15 and 14 I've seen in my life. I wonder sometimes what her numbers would be like if they ran some of the plays inside for her that currently go to de Souza. It seems like offensively, they're trying to use her more in the midrange, and I'm not sure that that's her strength. Of course, I'm not sure that I'd want Érika de Souza trying to make it work in the high post either, and you can't have both players in the low post at the same time, that just clogs things up. Also, de Souza needs to work on her free throw shooting. 3-8 is egregiously bad, especially for a post who has the potential to be the centerpiece of her team's offense- assuming, of course, that her wings ever give it up. For whatever reason (maybe it was the buttered popcorn), the shots that Iziane Castro Marques usually hits weren't going down. It seemed like hers were coming in the flow of the offense more than a lot of the others'. Her defensive speed was also crucial on a couple of abortive Liberty fast breaks- she was able to slide in front of the offensive player and force a stop. Angel McCoughtry's offense, on the other hand, seemed a lot more forced. Once the ball went to her, it rarely left her hand unless it was being shot. Sometimes I think she thinks she's still the star back at Louisville and she's going to get an automatic call on those drives to the hoop, and it hasn't sunk in for her that the WNBA doesn't work that way (or if it does, she has yet to reach that rarified area). Shalee Lehning was... she was there. She made a couple of mistakes, and she missed a couple of shots that I can recall, and she was pretty sneaky on the boards in a Debbie Black sort of way, but I wasn't impressed with her as a point guard.
All right, let's clear the air on one thing. I can't believe I'm typing these words. They don't seem real. But Sidney Spencer actually had a pretty good game. Defensively she was no great shakes, although she had a nice little deflection on a defensive rebound to get it over to Kia Vaughn. On the offensive side of the ball, she seemed more comfortable in her role as a spot-up dead-eye shooter. If Donovan's finally figured out how to use her, more power to them both. I'd still rather have had the first-round pick, but at least we're making use of her now. Tiffany Jackson's inability to hit a shot is starting to annoy me, but at least she's hitting her free throws. At 6'3", though, she really needs to start rebounding more effectively than our backcourt players. Essence Carson made a small cameo, and wasn't too bad in it, but I'm thinking she's not 100%, or else she wouldn't have fallen quite as far down in the rotation as she has. Kia Vaughn needs to stop bringing the ball back down. Kia, you are 6'4", or at least that's what the media guide says you are. If you bring the ball down, the short people can grab it from you. If you keep it in the air, the short people can't reach it and the tall people don't have a good chance of getting a solid grip on it to take it from you. Just food for thought. Kalana Greene continues to play far wiser than her rookie age. Her play to end the first half was so perfectly choreographed I would have thought that she was writing a Hollywood movie. She timed her sprint and her shot so well- maybe she could have played around with tenths and hundredths of seconds before releasing that little jumper, but I don't think that's likely.
(First impressions =/= boxscores. Tiffany seemed to have many fewer rebounds than she was credited with.)
Nicole Powell has a reputation for being inconsistent, right? This game wasn't an aberration? Because she looked fairly lost on both ends of the floor after she got a few points early in the game. You should not have an All-Star appearance on your resume and get outplayed by Sidney Spencer. Unacceptable. Taj McWilliams-Franklin looked distressingly old tonight. She got beaten down the court a couple of times on a couple of breaks/potential fast breaks that she wouldn't have lapsed on not so many years ago. (As an aside, one of the Usual Suspects who lurks before games had a suggestion for what might be the best giveaway in Liberty history: Taj wigs. You could do a whole series of them, even.) Janel McCarville gets a pass thanks to the collision that left her on the floor for a worrisome amount of time and had her taken to the locker room for the remainder of the first half. Please don't hurt yourself worse by cramming yourself onto a train and then getting smacked around by the Washington posts. She was efficient in her time on the floor, but it was clear in the third quarter that she wasn't completely herself. Leilani Mitchell was quietly minding her business with a couple of points and a bunch of assists into the fourth quarter, at which point she whipped out back-to-back threes deep in the shot clock. Those shots got the crowd going, but more on that later. And then there was Cappie Pondexter, who filled the boxscore as she is so adept at doing. Is it weird of me to be confused when her hair is in a simple ponytail? I keep expecting strange dramatic things from her.
I don't know if a detailed analysis of the play-by-play would bear this out, but from where I was sitting, the ebb and flow of the Liberty offense was interesting. It was very balanced at the outset- all five starters scored two points in the first three minutes. Then there was Cappie Pondexter, putting the team on her shoulders and getting just enough help to extend the lead, but for a very long time being the only player in double figures. Then it was back to balance, and the game ended with four players in double figures and three with nine points each. I like balance. Balance is good.
So are buzzer-beaters. If Erin Thorn weren't alive and well in Chicago, I'd say her ghost was haunting the Garden. Kalana's shot to end the first half? Pretty awesome. Sidney Spencer ending the third with a buzzer-beating three? Way awesome. Leilani beating the shot clock with threes in the fourth quarter twice? Now we're getting into Twilight Zone territory, but in a good way. That may have been a hint that no matter how hard Atlanta tried, they weren't coming back. The clock was totally our friend.
I'm relieved the game didn't get as chippy as it could have. After Sancho Lyttle got clocked in the head with an errant elbow from Janel (I'm pretty sure it was from Janel, given that Janel sort of paused in the run back down the court to say something to her while she lay sprawled out), I thought de Souza or someone might take matters into their own hands, but that didn't happen. About the only thing that made me raise an eyebrow and be unamused was a random forearm by Cappie Pondexter to Coco Miller's throat, because, seriously, other than cry and be an easy target for mocking, what has Coco Miller ever done to deserve being the target of violence? I can't imgine a Miller twin talking, much less trash-talking.
The refereeing was as inconsistent as this WNBA fan has come to expect. Travels went uncalled, pushes under the basket were ignored, and either Twadorski or Tiven came within a hair's-breadth of blowing a fairly obvious over-and-back. At least the inconsistency and incompetence were even-handed.
Don't believe the boxscore. I think they overestimated attendance by a good 25%.
I'm less sure what to think of this team than usual, but that's because by the time I finished writing these notes, it was two-thirty in the morning.