August 12th, 2018: Atlanta at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: A third-quarter run from Atlanta propelled the Dream to an 86-77 win over the Liberty. Renee Montgomery poured in 30 points, including eight treys, to lead Atlanta. Tina Charles had 26 points to lead New York.

For the same old story, same old song and dance, failed defensive rotations, giving up big runs, and the relief of a mercy kill, join your intrepid and somewhat shiny blogger after the jump.

I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see the end of a regular season. Yes, I know the Liberty end the season on a multi-game West Coast trip, because life is pain and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling something. But this is the last time this year we're going ot have to hike up to White Plains, which means I'm done with Westchester County until November, and I can't wait. You know what? Scratch relieved. I'm happy. I'm happy I don't have to keep watching this trainwreck of a season and hike two hours each way for the privilege. And that's with assistance from the team, which I suspect will not be available for the 2019 season.

We play the Dream today, and I'm sure it'll be a good game, with three, maybe four, starters between the two teams injured. Yes. This will be fabulous.

I'm also not thrilled about them rolling Faith and Family Night into Fan Appreciation Day. I'm a godless heathen and I like it that way, and if the God portions are not optional, then I'm leaving. It's the second half of Eevee Community Day and I need more shinies.

The team is bribing us with breakfast before the bus departure. One of my fellow fans is engaged in intense discussion with Kym Hampton. I don't think it's going well for Kym. There are also people intensely watching a Little League regional championship game with the same amount of enthusiasm they would normally give the Mets. Then again, one could argue the Little League team provides the better product.

It's halftime and we're up 48-37. I'm confused. I'm also confused as to how they can call this a sellout with rows and rows of empty seats. Tina Charles has gone off, and Atlanta can't hit. It won't last, I know, but it's fun.

Tina's dad has brought out his most magnificent jacket yet. He gleams. He was crossing the little street between the clock and the arena, and did so without the aid of the cop acting as crossing guard, and honestly if anyone didn't see him there's no excuse. Overheard en route: "Got so many things to do today, and I'm up here." So say we all, sir.

The faith group running the Faith and Family Night event (which was thankfully after the game and only advertised in general phrases delivered with the enthusiasm of a cocker spaniel hopped up on Four Loko) had greeters on the front steps, urging every single person in with "You're amazing!" and "Thank you for being alive!" Since I was waiting for 2PM to come so I could set some lures and catch some Eevee, they were quite annoying. I was not the only one annoyed. I asked the cop if he had to do anything if I "accidentally" projectile vomited on one of them, and he hesitated before saying "No." Managed to dodge them on the way in.

Bad anthem. Never a good sign. Apparently Kym Hampton did her traditional tunesmithing while I was hunting Eevee.

They announced a sellout. The rows of empty seats would beg to differ. And judging from the ushers' approach to general admission being "yeah, you can sit anywhere" as opposed to "you can sit anywhere in the GA sections", something tells me that there was a shifted effect and the people who were like, "naaaaaaah" weren't people with GA tickets. I mean, we got loud in stretches, but after that collapse in the third quarter, it was hard to keep mustering up enthusiasm.

Blake Dietrick got her minutes in early. She's very loud on the floor. I appreciate that out of a point guard. I think the kid in the shirt with Dietrick on the back also approved of this message. The rim did not approve of Alex Bentley's shots- she had a three spin in and out and in and out, and another shot not get the roll. I can't say I'm sorry for her.

Imani McGee-Stafford is so big in real life, especially in such a small arena. She was several steps slow on defense, though her wingspan and the inherent length of her stride made up for a lot of that. For much of the day she looked like she wanted to be a foot shorter and not have to deal with all this basketball nonsense. I did enjoy the jump ball with Kia Vaughn, though. I somehow imagine that iron grip on the ball being a technique perfected against her brother. Monique Billings crashed the boards in one fashion so spectacular it served to confirm her identity when I couldn't see who Atlanta had brought in.

Has anyone made the Liberty aware that Renee Montgomery can shoot threes a little bit? Because she went off in the third quarter and added a couple in the fourth to boot, and I'm not sure exactly where the disconnect happened. Was it in a lack of film study to recognize that that was her shot, or in the help defense not being able to rotate quickly enough to get in her face? Granted, she hit a couple of dramatic contested threes at the end of the shot clock, so I can't argue with those. But it just kept happening. It was ridiculous. She was cold early and then she got on the hot streak. She had a steal right off Tina, too. Brittney Sykes drove the lane hard and got rewarded with calls. Getting hit in the face is not fun and I hope she's okay from it. She's got a lot of ups, too. She took a rebound away from Kia Vaughn, jumped right over and around her. Tiffany Hayes is absolutely pants at following her own jumper because she'll stand there and admire it, but she's absolutely relentless in pursuit of every shot her teammates put up. I wonder if she's realized the hypocrisy there. Watching her on the floor every time she gets knocked down and crumbles like a sand castle, I think we have at long last found a new queen to take the throne of Mery Andrade and DeMya Walker. All hail the Drama Queen!

Has anyone made the Liberty aware that Jessica Breland can shot the midrange jumper a little bit? Because she went off in the third quarter and added one in the fourth to boot, and you've already heard this part, haven't you? She was mercilessly physical on Tina Charles inside, and probably should have been called for a lot more fouls than she already was. Then when Tina was beat up and exhausted, she took her outside for the jumper. She also had a beautiful feed inside to Elizabeth Williams for one of the few buckets Williams scored. Williams was a shot eraser inside- took one away from Kia Nurse with enough force to potentially cause an international incident, had another big one on Tina. She's an anchor for them, the fulcrum of the defense.

Because their defense swarmed. Seems appropriate for a team that plays, however temporarily, at Georgia Tech. They were able to move quickly on the perimeter to cover all our options, and then bring the pain down low when we inevitably threw it to Tina, because that's what we do. Atlanta is an unbelievably terrible match-up for us on a good day. And my understanding is that the last good day was January 20th, 1992.

Rebecca Allen continues to be a useful offensive weapon, though she would be more effective if she could consistently keep her feet behind the line instead of on it. Her defense doesn't work in this system, though, and it causes me to dread every repetition of the Rebecca Allen Experience, because I know things are going to go terribly wrong at some point. Kiah Stokes finally looks somewhat like her old self, but even that's not saying a lot. She had some nice finishes on the inside, but she's still a step slow and not entirely certain on offense. Bria Hartley hit big contested shots, especially in the second half, but committed stupid fouls on defense. (Yes, Bria, that was a foul on the three-point shot by Montgomery. You can't high-five people's wrists.)

You may have noticed the entire bench is squeezed together in one paragraph, and that's because we had four players sitting out from injury or rest. Amanda Zahui B looked sharp and Marissa Coleman looked very pretty. Epiphanny Prince was in warm-up gear, and I couldn't see too much of Shavonte Zellous. Jacket and jeans, I think.

Sugar Rodgers's shot was off, which usually heralds a bad night for her. This was no exception. She was nowhere near being a factor. Brittany Boyd brought hustle and energy, but also recklessness and error-prone passing. I think she's in her own head right now, and it's messing her up. She's always been intense, and I can't imagine that apprenticing under T-Spoon is going to make her any less emotional or volatile on the floor. She needs tempering. Kia Nurse got off to a good start, but sort of seemed to disappear as the game went on. Bria was picking up a lot of her minutes. I'm worried that Katie's inexplicable rotations might be robbing our youngest Kia of her confidence.

Kia Vaughn, bless her heart. I did like the block she put on Williams, and the one finish (on an o-board, I think) in the paint. But her hands are terrible and guards were consistently outworking her for rebounds. It's no wonder Kiah was taking minutes from her. The only question was why Kiah wasn't giving Tina Charles some rest. Tina, of course, was fabulous, and in the early going looked like she was going to win us this game all by herself. But triple-teams have a way of weighing down a superstar, especially when no one else can hit a shot. She looked so tired. I hope she sits out the road trip. She deserves a break. Tina is, in fact, so tired, that I woke up this morning and the banner she signed had fallen off the wall. That's not an omen or anything, I'm sure.

Katie Smith is in so far over her head she can't see light. Her rotations are a mess, her clock management is a nightmare, she has no sense of when to use her timeouts, and the team seems to have tuned her out in record time. You can only say the same thing so many times before people stop listening. This is an absolutely untenable situation for a first-year coach. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, and Katie is far from that (even if she went to Ohio State). It's bad for both the team and the coach in question. Something's got to give. We lost an 11-point lead in something like four minutes. That's ridiculous. That's unacceptable.

Officiating didn't help anything (why yes, how dare Bec have her chest in a position where Hayes's arm might hit it?) but I don't think we can blame that for all our woes. I'd have liked to get a few more calls, especially on what seemed to be a pretty obvious clear path call on Montgomery. But it is what it is, so they say.

Any arena where stumbling out of bounds by the basket puts you halfway onto some excuse for a concourse and a third of the way towards the exit is not suitable for professional use, and I don't want to hear any arguments about the sideline space at Levien again in that regard.

The bus ride back was... interesting. Kym Hampton was our hostess, and she was taking questions the whole way back down, providing insight on player mentality and defensive rotations. I'm not sure I can believe everything she says from the business end, but there was enough I could corrorborate from other sources that I did some quiet freaking out. Story of the season, I suppose. Kym is very charming, and very sweet, and you have to be a particular idiot if you think she's flatout going to say she doesn't like anyone or there's anyone she would prefer to not have on the team. I hope I'm misreading between the lines, because if I'm not, we're going to make some terrible and short-sighted decisions for the 2019 roster.

I'm glad to be done with Westchester. I don't want to go back to that place, where the lighting is depressing, the sound system is unbalanced, the seats are terrible, the layout is nonsensical, the capacity is unacceptable, the staff is unprofessional (woo boy are there apparently some stories about the county employees), and everything about the experience is less than minor league. This is not how you treat a professional team. This is not how you treat the fans of a professional team.

I'm relieved. It's over for now. I don't want it to be over forever. But there's so much at stake. Heavy words, I know, but it's been a heavy season. It feels like we're desperately pretending everything's going to be fine, putting on a show to paper over a disaster scene. It breaks my heart.