Monday, August 21, 2017

August 20th, 2017: Minnesota at New York

Just the Facts, Ma’am: A second-half defensive clampdown propelled the New York Liberty to a 70-61 win over the Minnesota Lynx. Tina Charles had 19 points and nine rebounds to lead the Liberty. Maya Moore had 22 points to lead all scorers, while Sylvia Fowles grabbed 15 rebounds but was held to seven points.

For a lack of substantive discussion, non-statistical impacts, unexpected blocks, flashbacks, taking care of business, and a dangerous kind of hope, join your intrepid and optimistic blogger after the jump.


Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen! It's game day once more at the Garden, as the Lynx- coming off their epic beatdown of the Fever- visit the Liberty- coming off two straight wins against teams ahead of them in the standings. It’s “Unity Day” at MSG, a day for diversity, inclusion, and (one hopes) learning not to be a jackass to fellow human beings. (Which... I mean... shouldn’t that be the bare minimum in interactions between people?)

But before game day, we have a panel! Liberty season subscribers have been given the opportunity to attend a town hall, “From Protest to Progress”. I’ll be taking notes for as long as I can, so these game notes might end up split across multiple posts. Events like these are part of why “non-game event” is a tag, y’know.

Good move, Swin. When in doubt, wear black. It’s been a Liberty tradition for many years, and it’s always a New York tradition. (I think it’s a quote from a bad sitcom, but I echo my dad’s fondness for the line “I’m only wearing black until they make something darker.”)

(It occurs to me that if I plan on having this out for an hour, I should have brought a power cord. I did not think my cunning plan all the way through.)

Readers who are uncomfortable with discussions about race will think they should skip this post, but honestly, if you’re uncomfortable discussing race, you need to be doing more of it. Raise your consciousness. Think about the skin you’re in and the skins other people are in.

All right, our panelists have arrived, slightly past fashionably late, unless my clock is fast. Sue Wicks and Tanisha Wright are holding it down for the Liberty (unfortunately, so is our team president, though he’s at least not on the panel, but we do have to hear him speak).

Sport may always have been a way to bring people together, but it also does a hell of a job of separating them sometimes. I think he's talking more from the athlete standpoint than the fan standpoint. He’s hammering home that the initiative behind this is coming from the players. (He’s also immensely proud of our moderator, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, because of his Detroit roots.)

“Thank you for recognizing my intellectual abilities, but please recognize me for my game.” Self-deprecation is fun sometimes. Dr. Dyson is very impressed with the WNBA’s social consciousness and how it’s wedded to athletic glory.

I don’t think Kaepernick’s decision is an accidental or inadvertent flashpoint, though.

He talks really fast. Bear in mind this observation is coming from a New Yorker.

Quick intro for all our panelists: Kristin Clarke, Juanita Holmes, William C. Rhoden, Ambassador Shabazz, and the two Libs.

I think calling what happened in Charlottesville “serious drama” might be an understatement, sir.

How do we discuss respect and dignity?

(At this point, I realized I was not going to be able to take notes, so there won’t be a separate post for the panel.)

I did not appreciate Isiah inserting himself into the discussion, I did not appreciate the guys bro’ing it up with him (the moderator gave male speakers extra turns ahead of female speakers at least twice), and I most definitely did not appreciate the simplification of the topic. If I had to hear the sports metaphor beaten to death one more time, I was going to go Bobby Knight on the chair next to me. I also didn’t appreciate the condescending way in which Brittany Boyd’s questions were answered. I thought she addressed good real-world concerns about the idealistic aims some of the panelists had.

(And, no, guys. Some of us don’t believe in the same God. Or any god. That was super uncomfortable.)

At halftime, it’s 33-28 Lynx, and it could most definitely be worse. We’ve had our looks, and we’ve played pretty good defense, all things considered. Shavonte Zellous has had both the play of the half- blocking Big Syl- and the facepalm of the half when she blew the wide open break.

Dear torch operator, please do not set Kia Vaughn on fire.

Tina’s dad is spectacularly bright today, in a red/orange jacket and red shoes.

Some people are conspicuous by their absence. They know who they are. They probably wonder why I don’t talk to them anymore. Today hasn’t even been that controversial, except for the panel, and even that was fairly non-confrontational. The teams are still stuck in the BHA shirts because it’s BHA Whatever Period Of Time.

Cooo-ee! I haven’t had a week like this since I was a Rutgers fan! Not for a single team, at least. (The year everyone went dancing is right up there, too.) We took out all three of the top teams in the league in consecutive games. This is awesome.

So, Minnesota. It’s kind of clear they’re short-handed, and I think the losses have changed their style of play. Without Brunson, you lose a lot of offense, and you lose the depth of bringing Pierson off the bench; Howard becomes the only forward available. Without Whalen, the playmaking style completely changes; Montgomery is much more willing to look for her own shot, and while she gets started faster, she often stalls the offense with standing around. You also lose bench depth. I don’t think they’ve adapted well to the necessity, their ass-stomping of Indiana not withstanding.

Cheryl Reeve was feeling reckless and put Alexis Jones in the game in the first half. This was not the wisest decision she made in this game. It was not adventure time, though things didn’t go too horribly. Jia Perkins still has the crossover, and the quick moves on both ends of the floor, but the jumper wasn’t going in with any consistency. Sugar kept leaving her open, and it’s like, Sugar, Jia’s been doing this for probably about as long as you’ve been playing basketball, why would you do such a thing? Natasha Howard is such an interesting player. There are times when she uses her length really well to snag rebounds- she almost had a nice putback on Tina Charles. There are times when you see the potential she has to learn from Brunson as Brunson learned from Griffith. And then there are the moments when she looks so lost. That’s a problem for Minnesota.

I think it was a foregone conclusion that Plenette Pierson was going to retire at the end of this season. Her play in this game indicated that that might not be the worst idea in the world. She still brings the Bad Girl defense, and there was one point where I had to ask whether Texas Tech did in fact sponsor diving, but she relied far too heavily on her outside shot. The three-pointer is best as a weapon when it’s used sparsely, not when it’s almost half your shots. And I realize this is a lot to expect, but I’d like for her to keep her elbows to herself and out of Tina’s throat. Sylvia Fowles was the center of defensive attention, usually with a post player playing her straight up and a guard going low for the ball. The help defense on her was strong. She didn’t get a lot of touches, and the ones she got were heavily contested. She was a beast on the glass, though, especially the offensive glass.

Maya gonna Maya. She skied for rebounds over players who had superior positioning. She hit threes during the Lynx’s attempted fourth quarter comeback. She hit one flying layup on a determined drive that had entirely too many people around us cheering. Please don’t cheer quite so enthusiastically for the other team, even when they make good plays; it's uncouth. Renee Montgomery seemed eager to look for her own shot, and to look for some of the fancier passes instead of the simpler passes (Moore had the same issue- sometimes you don’t need to make the behind-the-back flip, no matter how much fun it is). For some reason I get the feeling there was something personal at play for her, whether it was with the opposition or with trying to prove herself to her team. Seimone Augustus still has the beautiful, beautiful jumper, and the ability to create space to hit it. Her height was an advantage on defense- sometimes we went to smaller lineups, and Augustus versus Epiphanny Prince is a stark size difference.

Reeve is an interesting tactician. I don’t necessarily know if she’s a good one, but she’s definitely interesting. I found her timeout usage interesting, and not necessarily in a good way. I don’t know if the team failed to foul when ti looked like they needed to foul, or if she called htem off to save the points. I do wish she’d stop arguing with the refs quite so much.

Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe looks very, very different with her hair down, straight-ish, and braided a bit. I honestly thought for a moment we’d somehow made a very late-season roster move. She wasn’t tough enough for this game- not physical enough, not strong enough. Amanda Zahui B brought more size off the bench defensively, but she missed shots she had no business missing. I feel like there’s a leap she just hasn’t been able to make somehow. Kiah Stokes was solid in the middle, though it’s funny that she didn’t have either of the most memorable blocks of the game. She was physical on Fowles and came up with big rebounds.

Sugar Rodgers was the shooter we needed her to be today, and she also brought a lot of energy on defense, especially in the final minutes, when she had two big steals and breaks. She was key, and I love it. Lindsay Allen didn’t get a lot of run- she was in over her head more than a little bit, throwing telegraphed passes that turned into Minnesota breaks. Rebecca Allen saw brief time in both halves, mostly to give people a breather in the first and to get Shavonte off the floor in the waning minutes of the second. She didn’t have much of an impact on the game.

It was good to see Epiphanny Prince looking a little more like her Rutgers self. I don’t necessarily mean the parts where she was holding the ball longer than the play called for at the end of quarters, but I loved her help defense- she was doing a great job of forcing loose balls, especially on Fowles. She was incredibly effective and she came up with clutch plays. Bria Hartley has really found her rhythm after we were castigating her to start the season. She still makes more than her fair share of stupid mistakes on the floor, but she’s being more aggressive offensively, and she’s making some better defensive plays. I guess she’s one of those players to whom starting versus not starting matters. She’s been a huge catalyst to this winning streak.

And for all the grief we’ve given Kia Vaughn this season, she did yeoman’s work down low. She got the tough task of being the primary defender on Fowles, and I think she did a great job of it. She brought a lot of good energy to the floor. She’s Kia, so she’s going to have a few bonehead plays where she commits fouls she doesn’t need to commit, but when she’s rebounding and hustling, I’ll take those plays. Shavonte Zellous had the equally difficult task of attempting to defend Maya Moore, something she was less successful at than Kia, but something she also had a lot less help in doing. Z came up with great hustle plays and a big block on Natasha Howard. Tina Charles seemed tired- I think the back was bothering her. Some of those misses were uncharacteristic of her. When she gets tired, she starts jacking jumpers and missing bunnies. But a mediocre game from Tina Charles is a superstar game from anyone else; sometimes I think we lose sight of that.

The defense tonight was on point. Occasionally the help left shooters open who took advantage, but for the most part it prevented more points than it allowed.

Fantastic energy in the building, too. It got loud in the third and fourth quarters, and it wasn’t just me and the husband. It was really good to hear.

LOL of the game: everyone, including Bria, assuming that Kiah had the big stop on Big Syl that led to the jump ball. She was about to check out of the game and the ref reminded her that no, she had to jump.

Officiating was ridiculously Lynx-biased in the first half, more Liberty-biased in the second. Still not great. Survivable, though. (Also, Coach Reeve, I would appreciate you not bitching at the ref when he calls the first foul of the game on your team halfway through the second quarter.)

One of these days we’re going to be able to have a discussion of intersectionality without dumbing it down, and one of these days we’re going to be able to discuss privilege without immediately using it, and one of these days we’re going to be able to have this conversation without simplistic metaphors. We have not yet reached that day.

But I’m happy we’ve reached the day where the Liberty can 1-2-3 the league in three-straight games. :D

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