September 29th, 2015: Indiana at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: The Liberty went ice cold from the field and the Fever rose to the occasion, as Indiana topped New York 66-51 to take the Eastern Conference Finals 2-1 and advance to the WNBA Finals. Marissa Coleman canned five treys to lead Indiana with 15 points. Tamika Catchings had 14, Erlana Larkins 12 with eight rebounds, and Briann January added eight points, six steals, and eight assists. Candice Wiggins had 15 off the bench to lead New York; Tina Charles had 13 points and 10 rebounds.

For classless behavior, frustration, bitterness, rage, exhaustion, blame-slinging, Greek tragedy, and superficial basketball analysis, join your intrepid blogger after the jump.


I refuse to entertain the possibility that this is the end. I can't go into the game with this mindset. No worries. No fears. No doubts. No hesitation. Can't bring those vibes.

It's been a bear of a day. Stressful and intense. Left my jersey and my hat at home, so the faithful husband had to bring them. Left my phone and my keys at the office to make the bus. This isn't helping.

Tina Charles is burning bright. Everyone else looks like dead coals. I don't know what's wrong with Piph, but it worries me. We're missing shots my high school team could make. Indiana is outplaying us, and it's not like we're making it easy on defense.

I rather question how Indiana had 4 fouls with 6:17 left in the second quarter and ended the second quarter with four team fouls. But the officials aren't yet worthy of blame in this game. We're bringing it on ourselves.

But I have to believe. What else can I do? This is my team. I ride or die with them. This is summer. My loyalties are not split. I don't have a fallback plan.

Right now, I honestly don't know what's more frustrating, the Liberty's ice cold shooting or the number of people standing in the aisles because the ushers can't be arsed to usher people to their seats and get the GA tickets out of already claimed seats. Today has been a hot mess of late-arriving large groups clustered in the aisles.

This had all the fixings of a magical night. The place is packed. Spike Lee showed up, at least ofr the first half. Knicks legends are all over the place: the Pearl, Clyde, Starks. The towels are waving. The fans are psyched.

...and historically, that's when post-2002 Liberty teams most often lay an egg, oh crap.

It sounds selfish to say this hasn't been my day, but this really hasn't been my day. This doesn't help. This was supposed to be coronation. This was supposed to be catharsis. This was supposed to be exorcism, supposed to be the link between the first and the last. Instead, the ghosts came back hungrier than ever, bigger than ever, cold and cruel and taunting.

Hamartia, the tragic flaw that brings down the hero in Greek theater: Piph's shooting, Tanisha's hesitation, Kiah's youth, Carolyn's knee, Essence's body, Sugar's impetuousness, Bill's nonchalance.

23 wins and homecourt are ashes and dust now. There's no advantage when you're not playing. Does the regular season mean nothing? No, it doesn't. This was a hell of a year and a hell of a team. But it's tainted now, overshadowed by the choke in Game 2 and the blown chances in Game 3, forever haunted by all that was supposed to be and all that could have been.

If Piph shot like the superstar she was...

If Tanisha drove instead of dribbling on the perimeter...

If we could hit our free throws...

If Kiah hit the bunnies...

But as a fan, and as one admittedly overinvested in the rise and fall of my team, there's a tiny voice in my head. If you had remembered your jersey… if you had worn the black on black like you did for Game 1... if you'd played through the playlist... if you'd done all the things you did when we won...

It's only weird if it doesn't work. Or maybe it's only not weird when it doesn't work.

All right. Time to breathe around this tension in my chest. I'm really hoping it's just my bra.

Both coaches emptied the bench at the very end, so Maggie Lucas and Jeanette Pohlen got a minute at the end of the game. Layshia Clarendon got a couple of minutes in the first quarter but was not terribly effective, so she went back to the bench until it was time for the victory formation. I miss the gold in her hair- you lose the headband without that contrast against it. Shavonte Zellous was aggressive offensively and generally seemed to be annoying people. She's good at that. Her emotions are a large part of her game, for both good and for ill.

Natasha Howard got some early minutes, but she showed in those minutes that the mental portion of her game hasn't necessarily caught up to her physical gifts. Lynetta Kizer was sorely missed by Indiana in that first game- she stretched the offense and brought physicality on defense. She's one of the most underappreciated players on this Fever roster, and that's saying something.

Briann January was tenacious on defense, fell down with style a lot, and sealed the deal with two late baskets, including one utterly ridiculous reverse lay-up late in the game that might as well have been the equivalent of ripping out our beating hearts and holding them up as sacrifice to the gods. (It's quarter to one, I'm slightly loopy and having a lot of trouble forcing myself to write these notes. If you're expecting brilliant commentary, go read Mechelle Voepel.) She chased down loose balls all over the court and read our offense better than most of our players did. Shenise Johnson and her giant hair did more work inside than out today, which I don't think we were expecting. Marissa Coleman shot the lights out from outside, because apparently we don't learn from our mistakes and don't understand that leaving Marissa Coleman open is a rather unintelligent thing to do. Any chance we had of getting our act together was shot down, and I mean that with a fair amount of literalism, when she got loose beyond the arc. Her height was a help defensively as well.

Erlana Larkins brought the physicality and set wicked screens for her teammates. She made sure the Liberty did not have good rebounding position, and she made baskets in the second half by taking advantage of open space. Tamika Catchings did Tamika Catchings things, but seemed to be hitting the deck more than usual and less of her own volition. She was the star, and she did her job, but she didn't carry her team except perhaps spiritually. She didn't have to. Gosh, that would be nice.

(Yes, I'm bitter like a mouthful of lemon and a spoonful of cinnamon. Next question?)

Erica Wheeler got a moment in the waning minutes and missed a shot over the basket, one of many Liberty players to do so. Sugar Rodgers was guarded closely enough that she couldn't get the looks she was getting earlier in the series, and she wasn't ready for it. (The petty, bitterest, part of me is all like you weren't familiar with that when you were Georgetown? {No, that's not a missing word. I saw her as a Hoya. She was pretty much all there was for a couple of those baaaaad years.}) She had shots. She missed. She fumbled. She made careless plays on the sideline. This was the Rodgers that Minnesota gave away for, ultimately, literally, nothing. Candice Wiggins played like her life was on the line. I question some of her shot selections, but she at least took the shots. She at least stepped up and brought fire to the court. That's more than I can say for most of her teammates.

Essence Carson hit one big shot and one smaller shot that might have been bigger if her foot had not been on the line. But she barely contributed defensively, and she made stupid mistakes with the ball. Kiah Stokes played like a rookie, and like the rookie she was projected to be when she was at UConn instead of the rookie she played like all season. She was late on defensive rotations, she was soft on the glass, she missed bunnies in the lane. We needed her to be rock-solid, and she crumbled.

Our starting backcourt might have been the biggest disappointment of the night, in a night that was full of them. Epiphanny Prince couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. There was a point in the game where she genuinely looked glazed over, like she was attempting to retreat to her happy place but she kept getting distracted. She pulled herself together briefly in the third quarter, but a combination of defense and... you know what, I can't even sugar-coat that bad shooting. When a slick shooter like Piph goes 1-4 from the free throw line, there's something wrong with the player on that particular night. But she's not even the starting Liberty guard I'm most disappointed in. Piph, for all her failures as a scorer, at least rebounded, defended, passed. Tanisha Wright? One of our veteran leaders? One of the players who's supposed to be at the forefront of the defense and the general of the offense? She checked out sometime in the second quarter. Her head left the game and never really came back. No way you're winning a game with a player in that mental condition. She strangled the offense with endless dribbling and made some truly dumb passes. It got to the point where Piph was playing point and Tanisha was pretending to be the shooting guard.

Tina Charles can't do it alone. We've seen how that ends. It usually ends with Tina flouncing (which, see below). She had a double-double midway through the third quarter. But Indiana doubled her constantly, or sent Tamika Catchings (AKA the woman DPOY should be named after someday) at her, or did both. And she had to guard Catch at the other end. She's only human. She faltered in the fourth. Someone should have been there to catch her. Swin Cash did her best. At least she hustled and went to the basket, but we shouldn't have had to ask that of someone who's thirty-mumble and has knee issues. I thought she should have been the defender on Catchings, but surprise. Carolyn Swords was ineffective. She fell down more than usual. She had good looks at the basket and missed. Again, story of our lives.

Bill all but pulled a Nancy Darsch in the fourth quarter, when we were still within range, taking out the hot hands and putting the starters back in. At which point everything went to hell in a handbasket, and by the time we hit the final five it was all over but the crying. (Yes, I cried. Judge me and I will hurt you with pain.)

I'd like to blame the officials, because Michael Price and Roy Gulbeyan are such good targets, but we did this to ourselves.

Even all of this might have been tolerable were it not for the endless seething frustration I spent the night stewing in. We saw an usher for the first time sometime after halftime, after we had missed probably five minutes' worth of game time due to people standing in the aisles and arguing over seats. There was almost a fight two rows in front of us that I still don't know the story behind. And the woman behind us was intolerable. Look, I love fans being loud. I'm one of them. You wanna yell at everyone and anyone on the court? I'm okay with that. But I draw the line at profanity at games, especially when there are children around, and there were two schoolgirls in the row in front of us. The woman behind us persisted in shrieking profanities at the top of her lungs in a shrill, carrying voice that probably killed untold cilia in my ears, even after we asked her to please stop swearing.

And then Tina decided that everyone else had disappointed us (except Candice), so why shouldn't she join the fun? As soon as the game was over, she tried to bolt for the locker room without shaking hands or anything. Swin was not having with that. I saw the play as it was in the midst of developing, so the first thing I saw was Swin sprinting full speed for the tunnel, and I thought she was the one frustrated and wanting to get away from everything. Then I saw her corral Tina and haul her back to the court to shake hands. Well done by Swin and disappointing by Tina. I understand the urge to get away from the scene and either go cry or go punch things, but if you're a professional, you need to paste on a smile for an extra few minutes before you go vent.

On the plus side, the organist is definitely ready for Rangers season. Me? I'm not ready for more basketball yet. I'm taking a break this weekend. I don't care about the Finals- I don't have a dog in the race and there isn't anyone on either team who I care about getting a ring.

Petty? Yeah. Fucks given? Zero.