Wednesday, July 13, 2016

July 13th, 2016: Atlanta at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: The New York Liberty found their footing in the second quarter and never looked back in a 86-62 win over the Atlanta Dream. Tina Charles led all scorers with 18 points, adding nine rebounds; the Liberty also got double-figure scoring from Sugar Rodgers (13), Rebecca Allen (11), and Shavonte Zellous. Tiffany Hayes led Atlanta with 12 points.

For matching shirts, avoidance, blank shirts, cheap shots, Swedes, the spoils of war, and resting the starters, join your intrepid and mildly embarrassed blogger after the jump.
Grunt. Grunt. Snarl. CAFFEINE. Seethe.

In other words, it's Camp Day at the Garden; for the second time this season, the Atlanta Dream bring an unwanted wake-up call to the New York Liberty.

Have I mentioned how much I don't like Camp Days? Because I could tell you again. I could tell you in detail, if you want. There's lots of detail I could give you.

Atlanta Zerg rushes off, which is annoying, or at least it would be if I were autograph hunting today. (Except for Meighan Simmons, who I guess started shooting late, so she has to do detention or something.)

It's 40 minutes before the game and I think I only see three or four groups. They better be coming soon, or I'm going to be very annoyed.

Ooooh, I like how that dress looks on Gold-Onwude.

At halftime, the Liberty are up 39-29. Strong performance from Rebecca Allen off the bench, and Tina Charles is being the MVP we know she can be. Atlanta's thrown pretty much everyone out there.

Beautiful bilingual anthem- English and ASL simultaneously.

Okay, whoever sold this enormous group tickets in our section did not think their cunning plan through. I think they've got kids clear down from row 16 to row 7, and whoever distributed their tickets forgot to sort them by row. It is very confusing.

To the kid behind me on the left: if your thundersticks go in my seat, they go in my backpack. Spoils of war.

I wasn't watching the rhythmic gymnastics at halftime. Sorry not sorry.

The Liberty are not wearing their #BlackLivesMatter shirts, but neither are they wearing the regular Liberty warm-up shirts. They're wearing plain black Adidas shirts. My guess would be that they wanted to wear them again, but got blocked for some reason. Speak out, Libs! Your voices matter as much as your lives!

Amanda's mom was here, with a couple of Gopher fans, cheering loudly with their thundersticks. She sat a section over from us and a few rows down.

So I'm not actually sure how much Michael Cooper cared about winning this game; it seemed like whenever Atlanta had acquired a little momentum, he'd make a sub and they'd lose some of it. It was strange. I also don't understand the long stretches without McCoughtry.

I love some Cal Bears, because underappreciated nerds need to be appreciated, but Reshanda Gray is not one of my favorite people right now. I was glad Cooper finally gave her a chance in the second half, but it very quickly turned into seething rage after she pulled down Amanda Zahui B. and put a foot in her face (and only because I respect Cal and Gray, and because I didn't see a specific motion, am I not calling it a kick). That earned her a flagrant 2 and a very quick removal from the site of play. Markeisha Gatling is a lot of woman- not very mobile and not necessarily skilled, but if she gets in position, she's going to get the rebound, and there's pretty much no way she's being moved. Rachel Hollivay plays very physical, and today it wasn't terribly effective, and then she lost her temper a bit near the end of the game.

I do not like Matee Ajavon. I have never liked Matee Ajavon. So when Ajavon came into the game and immediately fouled Tanisha Wright by putting her hands... uh, somewhere where an invitation is normally required for hands to be... I wasn't terribly surprised and I'm pretty sure it was a little bit of a mind game. She has an eminently punchable smirk. It's probably not a good sign for the Dream that Meighan Simmons took more shots than anyone else. She got most of those looks in the fourth quarter, though (one of her makes and a couple of open misses were very late, when Shoni Schimmel was on the case). Bria Holmes also likes to shoot, and she gives Atlanta a threat from beyond the arc. Carla Cortijo brings speed and aggression. She had a pretty finish in the second (I think) quarter where all you could do was shake your head and give her her props.

Elizabeth Williams is a rock down low, though her midrange game needs some work. She's a solid rim protector- she had one wicked one on Sugar Rodgers. She's developing beautifully. Angel McCoughtry didn't play all that much, and I'm not sure it was actually in the game plan for her to play all that much- it looked like they were force-feeding her somewhat in the first quarter, which seems to imply that she was trying to get her stats before she sat down. We thought she might get hot in the first, but she forced the issue too much. Sancho Lyttle had moments, but her strength was more defensive than offensive- her shot was all over the place, but she got her hands on a lot of balls (oh, dear Lord, that came out wrong).

Tiffany Hayes fell down a couple of times, and one time she even got the call. She likes that deep three rather more than most teams I think would find healthy. She's reckless and dangerous. Layshia Clarendon played with a lot of energy and speed. She was looking for her shot early, then they switched to force-feeding McCoughtry. I'm not sure how much of that was called and how much of it was desperation.

I feel like Atlanta might have had some idea of what our weaknesses were before the game, when they were shooting from deep, and then they completely forgot about it and went about what they normally do.

Shoni Schimmel sighting! (As an aside, a month too late, we've figured out what her Cheesy Musical Hook needs to be: the opening to any good subway breakdance routine. "What time is it?" "SHOWTIME!") She needs to hit free throws when she has them, and she really needs to be able to hang with her defensive assignment- she's lousy at the switches our system requires. Brittany Boyd brought speed, hustle, and strong disapproval off the bench (she let Gray know how much she did not approve of knocking Amanda over). She's so much fun to watch, and I'd love to see a backcourt of her and Shoni in a game where we're actually trying to score. That would be a lot of fun. Shavonte Zellous is occasionally where offense goes to die, and she really needs to stop begging for calls. But she brings it on both ends of the floor- there was one play where she leaped on a ball that Lyttle was holding and forced a jump ball pretty emphatically, sort of with the enthusiasm one sees from piranhas when they see meat.

Adut Bulgak sighting! They were so adorably happy for her. She needs to work on her handle, which is a problem because so do most of her teammates, so it's not like anyone on the team can give her good tips and tricks. There are a lot of things for her to learn, but I think she has the capability to learn how to get in position and how to scramble for those balls that she can get. I love her flexibility- she needs to maintain that while getting a little bit stronger and adding a little bit of bulk (otherwise she will get very broken and that will give us all a sad). Amanda Zahui B. wasn't as spectacular as she was against San Antonio, but she seemed to get stronger as the game went on, and she recovered well from being taken down. I like that her more successful plays were at the basket, not from the outside- I love to see post players do work in the post. Kiah Stokes hit her shots at the rim and protected our rim. She did some kind of work on the glass. Rebecca Allen had one of the best games she's played in a Liberty uniform. She was hitting from the outside, plus she had a sweet little finger roll down the lane (I believe the usual colloquialism is "like buttah"). She jumped the passing lanes really well- it'd be like, oh, hey, there's suddenly an Australian in the path of this pass.

(Everyone should have an Aussie. Canadians and Swedes are cool too, but we've got the only Swede, neener neener neener.)

Tanisha Wright brought the defensive hustle and ferocity, as well as the veteran leadership (she was talking to the ref after a bad call on Boyd). She's going to be a brilliant coach someday if she wants to be. Sugar Rodgers did the levitation thing again, which was pretty cool. (Off-guardium Leviosa?) She hit the quick shots, which was exactly what we needed from her. She almost seemed disappointed that she wasn't playing more, but honestly, we're going to need her more on Friday than we did today, and I'd rather she save a few of those threes for the Lynx.

Swin Cash appears to have misplaced her shot, so if she could find it again, that would be great. She brings scrappiness and defensive length, which is useful. I just wish she could be more consistent in something other than missing shots. Tina Charles's shot continues to be astonishingly flat-footed and high-arcing, and yet it works. It defies logic- but I'm a Mets fan, so I should be used to athletes doing the impossible. ('sup Bartolo) She did solid work in short minutes. It's good to be able to have her rested. Carolyn Swords was beasting on the boards, which is a good and wonderful thing. Having big games down low from the posts really takes the heat off of Tina.

The officiating was very light for most of the game, then things got a little unglued in the fourth quarter. I don't know whether it was that the officials realized they'd been letting a lot of contact go, or whether Atlanta got chippier as the lead got bigger, or what, but people lost their minds in the fourth. You had Hollivay getting the T, you had the questionable review on Boyd's foul, you had that nonsense with Gray- we were one moving screen away from something really bad happening, IMO.

The problem with doing three camp/school days in the same season is that the place doesn't get properly packed. Camp Days are supposed to be sellouts- 11317 is nice, but c'mon, man. And I bet it'll be the same next week instead of doing one big 17000 and a good 9000 night game. Worse, the kids never really seemed to get into it.

They're off to Minnesota now. Let's see if they can keep the momentum going.

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