July 8th, 2018: Dallas at New York

If they're not going to care, why should I?

I have not had enough vodka for being a Liberty fan these days. It's halftime, so your pregame notes are going to be limited. But this experience is starting to stop being fun. I'm starting to think, "You know what? No, I don't want to go to the game. No, I don't care. I don't want to be here." Well fucking done, Jim Dolan.

Yes, I just dropped an F-bomb in here. I'm tired. I'm tired of playing nice and trying to keep things kid-friendly. Fandom has turned into obligation.

Anyway, we're playing the Wings, and we're down 47-37 at the half, and we started the day off with the bus getting side-swiped and thus losing twenty minutes or so right off the top, and the woman behind me is cheering obnoxiously for the Wings, and I am just so tired. I don't want to be here. This is getting dangerously close to being the end of these notes. Dallas can sit on it and collectively spin. New York can't find their collective ass with both hands and a road map, and I'm tired, and I don't want to be here.

So I'm going to try to write game notes, because it's a 50-minute drive back to the Garden from this dump, and I have nothing better to do. The natives are definitely restless, although people are divided as to whether the problem is our lack of defense, our inability to shoot, our coaching, or a lack of talent around Tina Charles. This is a bus full of unhappy people.

I know I'm supposed to have at least a halfhearted interest in the Wings because of the St. John's connection through Azurá and Da'Shena Stevens, but nope. Nope, nope, nope, that is not happening. I do not like Dallas, I do not like their style, I do not like their players, I do not like their hideous lime green, I do not like them at all. They're nasty, and they're physical, and they have an attitude problem.

This bus appears to have two air conditioning settings, off and "welcome to the Siberian tundra". I would like a little air circulation, thank you very much. It made it so hard to think that I couldn't work on GNoD, which made dragging the computer up to White Plains pretty pointless. I've managed to calm down a little bit from being so angry I can't see straight, and so hungry I was getting a headache. But I'm still tired.

You know what? No. I don't feel like trying to write a detailed write-up of everyone who played, and what they did, or didn't do. I don't. Not happening. So here's the summary instead. Dallas is extremely physical and extremely obnoxious about it. Liz Cambage is an impressive amount of woman, but I think I'd like her better if she didn't flop, if she didn't celebrate random baskets like she'd finally won a gold medal, and if she didn't hit people in the head. Skylar Diggins-Smith is a phenomenal talent and she shouldn't have had to start the second half picking up random bits of trash off the floor. I mean, really. Should we hope the dump disintegrates before the team has to play another game there?

As for the Liberty, pretty much every possession consisted of randomly passing the ball around the perimeter until someone panicked enough to force up a dubious shot that Dallas would then rebound. Too many possessions were forced in to Tina Charles, who ended up being double- and triple-teamed, because why not? The most spark came off the bench, from Amanda Zahui B, Brittany Boyd, and to a lesser extent Kia Nurse. I have no idea why Katie has exiled Kiah Stokes and Kia Nurse. I have been done with Kia Vaughn for most of this second time around, and today did nothing to counteract that impression. Bria Hartley is streaky, and today she was terrible. Shavonte Zellous has got to learn to keep her head, though if she hasn't in nine years, she's not going to now. And it's a bad sign when someone's so heated that Z's the one keeping them from going off.

I just. I can't. I'm out of words. I can't. Tina's trying to do everything, and that's not a good plan. But no one else on the floor seems to be able to contribute consistently, and the players who are contributing don't seem to be getting playing time. I don't get it. I don't get Katie's rotations, I don't get her play-calling, I don't get anything.

I also don't get officiating in this league, but that's neither here nor there, except that it shouldn’t take a review to get a foul called on a shot to the throat. Amanda became quite the folk hero in the crowd after taking that shot from Cambage.

I'm tired. I'm tired of this team. I love them, but I can't do this. And yet I'm getting up at the crack of dawn on Wednesday to go up to Connecticut for them.