August 21st, 2015: Atlanta at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: New York shook off a slow start to take off in the fourth quarter for a 78-67 win over the Atlanta Dream. Tina Charles had a game-high 25 points, with Epiphanny Prince adding 18. Tiffany Hayes led Atlanta with 17.

For school supplies, bugg waggling, so many dancers, questions about officiating, flashlights, random cricket noises, and bringing the noise, join your intrepid and bleary blogger after the jump.



Good evening! It's game day at the Garden, where the league-leading Liberty take on the Atlanta Dream.

School supplies have been donated, and tiny bright flashlights have been received in exchange.

Atlanta, it's hard to be sympathetic to your plight when y'all don't sign. Okay, except for Angel McCoughtry. McCoughtry also provided amusement for wandering off the court. There's an aisle directly behind the court, where she was stretching out her legs by kicking out. Unfortunately, said aisle is also a pedestrian area. That's not how you're supposed to kick butt, Angel. Security gently suggested to her that her stretches might better be performed on the court.

Looks like it's going to be a pretty good crowd. Cheap seats are already filling up pretty solidly. The general admission policy is not working out as smoothly as security might like- too many people think it means any seat in the house, when it's restricted to certain sections. We're seeing a lot of seat jumpers and idiots standing in the aisle.

At halftime, the Liberty are up one, in a game that hasn't been very pretty. It's Garden of Dreams night, so we're seeing a lot of talent from the Garden of Dreams talent show. I'm not terribly impressed, but I've seen far, far worse.

There's a dude a couple of rows in front of us (or possibly was- haven't seen him since the middle of the second) who's kind of a ridiculous Sugar Rodgers [url=http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stan]stan[/url]. Bill will put Sugar in when he's good and ready to do so, sir.

From an uninspired first half rose a much more competitive second half, and a fired-up Liberty team that decided they weren't going to lose to Atlanta. They drew the crowd into the game in a way I haven't seen in a long time. That energy is so crucial. That's the energy that becomes homecourt advantage.

Roneeka Hodges rocking the preppy look today. It's a good look for her.

Sydney Carter played briefly in the third quarter. She's got a strange three-point shot. She spent most of the pregame with a giant pad wrapped around most of her back, so I'm not surprised she didn't play a lot. She was vocal during stretches before the game. Matee Ajavon annoys people on the floor (someday someone will put a mic over her matchups with Candice Wiggins and I think it will be glorious and profane). She cooled down in the second half drastically.

DeLisha Milton-Jones still has a little bit of that pretty jumper, but her greatest asset on the court is still her immense length, those long arms that get in the way of everything opponents try to do. Reshanda Gray showed a little bit of offense and a lot of defensive intensity, if not necessarily full execution of said defense. She'll have time to work through her mistakes in Atlanta, but I'm not sure she has the coaching she'll need to learn from those mistakes. Aneika Henry seems to have lost many of her minutes to Gray- she always seemed to be around the basket, but not necessarily making plays at the basket.

Shoni Schimmel is starting to look like a point guard again. She didn't look like an All-Star point guard yet, but she looked like a point guard. She showed a propensity for taking too many unnecessary shots, whether they were threes with the intent to break the Liberty's will or crazy drives with the intent to get fouled. Tiffany Hayes falls down a lot. Her diving irks me. I appreciate the hustle, but get up, woman. She kind of sneaks up on you. Angel McCoughtry... early in the game it looked like she was all for playing within the team dynamic and trying to keep her teammates involved. But when the pressure's on and the ship starts to flounder, Lori Ann comes out to play, and she gets rough, and she gets so easily frustrated. I think McCoughtry is trying to be the person she wants to be, and the person her fiancée wants her to be, and the person her team needs her to be, but she falls too easily back into her old habits.

Damiris Dantas is a nice addition for this team. She's not the answer at center, if only because of her size and style of play, but if they can pair her with a more traditional center, the Dream should be in pretty good shape. She has nice flexibility to her game. Sancho Lyttle did a lot of complaining and melodramatic gesturing to the referees, which is pretty hilarious given how bad they were to the Liberty tonight. I don't remember her being that much of a whiner, but she did a lot of it. She's sneaky on the offensive rebounds.

Atlanta seems like a team with a lot of pieces but not enough edges to the puzzle, so that they don't know where all the pieces should go. But I don't think they can keep trying to build around McCoughtry unless she has a complete personality transplant.

Avery Warley-Talbert played briefly and reminded us all why she doesn't play more. She's a sweet kid, and she's definitely not your stereotypical alumna of an evangelical college, but she's a deep reserve at best. Kiah Stokes needed a little push to get started on offense, but she locked down the defense, and had a really nice punchout of a rebound to Tina Charles for the putback. Essence Carson drew the difficult task of guarding Angel McCoughtry, and helped at least keep her from shooting.

Brittany Boyd is an energizer, a firestarter, the person who initiates the great and glorious feedback loop that powers the homecourt advantage. The three she hit to beat the buzzer was phenomenal. Candice Wiggins was a disruptive presence on offense, and managed to get into Atlanta's heads enough that she was getting thrown around by the end of the game. Sugar Rodgers played briefly, showing hustle but nothing for it except rebounds.

Tanisha Wright got hammered in the lane with no call, repeatedly, and her jumpers weren't falling. But she was a defensive stopper and a fantastic distributor. I kind of like the idea of her nd Boyd in the backcourt together. Epiphanny Prince hit a cold streak in the second quarter or so, but got hot again right in time. I like her play on the ball defensively as well. Even with the super scorers, you can tell the Rutgers pedigree.

Tina Charles leaned heavily on her outside jumper, which is really the only complaint it's possible to register about her play this evening. She looked rock solid. Swin Cash got going early, but we went to smaller lineups with a three-guard set, so she didn't see as much time. Carolyn Swords looked like she was finding her groove once more, though she's still having a little trouble handling some passes. She and Swin had some beautiful two-man game stuff going on.

Both teams came to play, and for the first half, Atlanta dominated stylistically and on the scoreboard. But New York punched back, and once we found our groove, we took over in the fourth.

Refs who allow blatant wrestling moves and don't blow their whistles can take a long walk off a short pier. Honestly, I don't know what Candice does to get so many non-calls against her, but she got a couple of brutal ones today. Everything seemed to be going against the Liberty for most of the game. It was frustrating to see what appeared to be a one-sided officiating job. In the fourth, at least the inconsistency was inconsistent and both sides saw calls they had reason to disagree with.

The only reason for the Liberty not to continue on this hot streak is because MSG staff doesn't seem prepared for a sudden attendance spike. Security is slow, too many stands are closed, and facilities staff doesn't seem inclined to do their jobs. The folks in front of us had an accident and spilled their sodas and nacho cheese. Right at the start of the second half, I attempted to get the attention of someone who could handle it. The shift supervisor led me to the usher of the next section over, who spoke to security, who said they'd radio for a mop. No mop ever came. C'mon, man. And while I'm venting at ushers, can they please urge people not to stand in the aisles, especially during play?

I love my team. I think it might be their time. Maybe.