Monday, July 11, 2016

July 10th, 2016: San Antonio at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: It wasn't pretty, but the Liberty turned on the afterburners to knock off the San Antonio Stars, 75-65. Amanda Zahui B. had 14 points off the bench to lead a balanced New York offense. Monique Currie had 17 in the loss for San Antonio.

For touching on intersectionality, missed chippies, that guy with the Sugar thing, a lack of ball security, activism, and holding on tight, join your intrepid and proud blogger after the jump.
Good afternoon! Your intrepid blogger continues her drawl-tinged adventures this week as the Liberty host the San Antonio Stars.

Just as a warning: these notes may appear to be written by a drunk. I'm not drunk, I'm sleep-deprived; it's like being drunk, but you can do it for free. Went to the Garth Brooks concert last night, which got delayed three hours and didn't start 'til quarter to twelve. I got home at 4:30 in the morning. I'm not used to that. So I'm still exhausted but exhilarated and my filters haven't properly reset.

Monique Currie seems to have picked up DeLisha Milton-Jones's mantle as "superbly hateable on the court, superbly cool off it". She was really friendly with fans today. (And, uh, sorry for accidentally throwing my Sharpie at you, Dearica Hamby. Seriously. I am not coordinated today, but you are- that was a nice catch.)

I wasn't paying attention to the dance troupe before the game. Sorry.

Liberty have black t-shirts for this one, hashtagged both #BlackLivesMatter and #Dallas5. Can't see what the line on the back says. (Oh. Oh, my heart. It's a blank hashtag. Like they're waiting for the next one. Because we know there will be a next one. Or they're waiting to tell their own stories.)

(And I wonder: how do the Australian, the Canadian, and the Swede look at this country? How did the discussion go down? Did the poster girl for Native success speak up for Native American lives? Did anyone utter the fateful words "All Lives Matter"? Is it different if you're white, biracial, black? If you're from the North or the South? If you're a city girl or a small-town kid? Who spoke first? Who spoke last?)

At halftime, it's only 33-31 Liberty, but the reserves got a long stretch of time in the second quarter. I'm not too worried yet. San Antonio can't hit the broad side of a barn from inside the barn, and Tina can't be this bad forever, right? On the other hand, we have no ball security. It's terrifying.

On one hand, that game was closer than I felt like it needed to be, at least until the final couple of minutes. On the other hand, we won by ten with the role of Tina Charles being filled by Amanda Zahui B. and all the reserves played at least a quarter's worth of minutes. On the other hand, I'm worried about Shavonte after that dirty play by Jefferson. On the other hand, where are all these extra hands coming from?

You knew it was "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" time when Jazmon Gwathmey was set to check in at the end of the first quarter. I've been hoping to see her get work done, but she looked very tentative out there (which isn't a surprise if you're talking about a rookie who's barely playing). There was a possession where she had a shot I've seen her take at James Madison that she passed up for a play to the inside (I think that was one where the Stars blew the initial shot but picked up the offensive rebound and scored). Astou Ndour is almost ridiculously tall and skinny; if she played for one of my teams, I'd be able to bring back the old jokes I used to make about Shenneika Smith, about go-go-Gadget arms and the viability of folding her for convenience. She didn't play a lot, which was a surprise, since she kind of did a number on us last game out. Kayla Alexander travels a lot. Maybe Canadian steps aren't worth as much as American steps, so she can take more of them? (That's an exchange rate joke, son.) I like her hustle on the boards, but she's got to learn to play more with her feet than her arms. But one of the silver linings to this season for the Stars is that players like Alexander are able to develop- I wonder if that's one of the reasons they felt they could let Adams go.

Sydney Colson played the part of Danielle Robinson pretty well today, except that she's actually got a jump shot. She was throwing up some ridiculous shots that somehow went down, and could even have gotten a little more help from the rim. She brings good speed for them- she's a real firestarter. Haley Peters used her height to get looks, but she couldn't get them down. She was mixing it up a little bit on the glass, too.

Dearica Hamby crashed the boards like her life depended on it. By the end of the game, you could see how thoroughly her jersey had absorbed sweat- she was soaked with it, and there was a line on her shorts where her jersey was tucked in. Her rebounding was the best part of her game- she had a lot of trouble hanging on to the ball and hitting shots right at the rim (she had some really good looks). Jayne Appel-Marinelli does a nice job facilitating for her teammates as a screener and a passer, but she doesn't bring enough to the table offensively (her one basket was on a play near the end of the game where the defense bailed) or defensively. Monique Currie decided pretty early on that she was the option of first and last resort for her team, and she did well with the mid-range jumper. She used to get a lot of her stuff off penetration, so she adjusted well to our defense. (Saying first and last resort is not to say she was ballhogging, either. First resort- she was making herself an option. Last resort- when the Stars needed someone to score in the fourth, it was her.)

Moriah Jefferson has to have rockets hidden in the heels of her ruby slippers. That's the only thing I can think of to explain how high she goes up and how fast she goes. With the ball, she's faster than a lot of players without it. She has both inside and outside game. She's got such vertical lift that she's able to counteract her lack of height- she was killing us on the glass, and not just the usual way guards get rebounds (either long ones outside or going low to steal them from post players who persist in bringing the ball down). I would like her a lot better if she didn't leg whip Shavonte right at the end of the game. Alex Montgomery got most of her run in the first half, and seemed to be focused on shooting from the perimeter, which is amusing given how we pigeon-holed her as a defensive specialist in New York. She doesn't seem to fit into that lineup.

San Antonio is... not a good basketball team. They need a coach who can work with fundamentals, who can design an offense that plays to that team's strengths, and who can help get them a front line in order.

Amanda Zahui B. put in work today off the bench down in the paint. She got a little foul-happy in the fourth quarter- I don't think she was prepared for that many minutes in a row. But it was nice to see the variation in her game, and to not see her taking threes (and to see her defending them). Someone still needs to work on Kiah Stokes and her finishing at the rim, but I love her defense and her rebounding. Rebecca Allen brought hustle off the bench, even if she couldn't hit a shot. Someone's got to get some of that weird spin out of her shot somehow. It affects her consistency.

There are going to be more nights when Shavonte Zellous doesn't get the calls. She has a persistent habit of going for the contact instead of the shot, of jacking up things that aren't really shots as soon as she sees the potential of contact. She got the benefit of the doubt today, for the most part. I like her work on defense, too. I hope she's okay- she was limping after taking a leg whip/kick to the ankle from Jefferson. We really needed what she brought today, because we were getting nothing out of Swin, but more on that later. Brittany Boyd was the Energizer Bunny that the crowd has come to love- she finished with panache on her first two makes, then brought it home with the jumper. She and Jefferson were going at it hammer and tongs- I can't remember if they played each other, but I thought someone might have said something about someone's mother at some point. It's good to see her bringing that energy again.

I've seen Swin Cash play some pretty bad games in a Liberty uniform, but this one was right up there. Down there. Whatever the applicable turn of phrase would be. She was out of position for her passes, careless with the ball, and just generally off her game. Maybe she was distracted. I don't know. But Shavonte took a big chunk of her minutes, and for good reason. Tina Charles's shot was way off. She was taking a lot of jumpers and not getting in position to rebound them. It's a good thing we didn't need her to be MVP Tina in this one. She had flashes of her MVP glory, but they were mostly in the paint, and she was mostly not in the paint. Carolyn Swords had the big right-handed hook working today, and she was a beast on the glass. I think the competition behind her has lit a fire under her- Amanda's ready to take more minutes, and Kiah's always been an option at center. She has her good days and her bad days, but I'm hoping we see more of the good than the bad.

Sugar Rodgers got off to a slow start, but picked up a little bit in the third quarter. She was fantastic for her size on the boards- there was one play where I swore she levitated across before she landed. Her development this season has been fascinating, and I look forward to seeing more of it. Tanisha Wright still needs to do something about her ballhandling. She's way too careless with the ball, especially when someone's starting to guard her. And opposing guards are sensing weakness and going at her. We really need someone with a solid handle to give her a break- Boyd's not as consistent yet as we need her to be for that.

We didn't play well, except maybe for Amanda and Carolyn, and they even had their issues. But we answered every time it looked like San Antonio might have rallied behind Currie or Jefferson. We shut the door on them each time. Sometimes, all you need to do is do enough to win.

Officials mostly let 'em play all night (we thought it was funny that Shavonte was arguing calls when she had committed a couple of blatant reach-ins with no whistle). We got more of the benefit from that than the Stars did, so I can't complain too much as a Liberty fan (just as a fan of reasonable officiating).

Kind of a quiet crowd, no matter how much we did. Sometimes that's the problem with packing the house (today was "Show Up for Daughters", MSG Family Day, and there was an autism awareness event as well). People who are only there because free tickets were tossed at them don't get as loud as quickly, and for the most part this wasn't the kind of game that would coax cheers out of newcomers.

Any moms out there want a picture frame?

We got the win, and that's good, but honestly, I think the best takeaway from this game was proof that this is a team willing to hold up Liberty's torch, to speak out and say, our lives matter.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please tell me you heard the "SHANK HER" coming from 109... ����

Rebecca said...

I did not, but I should have- that's my section! Are you above or below row 9?

Anonymous said...

I was in row 2 and it was definitely coming from pretty close behind me- I have to say it was one of the highlights of the game