June 24th, 2016: Chicago at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Chicago got off to a strong start and erased most of a big lead near the end- but New York held the Sky off, 80-79. Tina Charles led New York with 21 points and 13 rebounds. Elena Delle Donne led all scorers with 31 points, while Cappie Pondexter added 20 for Chicago- but no other Sky player had more than nine.

For sleepless nights, the speed of Sugar's shot, Tina Charles being the boss, misplaced courtesy, too much yellow, just enough maroon and gold, role reversal, rocking out, and glorious rainbows, join your intrepid and stressed blogger after the jump.
Good evening, gang! We're coming to you in glorious color from Pride Night at Madison Square Garden, where the New York Liberty take on the Chicago Sky. Everything is in rainbows. We all have rainbow wristbands with the #OrlandoUnited hashtag.

Whether by coincidence or design, Shavonte Zellous is on the front of the roster cards for this game. There's also a Pride version of the Liberty logo, with the WNBA Pride ball replacing the usual flaming basketball.

No H8 set up shop in the Garden lobby for photos and temporary tattoos. Very popular, obviously.

This is why you can't afford to be a nice person when autograph hunting: I passed up EDD because I thought she was in a hurry to stretch. And then for the first time in as many years as I can think of, the road team went out the other tunnel. Missed 'em all. RAEG.

Both teams have the #OrlandoUnited shirts, though it took a moment for Swin to get hers on.

Anthem was excruciatingly screechy. Girrrrrrl, just because you're small and blonde and pretty does not mean you're Kristin Chenowith.

At halftime, the Libs are up 50-40 on Chicago and we're rocking out to a Led Zepplin cover band, Lez Zepplin. Chicago's stars have been superb- but only four Sky players have scored. Meanwhile, the Liberty are clicking on all cylinders, getting short bursts of greatness from Amanda Zahui B and Rebecca Allen. I'm going to need everyone to get off the wi-fi so I can check mail and things, because reasons.

MSG, y'all gotta do something about general admission and security lines. Way too many people being hustled around and seat-jumping, way too many people coming in late.

Dear my Liberty, I'm going to need you to stop milking these leads down until they're almost gone, or in some cases completely gone and then returned. My family has a history of heart problems on both sides and I'm going through a lot of stress right now. I can't afford another round of Maalox Moments.

Chicago can either have a plethora of blondes or they can have the yellow jerseys. They can't have both. Personally, I'll take Delle Donne, Quigley, and Vandersloot over those gold jerseys if I'm a Sky fan.

Cheyenne Parker is very pretty and very enthusiastic out there, but so far she's not very impressive. Imani Boyette is already ahead of her in terms of talent and in terms of using her height effectively. She seemed to get stronger as the game went on- maybe it was a matter of match-ups, maybe she was finding her confidence. But the tall girl was using her height on both ends of the floor. She had a very emphatic get-that-outta-here block. It's clear that she's going to be Chicago's center of the future. Jessica Breland played a little in the first half, but she was getting beat pretty handily on defense and picked up a couple of quick fouls. I'm not even sure she played in the second half or if Chatman just rolled with Boyette for all her post reserve needs.

Jamierra Faulkner is so very fast. She's fun to watch when she's running at full tilt, but sometimes her speed betrays her. There was one play where she thought she had an open lane, raced for it like it was the last open parking space on the block, and then got Stoked. (That's going to be a thing now.) I respect her willingness to attack the rim, but you got to know when to walk away and know when OH DEAR GOD IT'S KIAH STOKES RUN RUN NOW RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. Allie Quigley found space in the midrange in the fourth quarter, because it is known that if you're a Big East fan from a certain era, you are cursed to be forever haunted by Quigleys. (Unless you're a DePaul fan, in which case it's more like, "Hey, girl, how you been?" But among my people, Quigley is a swearword, shrieked defiantly with a fist jabbed at the heavens.)

Érika de Souza got the start, but it almost seems ceremonial at this point. She's not terribly mobile on either end of the floor. She got rebounds, but I think she needed the help of her teammates with boxing out to get those boards. When Carolyn Swords is making you look bad, it might be time to consider ending a sterling WNBA career (that had an unfortunate detour, but we don't speak of it). Tamera Young's shot continues to be strange and funky, and she should not shoot the ball as often as she did. She's great on defense- she's part of how they can swarm so quickly on the ballhandler and bring pressure in a hurry.

Elena Delle Donne defines positional boundaries and paragraph boundaries, because that's how she rolls. She killed us. She almost completely killed us dead, and if she had been going for the game-winning shot instead of the game-winning free throws. We had no answer for her on defense- she was too quick and fluid on the perimeter, but too tall for the guards to cope with. She's improved her defense as well, and she's picked up some of La Leslie's dirty tricks down low (the casual elbow, the slew-foot). She's really devoted herself to becoming a true franchise player, and I have mad respect for that.

Courtney Vandersloot has amazingly quick hands, especially on defense. If you are in the least bit careless with the ball in front of her, that ball will be hers. She had a beautiful strip in the first quarter that had me all but dropping my jaw. She seemed a little more reliant on the long ball than she perhaps should have been. Cappie Pondexter started off red hot, but she does have a tendency to try and do everything herself, and near the end of the game I think that came back to bite Chicago. This is not to cast any shade on her basketball skills, but instead on her timing of them. There was one play (that, to be fair, worked out for Chicago, as she beat the shot clock buzzer) where Boyette had Sugar Rodgers on her, but Pondexter chose to keep the ball.

I'm not entirely sure Chicago has endgame strategy other than "stop the ball" or "give the ball to Elena".

Rebecca Allen, welcome back to New York, we missed you, please don't leave or get hurt ever again. She was a huge boost off the bench, disruptive on defense and stretching the offense. She fit back in like she never left. I forgot how good "AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!" "OI OI OI!" felt to belt out after a three or a big hustle play. Rebeccas are awesome and Australians are awesome and Bec is pretty awesome. Amanda Zahui B had a very nice stretch in the first half where she and Brittany Boyd were clicking, but I think Bill's got her on a short leash when it comes to fouls- the silly foul she committed seemed to be her cue to take all the seats and never look back. I would have liked to see her get a few more minutes to give Tina and Kiah a break. Kiah Stokes was a defensive beast and did a lot of big work on the offensive glass. She picked up steam as the game went on, going up strong on the boards for put-backs to finish second and third chances.

Brittany Boyd needs to finish at the rim, and in general find her shot. She increases the pace of the game, but that doesn't matter if she's stagnating the offense by slowing down point production. Watching her and Faulkner go at each other was a blast. Shavonte Zellous hustled hard on defense, disrupting plays all over the place, but she's got to hit her jumpers.

Tina Charles continues to be fantastic. She had that double-double by the third quarter. But you could tell she was starting to wear down by the end of the game. There's only so much even a superstar can do when she's triple-teamed constantly. Her shots were starting to fall a little short. I think the mask may also have been affecting her vision, because otherwise I don't think she would have done the show-the-ball trick in front of Vandersloot. Carolyn Swords started off the game really well, then went to the bench for Kiah and was barely seen again until the end of the first half. She had a rough go of it to start the second half- stupid fouls, careless plays- and someone lit a fire under her somewhere along the line, because that was when she started taking on de Souza and going harder after the ball (when Carolyn hits the floor, it's a physical game and she's going hard). She cleaned up some good loose change. Swin Cash hit buckets at the right times, whether it was to spur the comeback in the first quarter or fend off the Sky in the second half.

Ball security, Tanisha Wright. She usually made up for dumb turnovers within a few plays, but she still has to be more careful with the ball. I'm a little worried about her jumper, too. She gets the job done, though. Sugar Rodgers had a slow start, and got caught on some really awkward defensive switches, but once she found a little space in the second half and stopped hesitating to shoot, she got fired up. Tina's going to be Tina, but we need Sugar to be something special if we're going to succeed.

We realized the officiating was going to be a problem when we saw both Michael Price and Kurt Walker amongst the crew. Walker already had a burr under his saddle pregame, when he looked like he thought the Liberty were taking too long to take the court. Lots of missed calls all night, and they affected both sides. I thought Pokey was going to flip her lid when Delle Donne went down after the push from Kiah. Just terrible refereeing all around.

Shoutout to our Gael homies who sat by us for a while and remember when we weren't the loudest people in the room (that would be Damika's family).

Also, shoutout to the French coach who showed up and was pretty impressed with everything. And to the Swedish fans with their Swedish flag! International basketball fans are awesome. Basketball is basketball, no matter what language it's in.

Adut Bulgak is pretty good at charades, but asking a Canadian born in Africa to mime being a cowboy will only end in hilarity.

We won despite their superstars being superstars. We've been winning by shutting down stars and getting killed by roleplayers; this game was the complete opposite, and I think it's a good sign that we can be that versatile. But we've got to find more consistent offense from people who aren't Tina...