August 26th, 2010: Indiana at New York

STOP HITTING TAJ IN THE HEAD OMG

OUR HOUSE. THIS IS HOW WE DO IT. AWWW YEAH.

Okay, I think the caffeine's starting to kick in, taking the place of the adrenaline that started to surge during that fourth quarter run. I have no idea if we can stroll into Conseco and do this again, but I'd sure like to see them do it.

Because of the early start time, I wasn't able to get to the game as far before the tip as I would have liked, but boarding the L right into a family in tall striped Liberty hats and seafoam green #23 shirts more than made up for it.

A roll of my eyes to the woman and her daughter who fled for quieter seats. We weren't even cursing. Honestly, if you come to a basketball game in New York, you shouldn't be surprised if the people around you are heckling the opposition. I also fart in the general direction of people who couldn't be bothered to stand for the anthem. Look, I don't care if it's your country or not. If Tully Bevilaqua and Tammy Sutton-Brown can stand up and quietly respect another country's anthem, so can you. Now, go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

They ran a trivia contest, which of course I smashed, but I do call shenanigans on the one question I got completely wrong, because I think it was ambiguously worded. "How many mothers have played for the Liberty?" Now, the answer they wanted was one. But I can think of two players who had kids at the time they joined the Liberty: Trena Trice and Taj McWilliams-Franklin. There are also at least three former Libs who have gone on to have kids: Rebecca Lobo, Kym Hampton, and Elena Baranova. So unless they meant this season, or who had only played for the Liberty- which they should have specified- I need an explanation.

Beautiful renditions of both "God Bless America" and the national anthem tonight. I always find that a good sign, even though I know there's no correlation. Good performances put me in the mood for the game; bad ones leave me simmering.

Why, oh why did we give up on Jessica Davenport? 8 and 8 would have been pretty handy off the bench. I was amused at how much she relied on the glass, with some inaccurate results. It was weird how the elbow came out on one of her screens that got called for an offensive foul- she didn't even look like she meant to throw a serious elbow, but it suddenly twitched out. Maybe her arm is possessed? Briann January really needs a talking to about her shot selection. She was calling her own number way more than she needed to be, and in spots where she definitely shouldn't have. All kinds of energy, but badly directed, to put it diplomatically. I know Shavonte Zellous was in, and I know she played extended minutes, but except for one complaint about a foul, I can't recall anything she actually did. Jessica Moore was in for what I'm presuming are defensive purposes, but were mostly a chance to waste Kia Vaughn and get some rest for our real posts. There was a brief Jené Morris sighting, which was Coach Donovan's sign that the game was over and it was time to bring in the back end of the bench.

Do you get the feeling sometimes that Tamika Catchings doesn't know that there are other people on the court? I don't mean that she's selfish or a ballhog, because she's definitely not, but sometimes she makes moves in blatant disregard of the fact that there is someone occupying the space she intends to pass through, or she'll seem oblivious to a teammate calling for the ball. I can't believe how sweet her stroke has gotten, but I also can't believe how much more dramatic she's gotten. Someone's being a bad influence on her. Tammy Sutton-Brown appeared to be under the impression that she was playing for the Maple Leafs, not the Fever- there were a couple of overly physical plays that she seemed surprised were called fouls, as well as one spectacular poke-check. She was a presence inside, but not one that Indiana effectively took advantage of. Ebony Hoffman annoys me for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. It's almost like she's transitioning into a tweener, which is generally not a good place to transition to. I know it's more and more prevalent for a four to almost play like a more broad-shouldered three, but Hoffman doesn't seem to have a full skill set for either position anymore. We shut Katie Douglas down pretty well, though I do wonder if she was still suffering from akle problems. She didn't seem to have her first step or as much lift as usual. (Almost typed life there, which was also true.) However, Kathryn, please note that the next time you blindside Nicole Powell and send her to the floor in a manner reminiscent of why Jamie Carey left Stanford, Nicole will probably get up and slug you. Fair warning. Tully Bevilaqua, as much as I love that charming gnat, appears to have joined the herd of older players who are running off the cliff like lemmings. She sunk open corner threes, but Leilani Mitchell out-gnatted her for most of the game.

Brief cameos for Nikki Blue and Sidney Spencer, and I appreciate that neither of them failed too badly in their minute of playing time. Kia Vaughn had a little more time and managed to commit a stupid foul in it. (See, guy behind me who keeps starting the "WE WANT KIA" chant at inopportune times, that is why you can't have Kia most of the time. She has no judgment, her moves are mired in molasses, and she's a much better motivator than a player.) Kalana Greene wasn't really necessary in this game, which is a harsh statement to say about anyone, but since she's usually in the slot that Essence Carson filled so admirably tonight, she was redundant. Speaking of Essence, she was fantastic tonight. I don't know what she's been doing to keep her quick-twitch muscles going, but her reactions were incredibly fast, and she was all over both sides of the floor. There's a reason she's the player who got interviewed after the game. Plenette Pierson started out really looking like she didn't know where she was or what she was doing- missing passes, missing assignments, letting the ball bounce out of her hands- but once she hit a couple of shots, it looked like she was back in her groove.

With a little bit more luck and a smidgen more hustle, Janel McCarville could have gotten the weirdest double-double in Liberty history. She wasn't hitting shots, and for once she seemed aware of it. It was really weird to see her leading the team in assists while our Most Improved point guard racked up the rebounds. There were still way too many plays where she didn't seem to have her head in the game, but if she can keep picking apart the interior defense with Penicheiro-style passing, I can live with that. Speaking of the 2010 MIP, Leilani Mitchell looked bothered by the Fever defense- don't know why, because it's not like Tully hasn't tried to climb down her shorts before, but what do I know? Nicole Powell got more fired up than I've ever seen her. Yes, I heard about her flipping the crowd the bird in Washington, but this was different. She got hit hard with no hint of a call, and when she got up I genuinely thought she was going to go after one of the refs. It got into her head a little bit at the end of the game, like she was trying too hard to let her game do the talking, but early on, the threes were falling nice and smooth. Defensively, no, she wasn't anything to write home about, but that's not what I expect from her- if anything, the only part of her game I was really disappointed in was her sub-par rebounding. Taj McWilliams-Franklin did a nice job cleaning up after some of the stupid shots we took- unfortunately, she took a lot of shots from Indiana. It's never good when you see your starting center running off the floor, looking ready to barf before she even hits the tunnel. Mama Taj can still show them all how to do it- and how to be stylin' while they do it. Cappie Pondexter hit the shots when it counted, but I'm not thrilled about the shooting percentage. Yes, she carried us, and she was facing the brunt of Indiana's defense, but she showed some epically bad decision-making at points in the game. We're not going to have the crowd behind us in Indiana, and we're going to have an infuriated Katie Douglas to deal with. We're going to need everyone to be at the top of their mental game.

REFEREES. What in the world. How are flying tackles not fouls in this league? Some of the things you allowed Indiana to get away with (and to be fair, New York a couple of times) are flat out dangerous, and at best will start a fight (and at worst will end a career). Maybe Mama Taj should have thrown up on you to provide a hint of what you were missing. At least stop listening to Tammy Sutton-Brown's incessant whining after some of her more blatant fouls.

Indiana got really rattled in the fourth quarter, and I think that's what turned this from a game into a rout. We started hitting some impossible shots on some really slick passes, and Indiana tried to answer too quickly. Every time they threw up a lousy shot, the place got louder, and between that and the physical play, they lost their heads.

We got a replay of the Taj doll commercial, and I want one so badly you have no idea. I think it's hilarious they did one with Janel's fauxhawk, and I sort of want to see it happen in real life now. Taj would look fierce.

There were a few Knicks in the house. Wilson Chandler's at just about every game, of course, but this time he brought one of the new guys along... oh and Allan Houston came along for the ride. It's nice to see the guys getting involved.

Go New York! Beat Indiana! (Go Atlanta! Beat Washington! Nothing personal, DC, but homecourt advantage is homecourt advantage.)

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August 22nd, 2010: Connecticut at New York

TAJ DOLL. *grabby hands*

Ladies and gentlemen, this is how you finish a regular season. You play with everything you've got, you give the fans their money's worth, and you come out with the win and homecourt advantage in the playoffs.

As regular readers of the Game Notes of Doom- in either their home on Swish Appeal or on their mirror at my blog- know, I've been to every home game this season; even the preseason game on a May morning, even the Camp Day game that I needed an unpaid day from work to attend. Because of various bureaucratic idiosyncrasies, I ended up being late, then having to sweet-talk my way in, so I was part of the last group. But that was all right, because that meant I got to watch Essence Carson give Cappie Pondexter bunny ears for one of the team pictures.

Once my group was called, I immediately slipped to the back. See, I despise being photographed. I will flip someone off if they're trying to take my picture, or at least hide my face. I like being in the background, and trying to spot myself in the background- my userpic on Swish Appeal is a crop of me from a SportsPage photo. If the perfect attendance award didn't come with a chance to get in the gates an hour early, or if it didn't take place on the Garden floor, I wouldn't be so insistent. I don't care about the picture. I couldn't tell you where my last couple of pics are. But to be on the Garden floor... to be standing next to Taj McWilliams-Franklin as she cuts everyone up... no, why would I want to move closer to the front? It's being there that counts. Our group was special- we got Kym Hampton in our shot when Taj belted out, "KYMMIE! KYMMIE, GET OVER HERE!"

So the players dispersed, Taj started bossing people around from the trampoline from the Dunkyard Dogs' routine, and we settled in to wait. Except that there was another picture to be taken. "Oh, look, a VIP," I said, disgust dripping from my voice.

"Yeah, that's Walt Frazier," the guy next to me replied.

Yeah, I guess it's okay for Clyde to get a picture with the team by himself. After about seven pictures, the team dispersed again. Then Taj ripped off her sneaker, grabbed a Sharpie, and ran up to him to get an autograph. After he signed the shoe, she held it close and ran around the floor sort of like a six-year-old on a sugar high who, well, just met a famous basketball player. She wasn't letting that shoe go for anything, not even when Leilani wanted to see it. Kia got her shoe signed too, and I think she actually wore it through the game. Essence looked like she was going to cry for joy when she got to talk to him and shake his hand. It was sort of awesome. He was also gracious enough to sign for a few of us. I'm not a big NBA person, but there are some things a girl's gotta do, you know? That's going next to the replica banner.

I sort of assume that Anete Jekabsone-Zogota keeps her good manners with her sneakers? The sneakers were stolen, and she was quite cranky about it- and that translated into blowing people off four different times. Ma'am, I didn't take your sneakers, trust me. If I had, I would have put them on, because mine have holes in the bottom. She and Janel McCarville spent a good twenty minutes to half an hour chatting, including some play-wrestling. GET A ROOM.

Guess who won the trivia contest? Not my phone, but all that time spent idly paging through the Guide and Register paid off, as I was able to clue the boy in on Nikki Blue's real first name. We got some leftover goodies from previous years as our prize. Yay, freebies!

As always on Fan Appreciation Day, Kym Hampton provided the anthem. I love Kym for what she did in New York, but she's going to have to choose between singing and doing public speaking. Her breath control and vocal control get worse every year. She still has a beautiful voice- she just can't take care of it if she's going to do PR and be working the room every night.

Oh, hello, game notes. I was wondering where you were. Tan White provided a nice spark off the bench for the Sun, though her shots weren't falling the way she was expecting them to. I wonder if she's going to be what Renee Montgomery grows into- headstrong, but in control of herself more often than not; more willing to sacrifice herself on both ends of the floor to make the big play. Sandrine Gruda's presence in the paint was sort of an inconvenience on defense, but she was looking for her offense outside more often than not. Jekabsone-Zogota shook herself free for a pretty trey, but whiffed badly on another one. Nice rebounding from her. I still have no idea why DeMya Walker is in Mike Thibault's doghouse, unless she suffered an injury that the team can't admit to for whatever reason- I think she'd have been a good matchup for Connecticut against our posts.

I really don't know what to say about Renee Montgomery anymore. Sometimes I wonder if she's aware that she has teammates, because she tries so hard to do everything herself that she loses control of things. Sure, she hits a lot of amazing shots, but sometimes you have to not go full tilt and take NBA threes early in the clock. If the refs were actually calling procedural violations in this game, she'd have had a lot of turnovers against her. Kara Lawson looked like she had found her stroke again, but her speed killed her against Pondexter on both ends of the floor. Kelsey Griffin played the first half, but she was in over her head and everyone knew it, so Thibault went small in the crunch. I don't think she was ready for this, even though Connecticut's out of the playoff picture. Asjha Jones still looks like she never really recovered from the Achilles, but I expect her to be back at full strength next season. She just couldn't get anything going, and she didn't look like she was even thinking about her shot selection properly. Tina Charles showed flashes. Yes, look at the numbers, look at the statistics. And even then, she still showed weaknesses in her game. We kept leaving her open for that little free-throw-line-extended jumper that she likes, and she kept hitting it, which was annoying. Congratulations to her for sewing up just about every single-season rebounding record that there is to own, though!

I regret to inform y'all that Kalana Greene did not have a great game. She hustled, and her defense was all right, but I would have liked for her to be able to get a couple of fast break lay-ups or something. Essence Carson has her groove back and life is good when Essence is grooving. This is one of those times when veteran experience does beat rookie talent to hell and back again. Kia Vaughn... I officially give up. I give up so hard. She's beyond the "what is this I don't even" meme. She's beyond facepalming and headdesking and all the other smushwords of frustration that the Internet has perfected. How in the world do you go out there in a sneaker autographed by a Knicks legend and proceed to play such an awful floor game? How can you miss so many easy shots? I'm sorry. Kia's a very nice kid, and that mile-wide smile can light up a room, but she's not a WNBA center and needs to undergo some major changes in her game to be one. Plenette Pierson got her shoulder wrenched pretty hard, and even when she came back into the game, that right arm wasn't much good for her. When she wasn't playing, it was dangling at her side like spaghetti, and when she was, it was bothering her on defense and on trying to shoot- she was pushing the ball instead of shooting it, which meant that she couldn't get any lift on it, which meant that the arm couldn't go up.

This was the game we went out and got Cappie Pondexter for. Maybe not the specific matchup, but the game when damn near everything is on the line and someone needs to step up to make the big plays on both ends of the floor, that's the game you go out and get a superstar for, and that's what Cappie did. The off-balance shots started going in late in the game, and her hands were exceptionally active. I will always nitpick the weird leg kick in her shot, but I can't argue with the percentage. Nicole Powell was wonderfully active on the boards, and didn't seem to be pressing her offense on more than one or two shots. Defensively, she was a bit of a liability, but there's only so much you can do about that at this point in her career. Leilani Mitchell did the job that was asked of her, and her threes were well-timed, giving us a little breathing room when things got hairy in the third quarter (before they went completely pear-shaped in the fourth, WTF). Renee Montgomery did sort of beat her up and take her lunch money, though. I think she was grateful to have someone her own size to pick on for a change. Taj McWilliams-Franklin got whanged pretty good in the face. We were not amused by that. You do not thwack Mama Taj. She wasn't having a great game before that, but she gets a pass, because if she wasn't concussed, she was close to it. Wasn't pretty. I hope Janel McCarville is suffering from, uh, flu-like symptoms, because then I can extend her sympathy and chocolate instead of WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE YOU THINKING WITH HALF THOSE SHOTS AND THE STUPID BOTCHED HANDOFFS. She was lackadaisical and really looking like she didn't have her head in the game, and I think that's a really bad place to be right before the playoffs. I mean, I'm just an untrained amateur who commentates from the sidelines, but it seems like common sense. Come on, Janel, get it together, because we really need you and Taj to be the glue. Kia's not going to be able to step it up for you.

Usually, Mauer, Brewton, and Brooks run a good game. There seems to be a league moratorium on any calls that involve referees having to count, so no travels, no three-second violations, and no five-second calls were made, though there were plenty of travels to go around. I thought there were a few fouls that could have been called, but the most egregious mistake was on the play where Plenette got injured. Coach Donovan called timeout as soon as she saw Plenette writhing on the floor. The referees couldn't be bothered to acknowledge it, so Nicole had to commit a foul to get the stoppage. Then they almost didn't even give us time to get Plenette out of the game. Have you guys never heard of injury timeouts?

So let's think about happier things. Let's think about the discovery that the makers of the Cappie Patch Doll have come out with a new line of collectibles, the Hair-O-Dynamic Taj Doll! Each with a different classic Taj hairstyle, they're stylish and collectible. They are also awesome and I will give up or do unspeakable things to get one. We nearly died laughing during the commercial, where various team members were discussing the value of each one and the day she wore the hairstyle. The Nelly Jelly hair gel was a classic throw-in.

(Seriously. My first-born child. Or a murder of your choice.)

And then we went for barbecue after the game, and as we were leaving, Leilani and Janel were entering. Fortunately, we managed not to hit Leilani in the face with the door. Can't take that boy anywhere...

It got closer than it needed to be, and I did wonder if there was scoreboard-watching going on. But we won, and there is a Taj doll, and life is good. Now I'm going to bed. Good night! On to the next one- beat Indiana! Then beat 'em again!

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August 19th, 2010: Tulsa at New York

What, you want witty summaries too?

You know, I should have seen this coming. Everyone knows that Tulsa is so awful that they play down to the Shock's level, and that plays right into the Shock's hands. Organized chaos is the name of the game for Tulsa.

You don't want to know about the crazy people I had to deal with today. In short: know what you're ordering, hold your child when he's screaming, and never tell a New Yorker to shut up on the subway. So if these notes are a little snappish, you can blame the Midvale School for the Gifted's Alumni Association.

I don't know what Nolan Richardson's done to what was a perfectly nice bunch of young women, but the Shock as a unit were the most antisocial of any team in the league this season. I mean, yes, special thanks and appreciation have to go out to Tiffany Jackson, who works a room quite well; to Ivory Latta, whose larger-than-life personality is much more suited to offcourt interactions than oncourt ones; to Kiesha Brown, who helped make one girl's night fairly special; and to Chante Black, who stayed back and signed as her teammates ran by. But I'm not sure whose bad behavior angered me more: Marion Jones, for signaling that she would sign on the way back and ignoring the people who signaled; Nicole Ohlde, who pushed our clipboard out of the way as she ran off the floor, or Rashanda McCants, who's injured, and who heard someone call out her name, because she turned around, but who ignored everyone. Ladies, you and the horse you rode in on. Enjoy your losses. The thing that makes me think Richardson is in play is that I've dealt with some of those players before, and dealt with Ohlde during bad years for the Lynx, and they've been nice enough.

(Of course, Tulsa might have been cranky that their warm-ups were interrupted by either a tour group or a special events package wandering out onto the court. I could give them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not inclined to, because two of the four players on the floor at the time were Black and Brown.)

The good news was that the semi-required rendition of "God Bless America" was a beautiful, operatic performance by an older woman who I've heard sing the anthem before. The bad news was that the rendition of the National Anthem was by a little girl who I heard butcher "God Bless America" two games ago. STOP MAKING CHILDREN SING, OKAY?

Chante Black was quietly effective as a rebounder. Her height gave her an advantage, and her hands were sure enough that she was able to get at a lot of the batted balls that went up in the air whenever Kia Vaughn was in the game. The goaltending call was sort of hilarious, though. Not something you see every day. Shanna Crossley should be getting her starting job back any day now. She was stroking it from deep. Kiesha Brown put the Roaring Rampage of Revenge on hold- I guess she felt she had already made us pay for cutting her, and that she needed to move a couple of teams further down the line. She did an admirable job boxing out our posts. Marion Jones looked like a basketball player in the first half, and like a stupid basketball player in the second. The lay-ups she was hitting in the first became wild heaves and long jumpers in the second; the loose balls that she turned into rebounds became fumbles out of bounds.

Scholanda Robinson looked very much like she had taken lessons from DeMya Walker in the fine art of draaaaaaama while in Sacramento. I applaud her athletic plays, and her ability to play the passing lanes, but she has got to stop whining to the ref after every halfway questionable play. I wish I could remember what Amber Holt did on the court other than suddenly have her, um, assets seem to grow at halftime, but all I can think of is how awful her hair looked. Don't you think I want to be substantive? Ivory Latta has no fear of anyone or anything. Unfortunately for Tulsa, that includes bad shots. Tiffany Jackson started off red hot, mostly because the refs weren't calling steps on anyone, and she worked hard on the boards. Like some of her teammates she cooled in the second half and was off her game after that start. She still collected enough points and whatnot to make me a very happy Pick One player. Nicole Ohlde was unmemorable.

Sidney Spencer was not completely awful! The extended minutes that she had to play because of the injury to Nicole Powell took their toll on her- she looked positively wiped during a couple of the timeouts. And someone needed to inform her earlier that even though she and Crossley are BFFs, that doesn't mean she doesn't have to play defense on her. She got the message later on, but took it almost to extremes. I nearly died when she got the jump ball on Jones, though. Kia Vaughn looked awful. The fact that most of the time, she looked like she wasn't sure what she was doing on the floor was only heightened by the people behind us chanting "We want Kia!" every time the lead got to double figures. This was REALLY annoying when they started it when she was ready to check in. I mean, what were you expecting her to do, barrel onto the court while the game was still going on and shove Janel or Taj to the bench with both hands? I was sort of hoping she'd foul out so we didn't have to hear the cries for her again. Plenette Pierson was solid, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was part of the reason why we woke up in the second half; no way was she going to let us lose to the Shock. Essence Carson and Kalana Greene both seemed to disappear. Neither of them made any major errors, but neither made any game changing plays, either.

Nicole Powell was feeling it! It was beautiful to see her stroking the corner threes again. And she was really into the game- there was one play, while she was on the bench, that was called as a Liberty foul. Nicole was as animated and infuriated as if the foul had been called on her. Taj had to urge her to sit down. And she was really mentoring Spencer during timeouts late in the game, which I liked. If she hadn't gotten poked in the eye and had to sit out the second half, she probably would have broken 30. I'm still not quite sure where Janel McCarville wandered off to, but it's not like we needed her to be a major offensive option. Her battles with Ohlde were quite epic. Tulsa’s defense, or perhaps the way the Liberty’s offense was structured, did a number on Cappie Pondexter’s offensive game. She really wasn’t involved until the fourth quarter, when it became clear that the Liberty would have to actually play the game to win. She wasn’t looking for her shot as much as we’ve become accustomed to, and when she was, it was often contested, or just not falling- there were more spinouts and bad rolls in this game than I’ve seen in a long time. Unlike a couple of the other sub-par games she’s had this season, though, she pretty much kept her head in the game. I think there was only one bad foul that had her mouthing off (the same one that infuriated Nicole so much). Leilani Mitchell was the sparkplug again, though Latta aggravated her to no end. Taj McWilliams-Franklin, whose hair inches ever closer to true tri-color rotini now that she’s added yellow to the red, continued in her pattern from last game of playing savvier, not harder. She was still a step behind Tulsa’s younger posts, but she found a way to be in the right place at the right time for the perfect pass.

What I’m really liking about this team is that they’re bringing the place back to life. I mentioned the “Leis for Leilani” campaign a couple of games ago, and it’s going stronger than ever. Not only did the woman spearheading it bring in a huge lei for Maddie- which Maddie has worn proudly for parts of the last few games- but now Kym Hampton’s joined the party (she was wearing one when she brought the Inaugural Club coffee machine over to its lucky recipient), and a couple of concessionaires have taken to wearing them on their rounds. Some of us have discussed the feasibility of a line of Taj wigs, one for each of her hairdos, or perhaps a Taj Potato Head with changeable hair.

(Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t buy one.)

I think the referees forgot how to count. There was maybe one travel and one three-second call the whole night. Great news for me- I had Tiffany Jackson in Pick One, and that’s the only way she actually has offense- but as a basketball fan, I find it excruciating when the rules of the game are set aside for the sake of making the game more attractive. Also, I know that Scholanda Robinson is quite attractive, but that’s no reason to give her calls that she didn’t earn and to not call her for the blatant reach-ins that she did. (Besides, guys, she’s married. You’re not going to get anywhere with her. Apologies for the crudity of the previous statement, but these are the conclusions I draw when a beautiful woman gets preferential treatment from an all-male crew.) I thought it was interesting that the crew chief came out early to check that the replay monitor was working, but then declined to use it on a couple of situations where a shot could have been reviewed. Also, guys, make your signals clearer. If you hold up three fingers and push your hand forward twice, I will assume you have called the foul on #33; when you suddenly hold up a fist and it turns out that the foul is on #30, I will be confused and slightly annoyed.

I don’t know if Ladies’ Night is a great promotional idea- or if it is, make sure that the sections with the mixing people are nowhere near sections with a high proportion of season subscribers. There was almost a fight in the section below us because several such people (including one exceptional specimen of what is colloquially known around here as an SJS) kept standing up and chattering during gameplay, and one took offense to us objecting to her getting up a second time after she had already gotten a dose of “DOWN IN FRONT!” from us. This is why I am a proponent of season ticket wedges- sections that are just for season subscribers. You build a sense of community, you know where your loudest fans are, and you don’t have to worry as much about interlopers who are just there to see a friend who’s part of the in-game entertainment, or tourists who are more interested in taking pictures so they can say that they’ve been to an event at the Garden.

Just for the record: Foxwoods, I’m not interested in Cirque Dreams. Stop offering me free tickets.

Before the game, they did a phone-in trivia contest. If I knew where my phone was, I would have called in and smoked it. I hope they do it again on Sunday, because that would be awesome. (But, um, guys? Shame to whoever thought Vickie Johnson was part of the inaugural tip. How exactly would that have worked?)

If they want the Hi-Lo game to be challenging, use former players as well as current players. And don’t make Plenette the next to last player you show- by default, the next player will be lower and the win is guaranteed unless the contestant is mentally deficient.

Mike W., the awesome PA announcer, was absent for this game, and the Garden brought in the guy from LIU. While we expected a misplaced Connie James or Heidi Mothershead, the only two big flubs I can think of are jumping the gun on announcing the Shock’s arrival and the accidental unholy union of Sidney McCarville. Other than that, I thought he did a nice job, and I may actually like the way he does Leilani’s name better than the way Mike does it. Good to see him get a shot- I hope they use him as a sub more often, because the other subs are pretty awful.

I would have liked to have beaten Tulsa by more. I think we could have; I think we should have. On the other hand, this game wasn’t nearly as important as the game against Washington, and if playing back against Tulsa means that Cappie can drop 30 on the Mystics and Janel can power past Crystal Langhorne And The Miscellaneous Posts, then I’m cool with it.

It’s all on the line now, New York. Washington doesn’t care that you’ve won 10 games in a row, except that it makes them hungrier to beat you. And the Mystics have even more to gain from a win than you do. One is the magic number. So shut ‘em down, New York. Put apprehension on the back burner, let it sit, and don’t even let it get lit. As this year’s countdown music points out, the time has come to galvanize.

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August 17th, 2010: Indiana at New York

niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine

If I'm dreaming, please don't wake me up. (If I'm Dreaming, please give me a plane ticket back to JFK.) This team is doing things I thought there was no way they could do, and they're just exploding. The defensive pressure is great, and tonight we got nice solid contributions from all over the team.

Excellent crowd tonight. I think just about everyone in the arena knew how important this game was, and if they didn't, they figured it out. I love spontaneous noise, and there were a couple of fan-generated chants.

Trying to get Leilani Mitchell's autograph from six rows above the tunnel is not the most brilliant idea in the world. Tiny bunny is tiny, kids. Good thing she has vertical.

Beautiful, beautiful anthem rendition by a violin group. It almost brought me to tears. But, um, people? YOU SHUT UP FOR THE ANTHEM. You get up, you take your hat off, and you shut up. If you don't think the anthem is worth standing for, or you don't appreciate what it symbolizes, at least show the performers a little respect. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

Joy Cheek seemed very determined to get a basket in this game. She was definitely looking for her shot more than even the next to last player in a game does. The hook shot isn't her strong point, though. All I can remember about Jené Morris is that I have no idea what she was thinking with her hair. Shavonte Zellous looked like she wanted to be the Fever's version of the Sun's Tan White. (Yes, I know exactly what I'm saying here, and I know what I mean.) She was very aggressive with and without the ball. Maybe she was a little too aggressive. Jessica Moore was clearly in the game for defensive purposes, which was all right, because she was usually matched up with the worst offensive player on the floor for either team. So her defense pretty much went to waste for Indiana. Jessica Davenport, frighteningly, was the best post for the Fever tonight, mask and all. (And that is a really badly fitting mask. It looks like it was designed for people who customarily wear clown noses and cheek inserts.) I wonder if she was thinking Well, I went out on the perimeter to play defense, and I got my face smashed in, so I might as well be physical in the post. What's the worst that could happen? I'll get my nose broken? She was a lot more aggressive than I remembered her being in New York. Of course, on the one night in the last two years that I wasn't rooting for her to show Blaze how badly the Liberty messed up by cutting her, she shows out. Go figure. Briann January got extended minutes for the Fever, but she didn't show me that she could be a point guard in this league. Her shot selection was questionable, and given the options she has to work with, I thought she called her own number more than necessary. She wasn't great on the other side of the ball, either.

If I were a Fever fan, I'd be paging Ebony Hoffman right about now, wondering where in the world her game disappeared to. She doesn't even look like she wants to be playing right now. Is she just bummed that her high school teammates are out of the league? Has her conditioning suffered? Indiana fans, I appeal to you, because I thought she was an underrated player, and now she makes Tammy Sutton-Brown look like a model of consistency. Speaking of TSB (and you can imagine my voice dripping with the same apparent disdain as the Garden announcer's), it was nice to see her back to her Rutgers form. You know, missing chippies and not being as strong on the boards as she could be. She wasn't completely awful, but she needed to be more of a factor, and she didn't step her game up. When Katie Douglas got open, she sunk her shots, but someone must have clued the Liberty in that she likes to go to her left, because she didn't slip free too often. Tully Bevilaqua... I love Tully. I think she's one of the most fantastic people in the league. And she's been the best point guard for the Fever all season. But tonight, she looked like she was in over her head, and was outplayed at her own game. If the Fever had an off-guard who could handle, I might be inclined not to use a point at all with that roster. I mean, do you really need to set up a complicated offense when you have Tamika Catchings to play with? Early on, her shooting was nothing short of phenomenal, and I thought for sure that she was going to win the game for Indiana single-handedly, the way Cappie Pondexter has done for the Liberty too many times this season. (Not too many wins, too many games where she's needed to haul the rest of the team along for the ride.) Then Dunn put her on the bench, and between the mistakes made by other Fever players and the natural cooling of a hot hand on the bench, she lost it. She started to show her Tamikaze colors, and for a change she was getting called for some of the moves she usually gets away with. No, Tamika, you can't push off. Sorry.

It was nice to see Nikki Blue get time in consecutive games, and she's got nice court vision. I don't think I object to her as a backup point guard in case of emergency. Kalana Greene didn't do anything that stuck out in my mind. More and more, it's looking like Essence Carson is after that slot in the rotation, and she's worked her tail off to earn it. Essence looked like the only Liberty player who could make Catchings even think twice before hitting a shot. I don't know if she's been doing exercises or something, or if it's even possible to do exercises for this, but I think her vertical has improved. She's making a lot more incredibly athletic plays than she was earlier in the season. Kia Vaughn is a nice kid, and I wish her all the best, but unless she can figure out how to stop telegraphing her moves so obviously that Samuel Morse could come back from the dead and block her into the third row, her ceiling is Jessica Moore, and that's not a great maximum potential to have. She has good enough hands and feet, enough size, and the RU experience to be a better-than-average defender off the bench, but she'll never get an offensive move off until and unless she stops making them so patently obvious. Time and time again, she would start something and by the time she got to the end of it, there were three people standing around and practically tapping their imaginary watches. "What took you so long? Now I have to smack your shot into the backcourt instead of just out of your hands." Plenette Pierson brings defensive pressure, but it bothered me tonight that she was repeatedly out of position on both ends of the floor. Leilani should not be guarding Davenport, okay? Leilani is 100% Awesome Concentrate, but she still gives up, like, another her to Jessica Davenport. But Plenette just wasn't with the program. I think she's thinking ahead to how she's going to whoop on Tulsa.

I rode Nicole Powell pretty hard in the beginning of the game, because she was the one that Catch was burning, but she was efficient in the time that she needed to play, and I like her attempts to be aggressive on defense. We need her to be as well-rounded as possible, and I also liked that she was changing up her offensive game a little bit, going to the basket instead of settling for threes (though she did too much of that as well- Nicole, you don't have to shoot from the NBA line). This was a relatively quiet game from Cappie Pondexter, other than the moment where she was tagged with what she thought was a questionable foul and got mad enough that I thought she was going to get tech'ed. It must have been nice for her to watch her teammates go to work for a change. Janel McCarville looked more interested in her outside shot than her inside game, which is all right as long as she doesn't neglect basic post moves. (It keeps her from trying to reenact the twisting lay-up from the 2007 game that got us into the playoffs.) Taj McWilliams-Franklin used her veteran guile masterfully, making sure that Indiana couldn't get a post move going to save their collective lives. She was always in the right place at the right time. And Leilani Mitchell! Leilani started the game where she left off against Phoenix- contributing tiny things, but not making any big splashes. Then, suddenly, she beats Tully at her own game, ripping away two offensive rebounds, and it was like a light switch had gone off in her head. She started taking and making unbelievable shots. It was awesome.

I don't know what game one of the refs was watching, but I don't think it was this one. To be fair, the Liberty were walking all over the court, but the Fever were being more physical on the boards. I like Williams as a ref, but I'm a sucker for crisp signals.

Cute moment before the game: Kym Hampton chatting with Jessica Davenport. It's nice to see the Liberty's past and what could have been its future intersecting.

It was very cool to see Val Ackerman at the game, though I have no idea why she was there. Val Ackerman and Renee Brown- there's a pair that stirs memories.

These kids, man. These kids, and their Cool Big Sister Plenette, and of course their Mama Taj, might have something here. They've breathed life back into the Garden for the first time in a long time. Then again, I thought that in 2007, too, and then it all fell apart. I don't dare believe. But I can hope.

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August 14th, 2010: Phoenix at New York

Or, why Kia Vaughn will have a place in Liberty history.

It's funny how events shake out. Bad things always seemed to happen against Cleveland or Detroit- Rebecca Lobo's ACL, Becky Hammon's ACL, the report of Kim Perrot's death, the 1998 collapse. It almost became part of the rivalry, the expectation that something was going to happen.

Good things, on the other hand, always seemed to happen against Phoenix. First ever home game and win? Phoenix. Breaking the franchise record for points in a game? Phoenix. Jessica Davenport's dramatic finish? Phoenix. Breaking the franchise records for points in a half, points in a game, and longest winning streak? Phoenix.

Wait a minute. Didn't I already mention breaking the franchise record for points? Well, yes... and then we did it again, because we are just that awesome when it comes to Phoenix.

The day boded unusually badly for us. There was chaos, disorganization, and confusion. There were paranoid Staples employees with bad senses of humor. There were vigilant security and ushers at MSG who were obnoxiously diligent about their duties. There were far too many people who decided to come to their seats early and be resentful of the autograph collectors. There was a twee seven-year-old doing horrible things to "God Bless America" for no good reason. There was a disappointing, albeit discounted, dinner at Seven (give it a pass on weekends, they limit the menu).

But there was also Tangela Smith being thorough and making sure she signed autographs for everyone, and Taylor Lilley being adorably relieved to be recognized (and not be confused for Penny Taylor), and Bridget Pettis boosting herself up on the railing to be better positioned for a fan's picture, and Brooke Smith being very concerned that an orange marker on the white part of the ticket wouldn't show up. "Do you want me to sign it in black?" she asked, after she had already signed it in the light orange.

Kara Braxton, we need to have a long talk about your, er, support system. I, um, don't think it's doing enough for you, and it's starting to show on the court. I think one particular fumble was caused by her, um, mistaking something else for the basketball and attempting to dribble it. I understand the league has official sports bras, but perhaps something can be worked out. I sympathize, trust me. She was more than willing to throw her weight around, but overall, this was Bad Kara. (And okay, maybe I did yell BOING! a couple of times while she was shooting free throws, but from where I am, I can't imagine it had any effect.) I have no idea how Sequoia Holmes smells, and honestly, I don't want to know how the Brigade knows, but she has incredible vertical and I like her hustle. Taylor Lilley was off her game tonight. Ketia Swanier, while more aggressive than Lilley, was about as effective. I really don't think that playing a lineup of completely small guards against New York is a good idea. Brooke Smith made a very brief appearance and got a rebound. She also looked exceptionally lost out there. On one hand, that's understandable, given how little she plays, but on the other hand, I presume she has some experience with playing basketball. She shouldn't look that confused by the whole thing.

This might have been the single worst game I've ever seen from Diana Taurasi, and that says more than you think; for whatever reason, she never seems to play well at the Garden. Maybe it's a California thing or something. But she was really out of the flow of the offense. Maybe she couldn't adjust to not having Taylor (though you'd think she'd be used to it by now), and maybe she just had other things on her mind. I don't know, not being Diana Taurasi. Temeka Johnson was hot early, but seemed to lose the ability to go right at Leilani Mitchell later in the game, an opportunity that neither Lilley nor Swanier seemed as eager to grasp. DeWanna Bonner picked up the slack for the injured Penny Taylor. She's so skinny! I mean, this is not a new observation and not rocket science, but it always throws me just how flexible and slick she is with that build. Candice Dupree is as smooth as silk. Beautiful to watch. She seemed to be leaning more on her jumper than on her inside moves, which surprised me a little. She put in work on the boards, though; her ability to judge the trajectory of a missed shot was phenomenal. Tangela Smith is showing her age, and it's very surreal typing that sentence. She's a step slow and her shot has disappeared.

Penny Taylor didn't dress for the game, which was very confusing. Well, she dressed, and she carries off blue jeans better than most women in this league.

Nikki Blue, unless Anne Donovan has explicitly said that you're not allowed to shoot, call your own number once or twice. It's okay. We'd approve. She's got good court vision, but she needs to be more aggressive. Sidney Spencer wasn't completely awful, and her jump ball with/full nelson on Candice Dupree was one of the more hilarious moments of the night. (Not hilarious in the "physical harm is fun!" sense, but hilarious in the "did Sidney bleeping Spencer just DO that?" sense.) Kia Vaughn did a lot of good things- the problem was that she followed up half of them with boneheaded mistakes like fumbling the ball or passing to no one in particular. Essence Carson played like she wanted her minutes back- her athletic tip-in of Leilani Mitchell's missed fast break layup was the play of the game. I don't know what she's been doing lately, but she needs to do more of it. Kalana Greene didn't play all that well in her minutes- I think Essence is really pushing her, and she doesn't seem to have been ready for that kind of pushing. Plenette Pierson continues to please us at the defensive end, but her offense is, er, unpolished. I think she has three go-to moves: drive right and throw it up with one hand, drive left and throw it up with one hand, or drive down the middle and throw it up with one hand. Occasionally she'll do something more standard like take a lay-up or hit a jumper, but driving and praying seems to be her primary offensive plan. I'm not sure I'm thrilled with that being the MO of my team's sixth woman- it seems that I'd want her offense to be a little more efficient.

The real Nicole Powell has been returned to Earth, or MSG, or something like that. What a beautiful stroke she has when she's on. Her defense still leaves something to be desired, but when Nicole is hoisting and hitting threes at that efficient a clip, I can't really complain. Besides, defense against Phoenix is sort of pointless. Leilani Mitchell didn't get going until later in the game. Yes, I know it's hard to say a player got going if she didn't score, but that was when her usual fierceness was back on display, with her trademark dives after potential loose balls (and balls that weren't so loose). Tiny. But fierce! And I will continue saying it until she proves it untrue. Someone read Janel McCarville the riot act after that abysmal offensive rebounding performance against Atlanta, because she (and the other posts) were crashing the offensive boards like nobody's business. It was nice to see Janel actually play the post for a chance. She's become entirely too fond of her jump shot, and still retains that unnatural love for her twisting little lay-up thing that seems more designed to draw a foul than to draw iron. This is not 2007, we are not still playing Chicago, and there are more shots in the world. I'm just saying on general principles. I'm not sure I approve of Taj McWilliams-Franklin's look- I don't mind the rotini hair, but I think the red streaks are much of a muchness- but I'm not going to tell her that, because I'm not a complete idiot, just a partial one. There were shots she took that she should have hit, but there were shots she hit that she shouldn't have, so it all balanced out. The step slow on defense is starting to frighten me, and she's going to need to use those veteran wiles to get to the next right place if she's going to be our starting center (which she is, because, er, no, not Kia). Cappie Pondexter was unconscious tonight, and how much can you actually say about that? The MVP chants got started early in this one. Maybe not a good plan to do it during free throws, fellow fans? Just saying.

Sort of funny but at the same time sort of disturbing and probably not a good idea moment: Braxton and Taj got tangled up in the post, and after Braxton is duly called for the foul, she and Taj run around the court for about half a minute with Braxton having Taj in a headlock and both of them grinning brightly enough to light up the North Pole in winter. I understand them horsing around, and that Braxton was still in Tulsa the last time these two teams played, and that they have history in Detroit, but given what happened last time, probably not the world's greatest idea.

I have no idea what game Lamont Simpson was watching, but it wasn't this one. And then he decided to bring Gulbeyan and Brooks to the game he was watching instead of the one they were supposed to be working. Strange calls went both ways (see the "jump ball" by Sidney Spencer), but there were a lot of Phoenix plays that should have been fouls, and the foul differential was way off. I know we were shooting more jumpers and they were going into the post more, like this was Bizarro world or something, but contact wasn't called consistently. Neither were travels, though we were the beneficiaries of that more than Phoenix was. (Cappie Pondexter, I'm looking at you. No matter how D-Wade your game is, you're still not in the NBA, and that big shield on your arm should be a hint about that.)

Looking back, these notes seem a lot more negative than they should be for a 38-point victory, and believe me, I wasn't this nit-picky in the arena, not by a long shot. At most, I was sitting there going, "This is so surreal." The energy in the building was incredible. I could feel it bubbling and fizzing, and I think this is the first time that's happened without Kym, or Spoon, or Sue getting the fans in black riled up. This was all on this batch of Libkids (and their Mama Taj). This was about Nicole Powell getting her groove back, and Leilani Mitchell diving on the floor, and Essence Carson's incredible leaps, and a good balance of incandescent individual talent with gret team play.

You might have noticed I've been lukewarm on Pondexter all season, and I'll admit that that's my bias. But what she's done to enough of the fan base is energize them, and in turn, they get the fire stoked for the rest of us. So I thank her for that... as long as she can keep up being Superwoman. (And if Nicole Powell doesn't suddenly remember she's awful.)

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August 8th, 2010: Washington at Connecticut

Better late than never, right?

You'll have to excuse the unusual brevity of these game notes- it's amazing what happens when people go crazy and traffic is backed up and you manage to oversleep so you're working with just a few stolen minutes before it's off to the daily grind and you're still wondering what possessed Mohegan to schedule a game at 5PM on a Sunday. (Well, they started brief. Then I got a little spare time.)

I shouldn't speak too ill of the pink uniforms, as I keep being reminded that they're for a good cause, but the dark red borders on the yellow numbers kept giving me the illusion that the numbers were falling off, and since that's happened before with Connecticut uniforms, I was a bit concerned. Like Chicago, Connecticut also used their road template for their home pinks. (With the league's standardization of team name at home and city name on the road, it's a bit more obvious now.) The team gave out cute little pink pins at the door. At least they didn't turn the logo pink. I'm sorry, but some things are just sacrosanct.

Mohegan usually does a good job finding anthem singers, but wherever they found this kid, they need to send her back. If she hadn't been tone deaf and hadn't tried to sing through her nose, she might only have been tolerably bad; as it was, I could feel the earwax in my left ear building up as protection against some of those high notes.

Brief Ashley Houts cameo, and she continued to press the defense the same way she did against New York. (She must also just not like MSG, because she was more than willing to sign at Connecticut when she ran off the floor three different times in New York. Strange.) Matee Ajavon continued to press her offense in semi-garbage time (recycling time?); unlike when New York had the big lead, her shots weren't falling with any frequency, which didn't help her team all that much; she also drew the first delay of game warning by holding the ball after a made basket (and we'll get back to that as soon as I remember how to stop using parentheses). Jacinta Monroe's tenacity continues to impress me, and giving up points and rebounds to her still causes me to vent in the form of primal screams. Marissa Coleman was missing her shots during shootaround, so I logically extrapolated that she was saving them for the actual game, and the numbers would seem to bear me out. Maybe if she'd gotten a few more touches during the Sun's big lead, the lead would have been smaller, but that wasn't likely to happen with Ajavon on the floor. Nakia Sanford shows all signs of being ready to earn the nickname Sharpie, with physical play and that unfortunate last name. I'm not going to complain, but a couple of her rebounds were more properly team rebounds or deflections.

Crystal Langhorne's positioning was a little better against the Sun posts, and she was especially physical against Charles, so I'm starting to think that my theory of "she plays better against taller people" might hold water. Chasity Melvin did a wonderful job of missing easy shots for Washington. I'm still amazed at how much vertical Lindsey Harding has for someone with a history of knee trouble. I swear she can fly, between the speed and the height. (Interesting battle of the former Lynx point guards today, wasn't it? I'm starting to think that the best Linds*y for that Minnesota squad might not be Whalen.) If anything, she needed to call her number more often. With Katie Smith's vision hindered by the mask, she wasn't as able to set things up as she normally was. And while I have an almost Zen sense of completeness when Smith is handling the ball, that didn't necessarily result in anything happening for Washington. Monique Currie was her usual reckless self, for good and for ill for the Mystics; her drives got her points and got her to the line, but she also got tagged with a couple of charges. I find her facial expressions fascinating during a game.

There was a brief Kerri Gardin sighting, for what I presume was defensive purposes, but I don’t recall her doing much else. Sandrine Gruda played heavy minutes as, essentially, the only post off the bench for Connecticut, and seemed to lean on her outside shot even more than usual. I was also taken aback by her free throw shooting- I had always been under the impression that she was better from the line than the average post. She helped make the game a little more interesting than it had to be. I don’t think coming off the bench agrees with Tan White. She didn’t have the same oomph that she did when she was in the starting lineup. This, of course, could simply mean that she’s all out of oomph, not that her oomph can only come as a starter. Anete Jekabsone-Zogota did warm up with the team, but she didn’t get into the actual game. Neither did DeMya Walker and Allison Hightower. Hightower doesn’t surprise me so much, because she went flying headfirst into the rookie wall, but Walker usually gives the Sun good minutes. That makes me wonder if she’s injured, or if she just fell off the same cliff that’s claimed so many players from the classes of 1998 and 1999 this season. Given the presence of veteran posts in Melvin and Sanford, Walker would have been a good matchup for the Sun.

I love Kelsey Griffin’s hustle so much. Full body sacrifice, night in and night out. Seriously, what do I have to do to get her in a Liberty uniform? I’m not fussy. I’ll do a lot of things. I think she could benefit from a little more work on her shooting form if she’s serious about transitioning to the three, and defensively she’s still a little inexperienced, but shooting form can be fixed and lack of experience usually fixes itself. We were sitting in the endcourt, so we got to see firsthand how much contact Tina Charles was absorbing, and she didn’t seem all that comfortable with it. I think the compaction of the schedule is finally getting to her- yes, she played more games in her college season, but they were a lot more spread out, and she played far fewer minutes in those games. There were at least two plays for Connecticut where she was slow to roll on a pick and roll, and it cost the Sun on at least one of them. She’s still an incredible player, don’t get me wrong, but she’s starting to show that she’s only human. And you know what? That’s all right. I wish I could make those kinds of excuses for Renee Montgomery, but she really needs to realize that she’s not going to impress her defenders with her slick ballhandling. Her shot selection was abominable, and the offense didn’t run smoothly with her trying to do too much herself and not enough with her teammates. Kara Lawson showed random bursts of speed that I certainly wasn’t expecting from her, but if she’s there as the point guard while Montgomery is making with the lousy shooting, this lineup is not going to strike fear in anyone’s heart. Asjha Jones looks somewhat recovered from her injury, and her outside shot is falling, but she still doesn’t seem to be the body in the paint that the Sun really need. Hint, Connecticut: your most physical player should not be the one you’re trying to convert to a three, and your next most physical player should not have a physiological age closer to your coach’s than to your starters’.

I have this conspiracy theory that for whatever reason, the Sun players are trying to get Mike Thibault fired. (Which I’m totally cool with. Every coach has a shelf life in a particular area, so I think he’s worn out his welcome in the Nutmeg State- but he’s a Northeast guy and I can’t see him pulling up stakes for a random opening in the Midwest or wherever- but hey, there’s a team a few hours down I-95 that’s going to be in need of a coach next year...) I think that’s the only rational explanation for why it suddenly looks like the five on the floor are playing about four different games, with occasional interaction among Charles and Montgomery, or Griffin and everyone, or Lawson and someone. There were too many possessions where I saw one player with the ball, maybe one player setting a screen, and three players doing their best impressions of garden statuary- and I have to tell you, decorative is not a good look on the court. I’m starting to think Thibault has lost this team, that they’re not listening to anyone anymore. THAT IS BAD. Just in case it wasn’t obvious.

I’m really not sure what got into these refs. Mystics fans have a reason to be angry at the offensive foul calls that went against them when similar plays were ignored on the other end of the floor. On the other hand, Crystal Langhorne should probably have fouled out of the game, given how enthusiastically she was holding Tina Charles. And you can’t blame the refs for Matee Ajavon holding the ball or Nakia Sanford encroaching on the inbounds. I would have expected more discipline from Julie Plank’s team- she seems to be a no-nonsense sort of coach, even though she’s got some very nonsense players on her team. (Ajavon, yes, I’m looking at you, and have been since your days at Rutgers.)

Our seats were inconvenient for immaterial things like trying to watch action in the paint at the other end of the floor, as we were directly behind the stanchion, but they were sure nice for catching things. I’ve been going to Sun games since 2003, and this was the first time I ever got close to one of the Contessa coupons from the blimp (we gave it to the guys behind us, since they seemed rather excited about the product, I’m not a big seafood person, and I don’t even think Contessa supplies New York City). And then we caught a shirt! Well, it bounced off someone’s hands and landed in my boyfriend’s lap, but that counts as a catch. Finally, we both have something to wear to Sun games! (so maybe now he’ll give me back the Kara Lawson jersey he gave me for Christmas but has worn more times than I have, what do you mean I have boundary issues?)

But wait! There’s more! (Isn’t there always more with the Game Notes of Doom? Isn’t that why you read them?) We were in the next section over from the lucky autograph section, and since we would have at least an hour to kill before our bus home, we hoped to swap stubs with anyone who had to leave immediately and couldn’t stay. Why let the offer go to waste, after all? But as we climbed up towards the exit, I noticed a ticket stub lying on the floor in lucky section 21. I have no shame, so I ran over to pick it up- and discovered that it had a friend. Unlike MSG, back when the Liberty used to do autograph sections, there was no additional voucher handed out- the ticket stub was sufficient proof. It took a while for Renee Montgomery and Sandrine Gruda to make their way out of the locker room, and the signing was pretty quick after that. Montgomery is very charismatic, in a sweet way. Those big beautiful eyes and that bright smile do wonders for a room.

I presume you’re not interested in our odyssey home, or the crazy people that deluged us, so this is a good place to leave off. The Eastern Conference and all its flaws are an endless source of fascination for any WNBA fan- certainly more interesting than the slop that’s passed for the middle of the Western Conference through this point of the season.

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August 6th, 2010: Washington at New York

Too much pink oh dear god so much pink
The New York Maalox Moments (presented by Foxwoods) are going to kill me one of these days. I know it as surely as I know my name. The cause of death on my death certificate will read "cardiac arrest brought on by the New York Liberty". Hopefully they won't blow the entire lead before I kick the bucket.

I got to the game early, thanks to a conveniently placed half-day at my office, so I got to check out the fashion report. Taj McWilliams-Franklin took her pink very seriously, with a jacket that could probably be spotted in the dark, and I won't swear to it, but I thought I saw dark pink highlights in her hair. Kia Vaughn had cute pink toenail polish. Essence Carson was hopelessly late, and perhaps changing into her sneakers might have helped her move faster. For the third game in a row, Cappie Pondexter gave fans the brush-off. Not cool.

As an aside: I despise pinkwashing. Yes, I appreciate that the fight against breast cancer is a worthy cause, and one that is strongly identified with women. But it's not the biggest danger to women, and it's unusual in the amount of emphasis that's placed on the symbolic color. It feels like forced feminization of the league, a red (or pink) flag that these are "just" women out there. Maybe I'm overanalyzing a little bit, but I could really live without pink uniforms and pink shirts and pink balls and pink keychains and pink graphics (they gave the logo a pinkwashing on the screen, for heaven's sake) and a specially made pink uniform for the mascot. Wouldn't all that money be more helpful being donated to the cause? (And let's not forget the $15 that MSG pocketed from the sale of every $25 pink shirt.) And if you criticize it, you're accused of being insensitive- "DON'T YOU KNOW IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE?" Yes, and it's all sound and fury signifying nothing, a way to act like we care and putting in minimal effort with maximum visible proof.

Marissa Coleman took and hit some amazingly deep threes during shootaround. I was duly impressed. Angela Taylor, who traveled to the game, spent a lot of time talking to Carol Blazejowski. I hope she was giving Blaze ideas, not taking them. Angela, Blaze has screwed up more things as a GM than you've ever considered doing. Don't listen to her.

Pointless and mediocre rendition of "God Bless America" (perhaps a tactless musical choice given the presence of a group of Iraqis), and a decent if oddly choreographed version of the national anthem (really, hand cocked on your leopard-printed hip?).

Signal boost, because I am a woman of my word: if you love Leilani Mitchell, go talk to Sandy in the front of section 51 and get yourself a lei for Leilani. There are signs. Go do it, because Leilani is awesome and this idea is awesome. (And if you're in a position to help her out, well, who's going to complain about leis?)

Ashley Houts comes off as kind of a brat. It's one thing to be too cool for fans if you're a superstar. It's another thing to be too cool for fans if you're the tenth woman on a roster where the eleventh woman is physically incapable of playing. Bringing that attitude onto the court just cements my opinion that we could have traded her for a bag of unwashed gym socks and we'd still have gotten the more useful and more pleasant end of the deal. I don't like Matee Ajavon. Never have. Even when Rutgers was my team, I gritted my teeth, then blessed the day that she finished up at RU, because that meant I didn't have to root for her anymore. It was cathartic. I forgot just how much I despised the chip on her shoulder while she was on the court, how much her ballhogging made me want to hit things, and how much of a jackass she could be after a foul. (Really, Ajavon? You pick up the ball out of your opponent's hands, then offer to help her up? Really? If this were Twitter, I'd tag that question #wheretheydothatat.) If you heard primal screams coming from the green seats, those were mine as once again my team left Jacinta Monroe unguarded. STOP THAT. I put up with it once when St. John's was in the tournament. I refuse to accept it on the professional level. Seriously, between the two Terrapins and the Seminole, I was having flashbacks. I like Monroe's hustle, though. She didn't give up on a single play. I can see why having a broken hand was such a problem for her- having good hands is a critical part of her game. Marissa Coleman put in work on the boards, but I was more grateful that those amazingly deep threes she was sinking in warm-ups didn't go down for her until the last one. If she'd been able to get loose a few minutes earlier, it could have gotten ugly. I had forgotten how much I disliked Nakia Sanford's overacting and physical play. Such a drama queen.

Don't let Chasity Melvin's line fool you. I'm sure that at least three of those rebounds were on her own missed shots. (How in the world do you miss an easy lay-up when you're 6'3" and Cappie Pondexter is your only defender, but you hit the follow when Plenette Pierson joins the party on D?) I think she's fallen off the same cliff that a lot of the '98 and '99 players have. Lindsey Harding still looked a bit ginger out there, and Plank wasn't taking any risks with her. Since she's the only true point they have, I think that affected their offense, because, yeah, you're going to expect Ajavon to pass the ball? You're going to expect Ashley Houts to set up the offense? Okay. She had a couple of gorgeous drives where she looked like she had decided, "You know what? I'm taking this shot because it makes the most sense." Katie Smith, despite the mask, still did a nice job with the ballhandling. I was surprised she wasn't on Pondexter more often, but she was playing more of a three than a guard, even with Currie on the floor. The stroke is still there, though she needs a little more time to wind up than she used to. Crystal Langhorne was pretty much a non-factor. I wonder if she has trouble with posts who are closer to her size, and has some sort of positioning advantage on taller posts. I will have to test this theory on Sunday. Monique Currie looked like she had found a way to balance "Scowl and Foul" with the talented player who went high in the 2006 draft- yes, the bad attitude was on display and she was committing stupid fouls, but she was also driving to the hole and getting the foul calls (though there will be a little more about that later on).

So this is why the last three players on our bench don't play all that often. They look confused by this whole basketball thing. I can excuse Kia Vaughn, since she's the youngest and didn't play all that much last year either, though rebounding and hitting free throws were important skills on the collegiate level as well. I can't excuse Nikki Blue or Sidney Spencer. Granted, Nikki had to face the brunt of Washington's unusually aggressive defense, and Houts seemed to have personal issues with her, and she did her part to set up her teammates. But how in the world do you inbound it off the back of the backboard, Sidney Spencer? Honestly. Essence Carson quietly came in and did her job. So did Kalana Greene, though Kalana was more on the defensive end. Plenette Pierson got victimized by some odd calls, to the point where she started mocking the refs. Her defensive tenacity is starting to rub off on some of the younger players, which I like.

Leilani Mitchell is starting to remind me of that other guard from the Mountain West who canned threes on a regular basis. No, not that one, the one who also wore #5. When she gets hot, watch out. I was disappointed in her rebounding, but that was because no one was helping box out. The Mystics' offensive rebounding was sick- in a good way if you root for DC, in a bad way if you're in New York. Cappie Pondexter will do pretty much the same thing every night: she'll rebound, she'll get her assists, she'll play sketchy defense, and she'll take her shots. On a good night like this one, more of the shots will go in than won't and she'll get to the line. That kind of consistency is hard to write creatively about, and my completely irrational bias against her will come into play if I try to go deeper, so it's on to the next one. I still would like to see Janel McCarville drive inside more instead of settling for long jumpers, but if she's going to be more of a four with Taj as the five, it sort of makes sense. I don't know if I like it, but it makes sense. (Should I have been disappointed that Janel didn't dye her hair neon pink? I miss Janel's random changes of hairdo.) She got messed up by some stupid fouls and some badly allocated fouls. Taj McWilliams-Franklin continues to amaze me. I wish I could be as awesome as she is when I'm her age. Her grit, her determination, and her style are all top-notch. Nicole Powell is contributing in smaller ways, but it shouldn't take until the fourth quarter for a WNBA starter not named Shalee Lehning or Ticha Penicheiro to get her first basket. I don't mind the rebounds or the assists, but I'd like a few more points and the court awareness not to leave Katie Smith open for three to go along with them; for a player of Powell's pedigree, I don't think that's asking too much.

Blame the bald black guy for the bad calls! It really looked like they were trying to protect the star players by spreading the fouls around to their less "important" teammates. How in the world Nicole Powell got away with passing the ball back behind the halfcourt line on a break, I will never know, and the fact that that was only the second dumbest thing a Liberty player did in that game terrifies me. The flagrant that was called on Taj was nonsense. Taj was making a play on the ball and Sanford overdramatized it like she was auditioning for a soap opera. We were not amused.

I sort of want to smack the Liberty reserves upside the head, but I also sort of want to smack the Mystics upside the head. On one hand, I appreciate the competitive fire that kept them pressing and playing hard even when they were down twenty and everyone had brought in their last players. On the other hand, is it really necessary to play that physically when you're down twenty and you've brought in the end of your bench (such as the "end" can be defined when you only have ten players and several of them are dinged up)? That's when Ajavon really beefed up her numbers. Gotta love the stat padding.

I think I'd have come home a lot more satisfied with this game if the last three reserves hadn't shown how rusty and out-of-game-condition they were. If the Mystics are really healthy by the end of the season, I'd be really worried about them. Monroe is a serviceable enough post that Plank doesn't have to worry about playing Melvin and Sanford too much. I saw game reports from Mystics fans who were wondering what Plank was doing with her lineups- as odd as the comparison might sound for a disciple of Tara Vanderveer, I think Plank was acting like a kid at Christmas, because she had a whole ten players for the first time in how long? She could actually try to put in different lineups! I can imagine a coach being overexcited about that.

A win is a win is a win. Go Liberty! Beat the Lynx! (Go Sun! Beat the Mystics!)

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August 1st, 2010: Connecticut at New York

Possibly yay?

Phew. These Libkids are going to kill me one of these days. I can't do this. My family has a history of heart trouble. I can't take these games where they get up and then get down and then fight back, all in the fourth quarter.

Got to the game a bit later than my wont, so no exciting stories from pregame. If I had gotten there around 2:30, I might have been able to corroborate the story that was going around from the Usual Suspects about Cappie Pondexter blowing off fans, but since I wasn't there, I can't fairly report on it. I did get the chance to tell Mike Thibault that some of us wouldn't mind if he decided to move a bit further down I-95 once Anne Donovan moved on to Seton Hall.

Beautiful rendition of "God Bless America" to start pregame festivities- I hope they bring that guy back to do the anthem sometime. The anthem, in turn, was performed by two trumpeters and "sung" in American Sign Language. (Is sung the right verb for ASL? I honestly don't know about Deaf culture to know the word usage.) I think it might have been smarter to keep the camera on the woman signing, so those of us behind her could see her, instead of on the guys with the horns, but what do I know?

I'm giving another shoutout to the Monarchs fans sitting courtside, because judging from the Monarchs logo on one woman's leg, they came out from Sacramento for this game (and I'm glad DeMya Walker was able to get out of her own little world enough to say hi to them). I would have loved to say this in person, but MSG security was exceptionally anal retentive today and wouldn't let me go over to say hello. Really, do I look like that much of a threat?

At this point, I also have to give proper respect to the woman in the Kim Perrot jersey. That wins pretty much every "my jersey is more awesome than yours" contest possible.

Allison Hightower looked a little more comfortable defensively than she had before, though I don't envy her Pondexter as an assignment. The corner three was pretty too, but she still looks like she's trying to find her way. Renee Montgomery should probably stop trying to do pretty tricks with the ball and work on her passing. She drove the lane more aggressively than I'd seen her in the last game, and she hoisted fewer threes. Someone must have explained that that might be a better move for her. I wonder if she was running her mouth, though, because she hit the deck an awful lot, even for a player who was primarily driving the lane. I don't know what we did to frustrate the Sun posts, but it really took Sandrine Gruda out of the equation. She was boxing out, but she wasn't really grabbing rebounds or getting good shots, which was a surprise, given that she's taller and has a longer wingspan than our posts. Kerri Gardin had a block, but otherwise had the role of "hi, how are you still in the WNBA?" on lock. I almost moved on to the starters and forgot that DeMya Walker played, so you can tell just how much of an impact she had on the game.

Whatever we did to the Sun posts really had an effect on Tina Charles. She executed a couple of beautiful drop steps and moves in the paint, but she couldn't adjust to the defense we were throwing at her, and she only had a few really good stretches. Asjha Jones was able to get her points on outside jumpers and a couple of shots that defied the laws of physics to go down. By the end of the season, she'll be 100%. And our last game is against Connecticut, and Thibault adjusts well. Oh, expletive. Kara Lawson's leg must still be giving her trouble, because she looked awful today. I know Leilani has an advantage on shorter-than-average and slow guards, because she's about as low to the ground as they are and her hands are faster, but Leilani Mitchell should not be shutting down an Olympian. Tan White wasn't able to get a lot of touches, which might have been a bit of the problem for Connecticut. And again, I was sitting here trying to remember who the fifth starter for Connecticut was, which is rather embarrassing for Kelsey Griffin, but she was really in over her head today.

When Kalana Greene's shot isn't falling, holy sweet Toledo is it not falling. My God, some of those misses were epic in their inaccuracy. She made up for it on the boards and the defensive end, though. Essence Carson played for a few minutes and didn't do anything notably good or notably awful, except that she really needs to stop showing off her ballhandling skills in games. Yes, you can cross someone over, that's very nice. Do you want a cookie? Or would you prefer to take the shot and hit it instead of crossing yourself over? Plenette Pierson brought some of the physicality we needed, but stop dropping the ball, Plenette. I've come to the conclusion that if Plenette's not your team and you're not hating her with every breath in your body, she's not doing her job right.

I'm genuinely beginning to wonder how Nicole Powell got into Stanford. On the court, she appears to possess neither the basketball talent nor the intelligence to be of interest to them. Seriously, I'm assuming this Nicole Powell is a Pod Person, and one of these days the real Nicole will show up and kick four kinds of hell out of this fake one. I refuse to believe someone like Nicole Powell wouldn't recognize a fastbreak lay-up opportunity when she sees one. Janel McCarville suffered a frightening ankle injury that put her out of the game for a while, so I give her a pass. I will say that she was a critical part of the defense that gave Connecticut such fits. When she was out of the game, that was when Tina Charles started to get hot and hit shots. For the same reason, I'll excuse Taj McWilliams-Franklin's small offensive line, because she was working hard on defense and she had to double-shift because Janel was injured and Coach Donovan wasn't about to trust Kia Vaughn in a game of this magnitude. Cappie Pondexter had a solid game- yes, I do expect these sorts of numbers from her, that's what we brought her in for and that's what she thinks she can produce- and I congratulate her on her milestone. We don't win this game without Leilani Mitchell, though. We don't win without her making Kara Lawson's life miserable, or without her hitting big threes, or without her running a solid game and taking care of the ball.

Spoon's rousing fourth quarter speech didn't cause us to screw up! This is good! This means they're getting it. When Teresa Weatherspoon exhorts you to get up and get it together, you get up and you get it together, or you will hear it from her, loudly and with interesting language. I really miss Spoon.

There was a tall guy in a red shirt sitting in the place of honor by Spoon's name on the floor. Later reports tell me he was Wilson Chandler, but if he was, they didn't tell us that at the game.

The referees for this game were pretty pitiful. I saw more jump balls in this game than I've seen all season, and I think about a third of them had to do with not knowing on whom a foul should be called. Also, please note, Amy Bonner, sometimes when a player goes out of bounds, the posterior of the opposing power forward is the reason why. There were more than a few late whistles and a few calls that seemed to be on the wrong players. Thibault was livid after a couple such plays, and for good reason- at one point, Tan White took a pretty good whack from Janel and there was no foul, despite the fact there had to be a timeout because there was blood on both players.

The bench players are so adorable in their enthusiasm for this team! Spencer's always up and applauding, and I think Kia had a flashback to her college days when she started joining the "DE-FENSE!" chant from the bench. After one play, as the timeout was called, everyone ran across the court, and I think at least three of them were across halfcourt before you could say Jack Robinson. It looked like the team was warned about it, too, because one of the refs went up to Laurie Byrd, and then she was laughing about something with Lisa White, and since the trainer also plays a semi-official role on the bench, I figured White also needed to be told that "no, you do not let the bench players run out there like kids on the last day of school".

Very satisfying to get that win. On to Indiana to win in an arena that's never been friendly to us. We can do this, right? Time to show what kind of mettle you're made of, kids. Are you New York? Or are you just a bunch of mercenaries in uniforms with a casino name across them? The time is now.

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