July 24th, 2018: New York at Minnesota

Just the Facts, Ma'am: A strong effort from the Liberty fell short against the Lynx, as Minnesota came away with the 85-82 win. Sylvia Fowles had 27 points and 11 rebounds to lead five Minnesota players in double figures. Tina Charles had 32 points and 15 rebounds to power the Liberty.

For road trips, traveling fans, anticipatory mai tais, pride, injuries, and this team driving me nuts, join your intrepid and tanned blogger after the jump.
ROAD TRIP!

We got off to a rough start on travel, but everything worked out eventually and we are settled into Minneapolis. It's game day on ESPN2 at the Target Center as the Liberty finish out the first half of the season against the Lynx.

So far, Minneapolis is very green and everything seems to be named Target Something. I like it. My feet hurt.

Squad knows we're here.

Target Center is beautiful, inside and out. Sight lines are good, concessions seem reasonable and varied, people have been nice, team store has lots and lots of Lynx stuff.

Shavonte Zellous doesn't look to have traveled. Never mind, there she is under the basket. Epiphanny Prince is dressed and warming up, but not starting.

Dan Padover says “Yeah” a lot. He came over to say hi. We were very polite and did not call the County Center a dump to his face, though we extolled the virtues of Target Center quite a bit.

I am willing to respect the traditions of other cultures, but asking us to stand for a song that's over five minutes long and you only understand if you speak Lakota seems much of a muchness.

I really like the Lynx's 70s soul theme for their arena music.

It's halftime, there are many Lakota dancers in bright, jingling costumes on the court,and the Liberty are leading the Lynx by four, 50-46. I am confused, but pleasantly so. Tina Charles has 21 points and nine rebounds. Kia Vaughn got popped in the face and left with assistance, and has not returned. No one can stop Sylvia Fowles.

This was as much heart and hustle as I've seen from this team all year, and then some. We lost two players for the game, one maybe for the year, and dug even deeper in response instead of rolling over and giving up. I did not think we were going to go toe to toe with the defending champions for most of the game and bring them down to the last possession. This is the team I love, the team I chose to follow halfway across the country, the team I cheer for like a crazy person.

That all being said, what's wrong with Kiah Stokes? Is it still physical? Is it mental? Someone please tell me. Because Kiah has gone from ROY candidate in 2015 to looking like lazy hot garbage in 2018. She's supposed to be a defensive specialist, and she isn't defending. She's supposed to be a rebounder, and she's not rebounding. I would like old Kiah back, please and thank you. Amanda Zahui B makes a lot of mental errors, but she stepped her game up in this one. She made a lot of big shots and did everything we could have asked of her.

Epiphanny Prince looked like she was still recovering from the last injury when she went down from this one. I'm still not sure how she managed to get called for that offensive foul, either. She looked like she was sort of finding her footing on defense, and then, bam. Because we're Liberty fans, and we're not allowed to have nice things, apparently. I questioned a lot of Bria Hartley's decisions on the court, especially her shot selection, though it was nice to see someone with a sense of urgency late in the game. Kia Nurse looked like her confidence has been shot, and someone has to work on her shooting again. (Or possibly light a couple of candles for her. I think she had two threes go in and out.)

Marissa Coleman somehow managed to produce less than her jersey number. And for those of you who don't get the joke, Marissa wears #0. She gave up way too easily on the glass, missed too many makeable shots, and generally looked bad out there. I'm pretty sure that she was rushed back from her injury and she's not at full strength or full speed. Unfortunately, we need her, since I don't think we're getting Shavonte back this season, and our next best option at the three is either Kia Nurse (who we need more as a guard), Rebecca Allen (bless her heart), or Katie Smith (which is probably against some kind of league rule or something). Kia Vaughn could not stop Sylvia Fowles, which, to be honest, is a universal quandary, but her offense was also very bad and she was not good on the glass. I still don't wish the injury on her that took her out of the game in the first half. I didn't see it clearly, but she was suddenly holding her face, she needed assistance to leave the court, she went straight to the locker room, and she never came back out. Either she's got a concussion, she's having her face rebuilt, or she got sucked into a vortex to another dimension. I'm guessing door number one. To literally add insult to injury, she was called for the foul on the play, and while said play was reviewed, nothing else was wrong with it, apparently. Tina Charles went into beast mode down low, bound and determined to carry this team on her shoulders as necessary. She was out there proving to everyone just why she's an All-Star. We asked her to do everything and she answered.

If Brittany Boyd could more consistently hit a lay-up, I'd be much happier with what she brings to the floor. She's got a lot of energy, and I love a lot of the passes that she's able to make. It's the ones that she throws right at Sylvia Fowles that I have issues with. Her court awareness and awareness of the personnel on the court still need a depressing amount of work. Sugar Rodgers did a huge amount of work on the offensive glass tonight. Her shot was off, though- with her, you can tell how her shooting night is going to be pretty early on. I'll take the hustle, though.

Katherine May Smith. Do you understand how timeouts work? How match-ups work? How numbers work? (Well, apparently, she does somewhat- apparently she got her technical by loudly counting out the number of seconds that Fowles was in the lane.) Why take an intentional foul if you're not going to use the time you earn from it to run a better play? Why is the play along the baseline when there are so many ways that can go wrong? The endgame on this was so badly run that the closeness of the game was almost despite everything we did. This is an absolutely terrible position for any first-time head coach to be in, and Katie is in so far over her head that she can no longer see light.

I was surprised to see so little of Erlana Larkins, though I admit she was outclassed on defense. She doesn't have the size to properly counter Tina Charles. Temi Fagbenle came in very late in the first half when Sylvia Fowles was in foul trouble, and then when the Liberty went on a run and Cheryl Reeve answered by pulling all of her starters except Rebekkah Brunson. The Lynx did not get a lot of minutes out of their reserve posts.

Good run for Cecelia Zandalasini. Not spectacular, but not terrible either. Tanisha Wright had an annoying propensity to hit shots right when we were making a run. I am very quickly learning to dislike that woman. Danielle Robinson had a nifty steal off Tina Charles (because somehow Tina managed to miss the woman with the bright blue hair), but I'm starting to see where she can be a liability on offense. We left her open to dare her to take jumpers, and she wouldn't go for it.

I don't know if y'all noticed this, but Sylvia Fowles is really good at this basketball thing. She abused us inside on both ends of the floor. We didn't have anyone who could stop her in the paint on offense, or on the offensive glass. Inside, she had a phenomenal knack for deflecting passes with those long fingers of hers. *flick* and there goes the ball. She's one of the best in the league at using her length to shut down low passes- other bigs like Griner and Cambage can stop things that are thrown up high, but they aren't as good at getting close to the floor. They call Rebekkah Brunson the Machine in the in-arena graphics, and she's just automatic on the glass. It still pisses me off that we had two chances to get her and we blew them both. *fist shaking at Blaze intensifies* Maya Moore looks like she's overshooting everything. She's still deadly as a rebounder and a defender, though. But if I'm a Minnesota fan next year and people start retiring, I might worry about Maya's offense. But that's fairly low on the list of things to worry about for Lynx fans right now.

Seimone Augustus is just so smooth. Her shot is so pretty and she can still break ankles on that crossover. She turned up in the fourth quarter. I think we might have managed to forget her somehow, though I'm not sure how we could manage that unless we were all complete idiots. Well. Okay, there might be some truth to that. Lindsay Whalen showed some nifty passing, though her best pass doesn't go into the box score- it was a Ticha-esque one-handed flip behind the back that would have been a hockey assist even if Augustus had hit the shot. She's still got it. You can see her Minnesota hockey sometimes in her physicality on defense.

Either Minnesota has really good ball movement or our defense is terrible. I think I know the answer to this question, because it's the same point I bring up every game.

I did not realize Georgetown was so well known for their amateur theatre scene. Brunson's reaction time on that hit she supposedly took in the face from Tina Charles was so bad that Neymar thinks she was faking it. (Then again, she missed the two free throws. But it still looked like an acting job.)

I thought the officiating was uneven, and it was very frustrating to see a play called a foul at one end but not at the other. I'll live. It's nothing new.

I loved the energy of the crowd. It's been a long time since I've heard spontaneous chanting in an arena.

I think Amanda's family came into town, because there were blonde people waving at her and she was waving back and poking her teammates to wave back.

I'm really bummed about Piph, because that was bad. She had to borrow one of Shavonte's crutches just to join the huddle, and Amanda piggy-backed her through the handshake line.

I'm still proud of this team. They're mine and I love them. We just need a coach, and maybe a center who can take some of the physical heat off Tina.