September 22nd, 2015: Washington at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Tina Charles put up 22 points and 12 rebounds, and Sugar Rodgers poured in 20 off the bench, to defeat Washington 79-74 in Game 3 and 2-1 in their playoff series. Ivory Latta led Washington with 18 points and seven assists in the loss.

For fashion reports, diabetic shocks, step-back threes, party favors, the man we call stan, digging deep, questionable rotations, wandering fans, and exhaustion, join your intrepid and booked blogger after the jump.



So here we are. Backs to the wall, or more precisely backs to the back-to-back, say that three times fast. Winner plays Indiana for the right to hang an Eastern Conference Championship banner from their rafters. Loser goes home. Liberty-Mystics, one more time.

So it's time to get superstitious. Don't mix the Lobo and the Boyd jerseys, we lost on Friday with those. Wear a hat. Hats are cool, plus we need all the mojo we can get. Add a lei. Add another lei. Leilani's gone, but the leis live on. All black everything. White bra, not the red, because the Mystics wear red. Devil's in the details, you know.

Is it a good sign someone else in a Liberty shirt got on at Grand, or bad news because that happened on Friday too? Very superstitious, writing's on the wall...

There's no room for fear. There's no room for doubt. Worries have to be left on the train. Can't plan for anything tomorrow except Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. That's the energy we have to bring. Calm. Confident. Winning is the only option. Alternatives are not to be even considered, because they're not happening.

If the guy on the escalator is to be believed, I came up the escalator directly behind Shannon Bobbitt and may have almost hit her in the head with a towel. I'm not always good with faces, and it's not like Shannon Bobbitt stands out from the average human being in terms of size and build.

Today's giveaway is towels with the #BurnBright hashtag. They're not quite twirlable yet- too new, too starchy, but as quick as the turnaround would have had to be, I can't say I'm surprised. (I work in the business. Four days is asking a lot, especially with a weekend. Essentially next day? Fantastic work by the vendor.)

Bad mojo to change the walkout music for this game. No objections to Jay Z here, but you don't change something you've done, in full or in part, for 19 years.

At the half, the Liberty are up 45-37 on the strength of a 30-12 second quarter. Maybe the mojo isn't so bad after all. Sugar Rodgers and Candice Wiggins have stepped it up off the bench. Sugar has 14 off the bench and Candice has a pair of treys to go with fantastic defense.

I just hope these dunkers at halftime don't bend the rim too badly. That's where we're shooting in the second half.

The place really filled up in the second quarter. Not sure how much of it was tickets being given out at the last minute and how much of it was late arrivers. Apparently a lot of people are hanging out at the concourse bars, too. Stupid hip young things.

Spike Lee is in his Knicks seat, in his Knicks colors. Nice of him to join us- now someone get him a jersey!

We're sitting behind the Sugar stan. (You know. That guy who always screams, "PUT SUGAR RODGERS IN THE GAME! I WANNA SEE SUGAR RODGERS!" You've probably heard him.) Together we make a loud tandem. But we weren't the only ones. By the last couple of minutes of that fourth quarter, the Garden was rocking. Everyone was on their feet without prompting. I love it. That's Liberty basketball.

My hat is off to the Washington Mystics, and especially to Ivory Latta. They put up a fantastic fight. I may swear at Latta and call her a goddamn Smurf (picked it up from a Maryland fan in her UNC days), but at the end of the day, it's the disrespect of respect.

Ally Malott came in at the very end of the game as a shooter, but I don't even know if she got a touch. She was there as an option. Kia Vaughn had moments where she torched Kiah Stokes in the paint, but she always seemed a moment behind the play, taking a moment to think before she moved. When she got low in the paint, she moved like an avalanche, but the slightest hesitation and the defense broke her down. She did not deal well with pressure.

Taylor Hill looked hassled out there. We weren't able to cover that weak-side corner when Latta was shooting it, but Hill was a step slower to the spot. We don't always learn quickly, but we learn eventually. Natasha Cloud, demoted to the bench as Mike Thibault tinkered with the lineup, was a non-factor. Kara Lawson's defense, if not spectacular, was heady and sticky. She had a couple of nice, deft poke-checks. Her release was, as always, super fast. Her shot is just so efficient.

Stefanie Dolson played a very tough game. She had a hard assignment, with Tina Charles on her at both ends of the floor, and she showed flashes of her outside shot, as well as some nice rebounding work. I admire her flair and her toughness. LaToya Sanders stroked some early jumpers in both halves, but really seemed kind of quiet today. I don't know that the gamble worked. Emma Meesseman was quiet in the first half, though she rebounded well, then came on like gangbusters in the third quarter. Her usual shots didn't seem to be falling, so she made up for it on the glass.

I love to hate Ivory Latta. Sometimes I think she feeds off that as much as she feeds off the passion of her own fans. She made things happen. I think she might have had more trouble hitting shots without a hand in her face, because she certainly had no trouble taking that step back and letting them fly when the defense was all up in her business. She hustled. She found her teammates. She was fantastic and has nothing to hang her head about (not that I think she ever has in her life). Tierra Ruffin-Pratt was phenomenal defensively- you could tell the difference when she was on someone, versus when one of her teammates had the assignment, and I thought our comeback would die aborning when she switched onto Sugar Rodgers. She flashed some offense by the basket, too.

I swear on my honor as a former Girl Scout I will end up breaking things if we continue to ignore the corner in front of the bench and let three-shooters run rampant in it.

When Eric Thibault is trying to get Mike Thibault back to the bench before he gravely offends the officials, do you think he ever says something along the lines of, "Dad, stop, ohmigod, you're embarrassing me!" as he does so?

Am I bothered that Kiah Stokes is our only post off the bench right now? Damn skippy. We're going to need to go to some way smaller lineups tomorrow to juggle our personnel better. But Kiah came through for us tonight, picking up all the loose change on the glass, finishing at the rim, and coming up with the big, big, big block to end the game on Latta. She made the right plays at the right time.

Essence Carson made a cameo in the first half. It was unremarkable, and she was not asked to return for an encore. She needs to step up big tomorrow (which is now today). But the other two guards off the bench (yes, I still consider Essence a guard even though she usually lines up at forward) more than made up for it. Candice Wiggins was the sparkplug that spurred the comeback after that putrid first quarter. She fired the team up on both ends of the floor. She has so much enthusiasm. I understand why other teams want to smack her around, but I'd appreciate if the officials would call it. And Sugar Rodgers just would not be denied. She wasn't just jacking threes, either- she was driving hard to the rack. Love seeing that from her. We needed someone to turn it up, and she turned it up big time.

I'm a little worried about Swin Cash- not because of the stats, but because of the minute count. We could have used her before the last possession of the fourth, when Tina Charles looked like she was completely out of gas. Even a minute or two- enough to get some Gatorade and take a breath- might have been enough for Tina to stop jacking up long jumpers and find the strength to get into the paint. A lot was asked of Tina tonight, and she delivered a lot. She took some stupid shots, and she fumbled passes she should have caught. But she came through when we needed her. And she's going to have to continue doing it. Avery Warley-Talbert, bless her heart, and that's about all I can say about that.

Tanisha Wright made the right plays at the right time. She usually slows the offense up, but she was running with the rest of the pack tonight. She went hard to the basket, expecting more calls than she was getting. Epiphanny Prince had a rough night all night. Her shots were just not going down... well, except for the one that had to go down. In the end, that's all that matters, isn't it? Well, at least until tomorrow, which now comes today.

I'd love to know the backstory on why Bill didn't take Tina out in the fourth quarter when she was obviously gassed. I know Avery is not an option, but Swin and Essence both seemed to be available. I wonder if it had anything to do with the heated conversation he had with Laura Ramus early in the game.

Fashion report: Brittany Boyd rocked it tonight. Those long, loose, jackets and vests really work for her. Carolyn Swords wore what, in scale, would be an LBD, but can a black dress truly be little if the wearer is 6'6" and broad in frame?

Play of the game: Stoooooooooooookes.

Favorite moment of the game: after Kiah scored on a sweet little drop pass from Tina, or maybe it was the other way around, Sue Wicks, sitting on the endline near the basket, reacted with such joy that I'm pretty sure she wanted that pass in her life. (Or possibly sat down next to Kym Hampton and said, "Hey, Kym, you never passed me the ball like that!")

The officiating got extremely frustrating in the second half. All I ask for is consistency and for people to stop calling Candice for the audacity to be run over, sawhorsed, ridden, tangled, wrapped up, and otherwise physically abused by the player she's on. Call the contact on both sides.

General admission seating continues to be an issue, but the good news is that ushers are cracking down on people in seats that have been specifically sold. The bad news is that they kept hassling the two guys across the aisle from us, who actually had their seats. It was the other people in their row that seemed to be an issue. The only reason I'll give security any kind of pass today is because the Garden was double-booked- there was a concert tonight at the Theatre.

Let's see if we build on the guts of this victory, or if we're too wiped to put up a fight. But y'know what? I'm not going to the gym tomorrow. Because I'm going to the game.