May 24th, 2019: Indiana at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Teaira McCowan's buzzer-beating lay-up was the game-winner for Indiana in their season-opening 81-80 win over the New York Liberty. Tiffany Mitchell exploded for 22 points off the bench to lead the Fever, with Erica Wheeler adding 16 points and five assists. Tina Charles led New York with 32 points and 12 rebounds in the loss.

For pop quizzes, train traffic ahead of us, literal and metaphorical flaming disasters, snazzy jerseys, numerical issues, and banging my head against the desk, join your intrepid blogger after the jump.

Content warning: there is a cluster F-bomb in here. I was in a mood last night.

This is not a drill. This is a game day. Your intrepid blogger was going to skip this game, like so many other weeknight games up at That Dump, but two things happened. One, I started working from home, which at least lets me start out in civilization instead of suburbia. Two, the start time got pushed to 8 for TV. This is going to make the turnaround to the Sun opener tighter and somewhat more sleep-deprived, but I have Diet Coke. I WILL NOT BE DETERRED. I haven't missed a Liberty home opener yet. It will happen.

Because it's a game day, I really didn't bat an eyelash at the sound of the drumline behind me as I headed to the train, but the two guys staring behind me made me realize that it was live, and also in the middle of Jamaica Avenue, which I can assure is not normal. Well, at this time of day on this particular stretch, in any case. The Ave contains multitudes. But it was like, of course there's a drumline. It's a game day.

Holy Mary, Blessed Mother of Jesus. I got on a train at Grand Central at 6:11. Not only did the door jam on that train, but it turns out there was someone on the tracks at Wakefield and also things were on fire. We barely made tip-off. It's not supposed to take that long via Metro-North. I loathe Westchester. (With all due respect to Shadeen. And Bird Gordon. And anyone else I respect who has reason to take pride in Westchester.)

There was a disorganized shambles at Will Call, but fortunately that was a trainwreck I did not get caught up in.

I forgot how much I dislike the small, slippery, railing-free stairs at That Dump, and the constant feeling I have that I'm going to fall and crack my skull open. I forgot how much I hated the obscured views, and the fact that our last ticket rep put us on the wrong side of the floor so I can't see the bench or who's checking in at the scorer's table. I forgot how uncomfortable the lack of leg room got after a while, or how little space there is to maneuver. Y'all wonder why I call it That Dump, right? Or were y'all not wondering?

The new entrance video is excellent. The song's okay, I guess. It hits all the notes it's supposed to hit.

The new court looks amazing. The NY inlay at center court is so subtle I didn't see it until the lights came up.

There need to be numbers on the front of the uniforms, but I love the black jerseys. The two-tone green doesn't work, but the one-tone black does.

We got off to a torrid start and then fell apart, exacerbated by the fact that Captain Genius Katie decided that the time to rest Tina Charles was right when we lost the lead, instead of when she was missing shots short. I am so done with Tanisha Wright and I am so done with Bria Hartley.

It's 39-33 Fever at the half. Tina Charles has 16 of the 33. Kia Nurse has another 10. I think we might have a balance problem. Erica Wheeler has 11 to lead Indiana. Teaira McCowan is a whole lot of woman.

There is a very large rooting contingent for Shenise Johnson, with (paper) heads on sticks, and a couple of Tiffany Mitchell fans too. And there are Rutgers fans rooting for Wheeler and Laney (where were you guys when we had her?)

Please bear in mind that I try not to swear in the game notes. There are children here. There are ladies here, though I ain't no lady, I'm a broad. But oh my God, FUCK WESTCHESTER. Fuck this stupid place forever. Fuck That Dump and fuck Metro-North and fuck the punk kids throwing ice and fuck the suburban emptiness around the station and fuck the narrow seats and fuck the lack of leg room and fuck that it's a Pepsi joint and fuck the illogical security lines and just. Fuck Westchester.

So, game talk. I can totally do this! I have another twenty minutes before the train shows up! Because there are two trains at the top of every hour and then an hour break! Because fuck Westchester!

Stephanie Mavunga got a little bit of run in the second quarter, but she was slow on rotations and picked up two quick fouls, so she didn't get second half run. It also did not help her case that Teaira McCowan feasted on our undersized posts (although, to be fair, compared to McCowan, isn't everyone undersized?) That is a whole lot of woman, and I mean that in a complimentary fashion. She still needs to add a little finesse to her game, but she has the power, and she knows how to use her size. A lot of tall players are just tall, but she seems comfortable with it. Smaller players, and players who are not themselves small, bent beneath her. She might have trouble staying in for long stretches, and it's clear officials don't know how to handle a player who is both markedly taller than average and built like a brick house. Fouls happen around her. I think she might have blocked a shot by accident, just being there with her arms up.

Have we considered the possibility of guarding Tiffany Mitchell? Because that is maybe a thing we should consider the possibility of doing when next we tango with Indiana. She was very effective getting to the rack and sliding around the defense to take just enough contact to get to the line. She also has ridiculous bicep definition. I am in awe. I'm also glad she went with the blonde tips, and that she and Kelsey Mitchell were almost never on the floor at the same time, because same last name and half the numeric visibility is not a good combination. Shenise Johnson got rebounds to please her fan club, and made a really nifty defensive play that I'm not sure counted as a steal or not because New York almost immediately regained possession. I'm also pretty sure her fan club jinxed her shot by their ill manners, so I suppose there's some kind of silver lining there.

We seemed awfully happy to give up the midrange and elbow jumper to Natalie Achonwa. She seemed awfully happy to take those shots. She's very loud on the court. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, except in the sense that opponents doing good things annoys me. Her hands were good defensively in the paint with deflections. Candice Dupree continues to be quite smooth, and also very vocal on the court. There were times when she was a step slow, when her defense couldn't rotate and she gave up buckets, but she got them back just as quickly on Tina Charles. Betnijah Laney couldn't buy a basket for most of the game (she had one spin all the way in and out) but she made a lot of hustle plays, which I'm pretty sure might actually be part of her name. She had one really cool sequence where she corralled a loose ball without ever losing her dribble yet spinning like an acrobat. That play led to a Kelsey Mitchell basket. She came up with clutch offensive rebounds. I don't know if she should be starting in this league, but she most certainly belongs.

Erica Wheeler decided this would be a lovely night to get her revenge on the Liberty with threes in the fourth quarter to answer any attempt we made at maintaining a run. It got a bit annoying after a while. I am easily annoyed right now, TBH. Quiet game for Kelsey Mitchell, but with the work Tiffany Mitchell was doing to get to the line and to make hustle plays on both ends of the floor, she didn't have to be super scorer Mitchell.

There were flashes of the old Indiana ball movement, which I guess was sort of cool if you're into that kind of thing. Indiana's midrange game was pretty solid and they came up with the rebounds they needed. Once McCowan really adjusts to the pro game, they'll have an absolutely ridiculous low post game.

So... is this how Katie's going to develop Han Xu? Not play her except in case of emergency and never test her against anyone who's in her size range? I'm not a fan of this plan. We're never going to know what Xu can do if she doesn't go up against players similar to her in height. (I mean, okay, McCowan is of an extremely dissimilar build and our poor teenager would probably get broken. But you never know if you don't try!) Reshanda Gray was probably the biggest reason we got back into the game after choking away the lead in the second quarter. She was relentless on the glass and finished well at the rim on her putbacks. She did not draw an easy task, and she answered the call. Huge game for her, and if she keeps playing like this she's going to spend the rest of the season in New York. On the other hand, I had been looking forward to the return of Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe, only to see her essentially mail in her first half performance enough that she did not make an encore appearance. It was bad. Lackadaisical might be the right word. If she's still recovering from her overseas stint, I guess that's a thing, but then, she didn't exactly have to show up, either.

I honestly don't know what to think of Tanisha Wright wearing the playbook on her wrist. In my more cynical and embittered moments, I suppose it means I should be grateful at least someone on this team knows the plays, since I'm not completely certain Katie does. There just seem to be too many stupid things happening on the floor when Tanisha is in the game, and I have a problem with this when she's a veteran player who should know better and should be teaching her teammates better. What did you think was going to happen when you ran headlong into Natalie Achonwa, T? I mean. Physics, how do they work? (The answer was that Tanisha bounced like a rubber ball off the schoolhouse wall.) Bria Hartley came up with some big offensive plays in the fourth quarter, but I'm still not sure why we held out so long to make sure we kept her. Asia Durr looks like she's at least trying on defense, even if she's failing miserably at times in that regard- she had a brilliant block on Tiffany Mitchell, then got called for a foul when trying to make the same play from a different angle shortly thereafter. She's more confident in her shot than she was during the preseason, and even if it's not going down right now I'd rather have her shooting than not shooting. We tried to run the Jewelly-oop with her, and it almost worked. By the end of the season, it just might, and that will be really cool.

Brittany Boyd did a little too much dribbling, but otherwise did not have a terrible game. I'm not sure what it says about her, or us, or Katie, that Bria was playing the clutch minutes, though. Kia Nurse looked like she was forcing a lot of her shots in the early action and really looked like she was trying to make herself an offensive option by sheer force of will. If it had worked, I probably would have appreciated it more. She knows what she has to do and who she has to become for this team to be successful, but I don't know if she knows how to get there, and I don't trust Katie to get her there. Rebecca Allen continues to be the most frustrating Rebecca, and I say this as a Rebecca. She had a couple of big threes and a couple of big blocks, but her ability to move to the next position on defense was sorely lacking, and I'm pretty sure Tiffany Mitchell snatched her soul out of her body on a head fake sometime in the second half. Figure out who you are already, Bec!

Tina Charles continues to do Tina Charles things. You get the feeling sometimes that she's just So Very Tired of having to do everything around here, like she and deGrom and Syndergaard should go out drinking together and comparing notes on having to be The Man. (in the pre-Becky Lynch sense) I'm worried about her missing shots short early, but she found a second wind in the fourth quarter and took the team on her shoulders. She decided that McCowan and Dupree weren't going to stop her, and they really didn't. I don't know what else we can ask of her. I don't know what else we should ask of her. On the other hand, I'm going to need Amanda Zahui B to do... something. Literally something. She missed shots she should have hit. Calling her a turnstile on defense would have still implied that she was present and that there was a cost to get through. She actually got out of the way of a pass at one point, which led to an over-and-back violation and a glare from (I think) Tanisha. She played like she knew she was already getting her money, so why should she bother doing anything for it? I know she can do better. I know she can be better. I certainly am not accusing her of having the attitude of Tamika Whitmore, but the "I have guaranteed money and therefore I can fail" thing is a disturbing parallel that I don't particularly want to draw.

Our defensive communication needs a lot of work. I don't hear us out there the way I hear other teams. Y'all are allowed to talk to each other. Especially when there are multiple players on the floor who generally have no idea what they're doing on defense, communication is key.

So we're going to talk about endgame execution 101. After an extended sequence of offensive rebounds and missed shots, Indiana had the ball and a one-point lead with less than 24 seconds left. What do you do in that situation?

A) foul immediately to have as much time as possible on the clock for the next possession
B) press like hell in the backcourt to try and get a turnover, then foul
C) let the opposing team bring the ball up unopposed and let them run off almost seven seconds out of twenty before your star player goes to the ball and fouls

If you answered C), congratulations, you're Katie Smith and the New York Liberty, and you are part of the reason why I would drink if I drank.

That's extremely on the coaching staff, but that's also on the players on the floor. I'll give Tina a pass, because she's the one who actually took the foul. I'll give Amanda a pass, because she had five fouls. But the other three players on the floor? The coaches? No one looked at time, score, and possession? Really? On a professional basketball team? This is a thing that happens?

Second pop quiz time! I know, it's summer, you thought you were free of pop quizzes, but here we are.

You have two post players, both alike in dignity, in fucking Westchester where we lay our scene. One post player is scoreless with five fouls and five turnovers. One post player has done hard work on the offensive rebounds and helped power the run that gets your team back in the game. It's time to put your superstar post player back into the game. Who do you sub her in for?

A) The scoreless player with five fouls and the defensive prowess of an old-fashioned turnstile (the high-wheel ones are arguably better defenders)
B) The player who has powered your team back into the game

If you answered B), you're still Katie Smith, and while I appreciate you reading my blog, you have better and more important things to do. Like figuring out how to coach.

I don't understand Katie's sub patterns. I don't understand her play-calling. I don't understand her personnel management. Is this some galaxy-brain level nonsense that I'm too basic to understand?

Officials mostly let them play. Not a good thing. Not a bad thing. A thing.

We had to pick up our rally towels at the end of the game instead of the beginning. Not the worst thing in the world, all things considered.

Seriously, though, please don't express your opinion of the buzzer-beater by throwing ice towards the court, or by acting offended that people think you threw it because it's coming from that trajectory.

I think I would be okay with being terrible this season if I saw signs that we might not be terrible. And there are some. I think Asia can develop. I think Kia can become a viable offensive option. I do think Boyd can be a good point guard for us. But I don't know if we have the personnel behind the bench to make these things happen.