July 6th, 2019: Minnesota at Connecticut

Just the Facts, Ma'am: In a nip-and-tuck game, Connecticut miscues turned out to be the difference-maker, as Minnesota came away with the 74-71 road win. Odyssey Sims had 21 points and eight assists to lead the Lynx, with Sylvia Fowles adding 18 points and 11 rebounds. Jasmine Thomas had 16 points for the Sun in the loss.

For patriotism, awkward moments with bananas, shooting questions, and the possibility of being in a parallel universe, join your intrepid blogger, in hopes that the next leap will take her home, or at least to a universe where the Liberty have won a title.

Good afternoon, fellow travelers! Pick up your dribble and sit down for a while, because it's a busy weekend here for the Game Notes of Doom. First up, we're off to Connecticut to see if the Sun can get their act together against the ambulatory MASH unit known as the Minnesota Lynx on "Hometown Heroes" day.

Cute pants on Damiris Dantas. Very maroon.

One of the Sun coaches was rocking the Rapinoe/Bird 2020 shirt in pregame. I approve of the sentiment, even if I think Bird should be at the top of the ticket.

Natisha Hiedeman looks SO WEIRD without her 'fro.

Gorgeous anthem by the army band. Recording-worthy quality.

44-43 Lynx at the half. Sylvia Fowles has 14 and I'm sure an ungodly number of rebounds. She, Odyssey Sims, and Napheesa Collier have 35 of the 44. More balance on the Sun side, with Jasmine Thomas and Bria Holmes each having 7 to lead the squad. The defense is not good. Jonquel Jones looks like she's never tried to defend anyone her height before, which annoys me because we know this isn't her first rodeo.

Asia Taylor looks like she wants to be DeLIsha Milton-Jones when she grows up. She doesn't have quite the same disproportionate length as DMJ does, but she plays long, especially on defense. She gave them some good second-half minutes. Alaina Coates got lucky that the unnecessary slam on Courtney Williams was only considered a common foul, because it really seemed like retaliation for Court getting the benefit of an out of bounds call. She was physical, but otherwise ineffective. Taylor's length and superior defense gave her the advantage.

Shao Ting is... she's trying, she really is. She seems really happy to be out there, and I'm sure she's a great teammate, but she looked absolutely lost out there- scrambling constantly on defense, in over her head on offense. I understand Reeve not going back to her in the second half. Lexie Brown and her incredible kicks hit a couple of big threes in the second half. She seemed to have a little bit of a chip on her shoulder regarding her former team, and a couple of her former teammates didn't seem to miss her all that much either, if the extra nudges were any indication. I don't know if I'd have had her inbounding the ball at the end of the game, though; Rach forced her into a timeout to avoid an inbounds violation, and almost drew a second one. But I couldn't help wondering where those three-pointers were when she had a Sun uniform on.

Seriously, though, who opened the portal to the parallel universe where Danielle Robinson shooting corner threes is a thing that happens on a regular basis? I don't know what to do with this! Like the bad actress in the Symetra commercial, I am confused! It seems like some of her driving game has gone away, although I don't know if that's out of necessity or because of her injury history. Odyssey Sims hit contested shots and didn't always hit open shots. I could make a petty remark about her wild driving ability, but I'm sure you know I have standards, right? I'm one of them classy broads.

Stephanie Talbot, despite the lack of statistical impact, actually started the game off really well, setting solid screens and playing good defense. She got good looks and couldn't put them down. I'm not sure how I feel about her being so perimeter-oriented on offense. Napheesa Collier is an immovable object on defense. She doesn’t have the size, but she has a solid build and has mastered the art of holding her ground, using her body to disrupt the balance of taller players. I didn't know she had a perimeter shot, either. Her height is a bit of a detriment on the inside offensively against taller players, but it all balances out. Sylvia Fowles can do pretty much whatever she wants inside, and it got a little frustrating after a while. She has such a knack for finishing at the basket. She had a pretty spectacular block, too.

I don't know how Minnesota's doing it. Admittedly, having Sims and Fowles are two very useful pieces, and Collier has been the revelation of this rookie class, but there are a lot of complementary parts that have to complement for this kludged-together team to work.

I'm not going to say that I love Rachel Banham's defense, but it's something she definitely seems to have applied herself to, and she has her moments, such as the inbounds defense at the end of the game. She's growing on me. I'd like to see a bit more discernment in her shot selection, but that's part of who she is. At long last, we have had a Natisha Hiedeman sighting, and she made a splash with a steal on her first play of the game. I'm biased, of course, but she looked like she belonged out there. Connecticut used her speed to have her double on the perimeter, while her primary assignment seemed to bounce between Brown and Sims. Morgan Tuck only played in the first half, and hit a three to the roar of the crowd. But Coach Miller tightened up his rotation in the second half, and leaned heavily on Rach and the starting guards.

Bria Holmes got off to a rough start with a missed chippie, but made up for it with the rest of her offense and her dogged defense. She's been improving since the start of the season, and it really looks like she's found her stride. I'm also happy to see Kristine Anigwe getting more time. She gave as good as she got against Fowles, which is a pretty tall task for a rookie. I like the development I'm seeing from her, although I realize this probably means she's going to hit the rookie wall in a month or so. (And of course I'm worried about Brionna Jones, and I don't know whether to hope that she's just been passed over in the rotation or be concerned that she's injured.)

So now we have to talk about the starters, which means the question of what the heck happened to Jonquel Jones has to be raised. I know some of the answer to that question is "Napheesa Collier happened"; JJ doesn't run into a lot of players who are as comfortable inside and outside as she is, and probably even fewer who are comfortable doing it on defense. Collier got up under her well, and then if she went inside, there was this problem named Sylvia defending the rim. But Jonquel also looked flat. Too many of her shots were the same sort of short casual shots we yell at Tina Charles about in New York. She doesn't have to do it alone. Although I'm wondering if something is up with Shekinna Stricklen. She barely played in the second half. I mean, okay, she's not exactly known for her defense, which seemed to be Miller's focus in the second half, but there were some sequences in the fourth quarter where having both of the splash sisters on the floor could have been useful. (No, I can't believe I'm saying this either. Maybe I fell into the mirror universe instead of the alternate D-Rob sneaking through to ours.) Alyssa Thomas continues to be a human wrecking ball, and throwing yourself in front of her continues to be a terrible life choice. I'm worried about her shooting; there are moments when I wonder if she remembers which hand she wants to be shooting with.

Jasmine Thomas had a good shooting day, and she absolutely murdered Talbot's ankles on a crossover, but as a point guard, she's looked uncharacteristically hesitant the last couple of times I've seen her. She and her team are running too much clock, and that doesn't fit with their pace. The passing and the chemistry aren't there. This seems like a good thing to be worried about. If your point guard and the rest of your team aren't on the same page, you might need a new book. Either that, or see previous comment about parallel universes. Given that I appear to have watched this game in a universe where Courtney Williams takes contact willingly, I'm starting to wonder. She did not do a good job finishing at the rim. She's always been streaky, and that's the risk you take with her. She went up for rebounds, but she didn't come down with as many of them as she usually does.

I think the possession where we had four shots, missed them all, got the foul on Minnesota, had Court miss the "heck with it, I'm bored" shot after the whistle, and then had JJ miss the first free throw really encapsulates our offensive woes here. There were stretches of being unable to hit water falling out of a boat. I don't think all of that was Minnesota's defense.

I'm amused that the officials finally remembered what a three-second violation was in the second half. I'm less amused that they missed a blatant trip. (On the other hand, some of the plays that the home crowd was baying their fury about were legit. No matter how tempting it is to give Sims an unnecessary shove in the back, AT should not have given in to temptation. And the out-of-bounds reversal was probably because there was an uncalled foul that should have been called.) I'm annoyed they were so slow on the call, though.

How does Cheryl Reeve get so much slack from the officials? Shut up or switch to decaf, Cheryl.

The four-year-old who couldn't remember her lines and forgot how to stop dribbling was adorable.

Having Rachel Banham give the pro-police (and pro-first responders in general) message was very shrewd and very carefully balanced. I doubt anyone's really going to internalize the message, but they tried.

The Photoshop jobs on the various All-Star ads varied in quality- I thought the JJ/House of Cards and Jas/Scandal ones were the best by far.

Alyssa, you miiiiiiight want to enunciate the first word better when introducing a segment called "Pitch, Please". Unless there's something you want us to know about Jasmine? (Jas... did not do well with it. Honestly, she was funnier scrambling to cover her pitch afterwards than she was giving the pitch. Full disclosure, though: I'm married to a salesman, so I kind of look at these things with a professional eye.)

It sort of spoils the dramatic reveal of the selfie section if you can see the staff giving out the cards beforehand, I'm just saying.

Having the bench step their game up does not mean that the starters can slack off. Connecticut needs to get their act together. Just not against New York. :D