Friday, May 6, 2016

May 5th, 2016: Minnesota at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: The Minnesota Lynx raced out to a big early lead, then held off a second half charge by the New York Liberty to win 77-74 at Columbia University. Renee Montgomery had 17 points to lead the Lynx, with Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles each adding 10 in limited minutes. Sugar Rodgers led all scorers with 22 points off the bench.

For bleachers, festivities, funny hats, dogs in ponchos, Talia Caldwell's dance moves, fantasy games, grit, and the gift of t-shirts, join your intrepid and renewed blogger after the jump.
You knew it was coming. Maybe you feared it; maybe you anticipated it. Maybe you didn't want to think about it.

The Game Notes of Doom are back.

We'll be coming to you from the friendly and vaguely familiar confines of Levien Gymnasium, on the campus of Columbia University, as the New York Liberty take on the Minnesota Lynx. Unfortunately, your intrepid blogger has this pesky thing called a job and will have to miss the pregame festivities celebrating Cinco de Mayo. (Which is not to be confused with Cinco de Maya, the feast day of Maya Moore, patroness of large cats and championship trophies.)

Our season tickets look pretty awesome, and the envelope is even more spectacular. (I'm in the profession now, so I notice these things.) The season subscriber gift was a lanyard and plastic badge holder big enough for the tickets. (By the way, our official name is apparently "Liberty Loyal", but that's a stupid name, so I'm electing to ignore it.)

Look. Guys. If you're going to put preseason games in places WNBA games are not normally held, can you please get the security straight? Tell people which door to go through and what to do when they get there. Don't block the door on my husband when you've just let me in.

Maya's having fun out there. Finished her stretches with a couple of 360-degree spins on her butt. I wish the DJ would turn down the music a little, though.

We got maracas! I know, you're excited about the prospect of me being able to make even more noise, right?

There's someone on the end of the Liberty bench who looks an awful lot like Aleesha Powell. Turn around, person with big fuzzy hair! In the end, I don't think it was her.

Hee, Kym Hampton singing along with "Dancin' in the Streets". I'm easily amused.

I think they're still working out the handicapped seating a little bit.

We have mariachis at halftime. Also at halftime, Minnesota is up 44-31, on some really lousy shooting by both teams. Brittany Boyd has got to hit the shots she gets when the penetration is available.

Dude, you can either show up late, you can extol the virtues of Saint Maya to me, or you can come in stinking (and I mean stinking) of weed. You can't do all of these things at once.

Heh. The two Fever gals catching up at the half, Shavonte Zellous and Natasha Howard.

Kiah Stokes did not dress for this game. Street clothes are very nice, though far too many zippers.

We look rusty. Too many missed shots, too many steps slow. Minnesota looks a little rough, but still better than we do. That being said, if we play like this when we have our full roster, if we bring this kind of grit and hustle and three players diving on the floor in a preseason game, if we can come to the point where we declare "this far and no further" and mean it, we have a shot to be as good as we were last year.

Porsha Roberts has all the tools to be someone's Michelle Campbell or Aneika Henry, the player who goes overseas for a few years and becomes a star there before returning to the United States and becoming a solid piece to a W team. She's phenomenally athletic and has a good build, and I like her eye for rebounds. She's not as skilled as she could be, but those things can be learned. Bashaara Graves has pretty good instincts for a rookie. She had a nice steal in the first quarter that led to a break and a lay-up for her. I don't think I've ever seen someone foul out in a preseason game before, but Keisha Hampton managed it. She played like a Blue Demon- in other words, whenever the opportunity presented itself to take a long shot, she took it.

Sydney Wallace wasn't afraid to shoot, and I think that helped her a lot. When she missed, she missed badly, but when she hit, she was deadly. Renee Montgomery is a human pinball, especially on inbounds plays. I don't think she endears herself to opponents very much, judging from the number of times she got tangled up with either Swin Cash or Jennifer Lacy. She has phenomenal quickness and no fear. That floater near the end was pretty clutch. She just rubs me the wrong way, though. Nika Baric was unimpressive, but our PA guy probably wants Minnesota to keep her just so he can keep saying her name. He has a fondness for Eastern European names. Courtney Clements has pretty intimidating eyebrows and a hilariously wild shot. She reacted well on the boards, and she's a good hustle player, but she can be a liability on offense.

Jia Perkins had a quiet game, but that doesn't mean you can leave her open, Shoni. Jia Perkins hits open shots. Lindsay Whalen, like most of the starters, didn't play very much, so it's hard for me to get a sense of where she is this year as compared to all the other years, but she drove a bit. Maya Moore will do Maya Moore things, like hit step-back jumpers as the half expires, or pass the ball under an opponent's leg so Natasha Howard can hit a lay-up, or snatch the ball from Swin Cash like the candy from the proverbial baby. She burst to life in the second quarter, which was really all they needed from her.

Natasha Howard has so much potential, but if the Indiana "Welcome All Post Reclamation Projects!" Fever can't make heads nor tails of her, she might have a long way to go. She's in the third year, though, so if she's going to make a leap, this is the time she's going to do it. She's got to move her feet more and her arms less. Seriously. Sancho Lyttle at and in Houston video. NOW. Am I the only one who sees it? Sylvia Fowles had a big first quarter, getting Minnesota off to a quick start with power moves in the paint. She didn't play much after that, but I think she proved that she's still Big Syl.

I honestly don't know how much confidence Cheryl Reeve has in her team. Minnesota seemed to burn through their timeouts a lot more quickly than the score seemed to require. They've also still got a problem with foul discipline- there's a difference between physical defense and overly grabby defense, and Minnesota's first instinct is to grab. I'm also not sure how much coaching she herself was doing; Jim Petersen was on his feet and doing clipboard magic almost as much as she was.

Elin Eldebrink didn't look quite as lost as her last box score seemed to indicate, but there's still no way she's making this team. She wasn't terrible, and I like her heart, but she didn't show anything spectacular enough to squeeze her onto a crammed roster. Ameryst Alston showed willingness to drive the lane somewhat, but couldn't keep up with the speed of the game and couldn't hit the shots she was given. She's another player who might do better developing in Europe before attempting to break back into the WNBA. Sugar Rodgers had herself a fourth quarter. She's streaky. She's inconsistent. She's maddening. But when she's on, she's a sight to behold. Is there a way to be cool and excited at the same time? Because that's how she rolls. Shoni Schimmel can fire up an offense, but we'd better be in serious need of offense and not defense if she's anywhere near the floor. She's not a good defender. She doesn't know how to stay on or near her assignment. Her lack of movement creates horrific mismatches, and at least tonight, we didn't have anyone who could fully cover up for her.

Avery Warley-Talbert brought her lunch bucket today. She was a huge part of the second-half comeback, playing hard on defense and pulling down boards. It's going to be a tight squeeze if we want to fit her on the roster, but she's been good for us (and honestly, I think we've been good for her- she seems a lot more relaxed than she was when she first started with us). Jennifer Lacy was a tweener, stretching the offense but playing interior defense. She did a good job defending her teammates- there was a sequence where one of the guards got hit on offense, so Jennifer turned around and sawhorsed the offender on the other end of the floor. Talia Caldwell was very physical, but she's not going to get anywhere if she keeps committing offensive fouls. I feel like she'd be a good person to have on the team, but not the right fit as a player. Adut Bulgak has promise, and she had a really nice block on Bashaara Graves. She needs to work on her game, but she's a rookie, that's how they roll.

Brittany Boyd was super frustrating tonight. She got good looks at the basket and got good passes to take those looks, but they don't count if you can't hit them. She brings life to the game and life to the team, but again, it means nothing if the shots don't go down. Tanisha Wright seemed to settle back into playing shoothing guard, but she took a lot of jumpers and missed a lot of jumpers. I still like having her around for her defense, though.

Swin Cash cleaned up on the glass- both of her baskets were on putbacks. She also took charge of explaining to Amy Bonner why she was wrong about things. There was a lot of explaining to be done. Tina Charles didn't play much, but she looked good when she did. She's still a little too fond of the outside jumper for my personal preference, but I know Bill prefers to use her as a four, and that's part of being a four in modern basketball. That doesn't mean I have to like it. Carolyn Swords used her height well to pull away rebounds from shorter opponents. She's got to hit her shots at the rim, and she has to hold on to the ball- there were a couple of plays where she fumbled or dropped passes and rebounds.

We need to work on our shooting. Maybe things were off because we weren't familiar with the sight lines at Levien. Maybe we were tight, nervous, trying too hard because it's preseason and there are a lot of players competing for very few spots. But the shooting was bad. The defense was solid in the second half. That's what we hang our hat on; that's what we make our identity on; that's how we're going to succeed.

Levien wasn't equipped with replay technology, because otherwise there were several plays that would have gone to the monitor. There were two out-of-bounds plays that were sketchy, and there were issues with the clock reset for much of the night. I think both the teams and the officials are getting used to the new rules. It was a tightly called game, for the most part, except for one sequence where Montgomery got tangled with everyone and then Jennifer retaliated. (And the sequence where Montgomery held Swin at one end, Swin hooked back at the other, Montgomery hooked her again, and then the foul was on Montgomery.) The new guy communicates well, but we need to see what he can do in a regular W arena with the usual bells, whistles, lights, horns, sirens, and equipment.

Pretty good turnout, all things considered. I was certainly glad we brought our WCBB seat cushions, though- the chairback seating was reserved for Delta Club, so the general admission seats were in the bleachers.

There was a short fantasy game after the regular game, for some lucky season subscribers to suit up in Liberty practice jerseys and get on the court. Liberty players coached, or "coached", or at least coaxed and encouraged, their teams to a surprisingly competitive fourteen-minute, two-half game. The funniest part was the pregame entertainment- they needed to stall so the players could come out, so they played that game where one person in the middle throws the ball at people and if they don't catch it, they're out. The crowd was quite gleeful when the guy in the middle dropped the ball with three players to go.

The incident mentioned above with security led our long-suffering rep Morgan to hook us up with wristbands to the post-game autograph session. (Thanks for putting up with us, Morgan.) The n00bs were there- Adut, Ameryst, Shoni, and Shavonte, who were all very nice. And then we got bonus Lynx, Whalen and Fowles. They were both very professional, but I got a "er, why are we part of an event for a bunch of opposing fans?" vibe off of them, like they felt a little weird about delaying everyone else. (I also have no shame and snagged Courtney Clements, who was hanging out by the door with Jia Perkins.)

The rosters are really hard to pare down, especially for the Liberty. There's too much up in the air with Piph and potentially Rebecca Allen. I can't even fathom a guess. But I'm looking forward to the regular season and seeing how all the pieces fit together.

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