October 20th, 2024: Minnesota at New York (Game 5, WNBA Finals)

we back in this bitch and back on our shit  

A little late, but you didn't think I wasn't going to write about this, did you? So I don't forget. So we don't forget.

Of course there were Lynx fans in front of us. Perfectly nice people despite me passive-aggressiving all over them, but I sit in a section close to the Liberty bench and I keep expecting other people to consider sitting near their own bench when they travel.

When the shots were short and flat early... when the passing was sloppy and Napheesa Collier was playing like a woman possessed...it was such a strong feeling of "oh, no, here it goes again, should have known, should have known again". Game 4 against Las Vegas all over again. 2016 against Phoenix all over again. Nikki Teasley all over again. The inverse of the Charlotte miracle all over again. New York ain't for everybody, and in that first half it looked like it wasn't for the Liberty. 

But I forgot the one thing that's been consistent through this entire heavyweight title fight of a series, the one common thread. It wasn't about the first punch in any of these games. Every single time, it was about the finishing kick. And at the end of the first half, Leonie said, "Nein." And Jonquel said, "NOT AGAIN." And Breanna was there for the rebounds. 

Sabrina's shot in Game 3 is the most important shot in Liberty history now. Ruocco's statement, hyperbolic at the time, has been vindicated. But... mirrors. The most iconic shot in Liberty history came from a player who was never a shooter. The most important shot in Liberty history came from a player who is known as a shooter... but the performance that won her, won them, won us, a championship, was a master class in finding the right person at the right time, and in using every inch of her frame horizontally and vertically on defense. Sabrina played probably the most T-Spoon game of her life. 

Courtney Williams will probably hate me for quoting her in this place, at this time. But it's as true for the 2024 Liberty as it was the 2019 Sun: role players did that. The golden children who were supposed to lead us to the promised land couldn't hit water falling out of a boat- so they became role players in their way. Everyone forgot about Jonquel (including, sometimes, Sandy), but she powered through exactly when we needed her. But the biggest moments? The key pivots? Role players did that. Spare parts in multi-team trades did that. The second post off the bench did that.

 *sigh* yes, we will get this out of the way, because I strive to be honest where and when I can: the "REF YOU SUCK!" chant while Alanna Smith was lying on the floor once again trying to remember how her spine worked was completely unnecessary. That was a foul on Jonquel. Thank you to whoever in the crowd pivoted it to "WE ALL WE GOT/WE ALL WE NEED". I cannot speak on the final call in regulation, because I didn't have a good angle to see it. But refs in this league have always lagged well behind the skill, speed, and strength of the players. They've never been consistent and they've always been weak to pressure from the last person to yell at them. If you're in a position where you think you lost because of a call at the end of the game, there were other problems that were within your control to fix and you should have fixed them. 

Here is what I remember of the end of game: how clutch it was that Kayla had the ball when Minnesota had the foul to give, because she was in a position where either Carleton was going to foul out or Collier was going to foul out. And it was Collier who took the foul. I don't think Minnesota believed it. I don't think she believed it. And then the turnover. Leonie getting the steal. Time ticking away. Oh my God. They're not fouling. They're not- Buzzer. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD! Incoherent screaming. 27 years. 27 fucking years. Hugging, high-fiving. Calling my mom down in Carolina to try and get a video chat going so she could join in. Finding the friends we've known for years, for decades. Hugging. High-fiving. Kissing. Calling my mom again and just screaming over and over again, "WE DID IT! WE DID IT!" at the top of my lungs, all lessons about projection and diaphragm usage forgotten. 

The players starting the MVP chant for Jonquel, who deserves the world. How stunned she looked to get that award, because the blocking sure looked like stats be damned, they were gonna feed the narrative and give it to Breanna. One hand on MVP trophy, one hand on championship trophy. 

The fans starting the "SA-BA-LLY" chant for Nyara. Oh my God. This is a city about the hustle and the grind. You put in the work and we don't care who you are, you belong. And Nyara should have gotten game ball. Really, Nyara should get whatever she wants and if she has to buy a drink in this town ever again, what are we even doing here? For her to come back from the injuries that she has, for her to be put on the spot and rise to this occasion... it's just so much. Everything is so much right now. She rose to the occasion, and her name thundered through the Barclays Center at the end of the night. Nobody else really got that. Even the MVP chants for Jonquel weren't as loud or as strong. 

27 years. There's going to be a post about that, too, about all we were then and all we are now. It's a series of jump cuts, crossing 27 years, 28 seasons, however you want to do the math. There's a lot of heartbreak in those years. There are a lot of good memories, a lot of bad memories. We've fallen down the mountain more than anyone else, and it's good, it's so good to finally be on the mountaintop. It's glorious. It's surreal. It's everything. 

 In conclusion I love everyone in this bar.

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July 27th, 2019: All-Star Game

Yes, I did actually survive Las Vegas, thanks for asking.

You may be wondering why it's taken so long for me to get my thoughts together about All-Star.

Or maybe you haven't. I see the page views. I know there aren't that many of you out there.

And writing the GNoD has gotten a lot harder with part of the casing for my laptop snapping off, and thus the hinge breaking and occasionally having the screen fall out at one corner. Yeah. Fun times. It's a bad sign when the electrical tape isn't enough, right? I didn't handle the heat well, either. While MGM has been great for the league as the Aces' ownership, and while they put on a heck of an All-Star weekend, I do not think that holding All-Star in a desert city at the height of summer is a good idea. So, sorry, Vegas, and sorry, Phoenix, but this is not a thing that can happen. If it does, I'm not joining you. I was genuinely freaking out at my brain fog by the end of the trip. Like "do I have enough PTO to schedule a visit to a neurologist?" freaking out.

Typing on the tablet is a lot harder. I'm just grateful that the Mandalay security either didn't recognize it as a tablet or decided that it was not the droid they were looking for, because trying to make in-game notes with just my phone would drive me up the wall.

Leg room is definitely a problem. I'm taller than the average woman, but not by much, and my knee was hitting the back of the row in front of me. During the actual game it wasn't so bad, but that was because we were directly over the stairs, which meant that we were looking at the game through the railing. All things considered, still better than the knee pain induced during open practice.

I think I've said this before during All-Star games, and I'm sure I will go as ignored as I did all the other times, but I want to see players doing what they're good at, not just goofing off. Yes, it was fun to see Griner throw down dunks (even though I'm pretty sure she hurt herself on the extended hang during the twohanded jam, although that might also have been because Cambage was an idiot and didn't give her enough space to land). But it might have been fun to see Cambage and Jonquel Jones throw it down. I get enough of Tina Charles chucking long jumpers when she's in a Liberty uniform. How about some of that gorgeous hook shot? Two brilliant coaches and two point guards with flair, and no one could think of throwing a Jewelly-oop? (OK, bad example there, there was one attempted alley-oop, but not to Loyd.) You have point guards who can make magic happen on the break and you have Alyssa Thomas, The Human Wrecking Ball, and these pieces were not put together often enough for my satisfaction. And that's not even getting into players whose best skills are defensive. Admit it, wouldn't you like to have seen one of the bigs swat a shot into the fifth row and ham it up?

Admittedly, it was fun to see the bigs handle the ball like point guards, and Cambage's handle isn't terrible, at least in a game with no defense.

The live-ball subbing wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, mostly because it seemed like neither team really had a good sense of how to use or abuse it. The shot clock reduction, however, was completely unnecessary; All-Star games are fast-paced anyway, and the clock never had a chance to get down that far.

I admit it, I bought the bottomless popcorn for the sole and express purpose of laying claim to one of the nifty basketball bowls. And because I have no shame, I fished out another one from the garbage. Now we have a matched set. The popcorn was mediocre, but I think the good stuff was sold in the smaller bags, and not in the giant movie-theater vats. The concession prices seemed reasonable. I can see a family of four getting very good value out of that bottomless popcorn.

If you weren't crying at Erica Wheeler getting All-Star MVP, you have no heart, and you have no soul, and frankly, I don't want to know you. Everyone was at least a little choked up.

Merchandise and space for merchandise at the event was not handled well. There was a very limited offering at the fan fest, at least when we were there. And while there was a merchandise stand set up at the entrance to the arena, that was it. The line was out the door both Friday and Saturday. You'd have been better off getting your merchandise online or at your local arena after the fact. (On the other hand, I loved seeing Aces merchandise in every MGM-owned property's souvenir shop, and there was a secret stash of All-Star gear at the Nike store at Miracle Mile.)

I loved seeing fans from every team at the game. WNBACon is best con.

So that's it for the GNod for this season. Between my laptop's issues and my ennui with the season, I’m taking the rest of the season off as a chronicler. You could argue that I'm not really needed anymore at the W level, that social media and online coverage have both advanced to the point where all the little things you see at a game have been covered by someone who's already there. I'm proud of that. And it means I can enjoy the game, or at least enjoy the ride home without having to work. So I'll see you lot in November, hopefully with a new computer, or at least with a good wireless keyboard that I can connect to my tablet.

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July 26th, 2019: All-Star Skills Challenge/3-Point Shootout

Las Vegas too hot for bebe.

Fan Fest is pretty cool so far, although the beverage prices are an obscenity. $6.50 for water?

Shout out to the lady in the Shock shirt from Oklahoma, to the San Antonio jersey, and to the lady in the home Wicks jersey. So far I've seen gear from Connecticut, Dallas, LA, Las Vegas (obviously), Minny, New York (not us), lots of Phoenix, lots of Seattle, and Washington. I thought I saw Chicago, but now I'm not sure. No Atlanta, no Indiana.

Merchandise selection is a bit limited. Hoping for better on game day.

One of my friends has informed me that a) Helen Darling, of all the random alumnae, is here, and b) her triplets are 17, and I object to this reminder of my mortality when I'm on vacation.

The passport stamp idea was cute, but the inconsistent requirements were annoying. The stamp at Kaiser Permanente is especially obnoxious.

I don't think Stefanie Dolson's calling is the DJ booth.

Mandalay has a very nice arena, but the seats are uncomfortably narrow and there is no leg room. Security was quick at least.

We've added Atlanta and confirmed Chicago, so the only team missing is Indiana. Do better, Fever fans.

Awesome jersey spotting: the entire Big Three, home Holdsclaw 23 Mystics, an honest to God Mabika jersey, the Kelloggs Swoopes jersey.

Looks like Bird is commentating and Stewart is ambassador-ing. I think Mama Taj and Michele Van Gorp are both working. Jasmine Thomas, on the other hand, is probably here to cheer on her teammates.

Shekinna Stricklen just went by on a cell phone. That's not what they mean by being dialed in from long distance, Strick.

There appears to be a shooting contest involving fans from every team. Minnesota won, but it went to a tiebreaker, and watching the Sky players' enthusiastic support of their representative was awesome. (although that nominal Sky fan was married to a Sparks fan, which would be a strange relationship unless built on shared nostalgia for Kristi Toliver, so way to break kayfabe, guys)

Shock of shocks, Griner took an excuse to dunk. She still lost the round.

Can we talk about that three by JJ with the ball guy impeding her?

Well played by the DJ, mixing in the instrumental from “Touch the Sky” after deShields won the skills challenge.

Spotted a fan in a Dupree tee (a Dutee?) so the collection is complete.

There are enough Liberty players, current and former, to declare quorum. I love it.

Apparently that *was* what they meant by being dialed in. Well done by Strick. Loved seeing Jonquel Jones film her post-event interview.

I don't want the nachos. I don't want the popcorn. I want that bowl, though.

The Sky players, both All-Stars and not, were adorable cheering on their teammates. Get you a squad like that.

Seeing the camaraderie among so many of these players makes me wish they'd done an open practice. I know they streamed it, but that's not the same as being there.

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July 24th, 2019: New York at Connecticut

some bullshit-ass half-assed notes

Good morning! It's too early for this, but here we are at Camp Day at Mohegan Sun, as Connecticut hosts New York in their last game before the All-Star break. Intrepid blogger needs caffeine badly.

At halftime, New York is somehow up 39-36. The reserves are having another good game, and this time Tina Charles has decided to remind everyone of her All-Star capabilities. Kia Nurse left with an apparent elbow injury and has not returned. I don't see any reason to risk her. (although she's warming up here at the break)

Morgan Tuck did Tari Phillips's show-the-ball trick. I'm easily amused.

I don't want to say that the Liberty are tanking, or worse, throwing games. That would be a hell of an accusation to make. But that last minute or so of game time might certainly give the impression that the players on the floor didn't particularly care if New York won that game. Terrible clock awareness. Terrible shot selection. Why are you forcing the ball inside down two or three possessions? Why are you messing around for six seconds when you only have fifteen? STAAAAAAAHP.

Rebecca Allen started the game on fire from beyond the arc, and then appeared to run out of battery power. The problem is that if Bec isn't hitting, then the flaws in her game (like her dubious defense and her tendency to panic when the defense comes hard at her) become harder to overlook, and she goes from a positive to a negative very quickly. Reshanda Gray was physical, but not advantageously so, which meant that she was getting called for fouls as often as she was getting rebounds. Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe was okay defensively to start her day, but got burned more often in the second half. She missed too many shots at the rim for my liking.

Brittany Boyd seems to be missing some speed with the lingering ankle issue (she had the trainer looking at it right before the game) and once again let her emotions get the best of her. I don't mind players who play with emotion. I do mind players who let it completely control them and get swallowed up too easily by frustration. She's never going to be as good as she can be if she doesn't get out of her own head sometimes. Asia Durr still looks a little gimpy from the groin injury (which should put paid to rumors that she wasn't injured) and saw both her minutes and her touches reduced. Loved to see her out there when we needed perimeter shots and the entire team is looking to force the ball inside, because that made such perfect sense. Marine Johannès demonstrated a frankly appalling lack of speed against Connecticut's guards, which Williams and Hiedeman were especially able to exploit, but even Banham was able to get a step on her regularly, and while there are many complimentary things one can say about Rachel Banham, her speed has not usually been one of the things complimented. I like Marine's style, and once she either gets to know her teammates better or learns when to tone down the fancy stuff, she'll be a huge asset to this team.

For the first time in a while, Tina Charles actually looked like a post player. It was very refreshing. She still took a lot of stupid contested shots, but at least she was getting rebounds close to the rim. I don't like that the team was trying to force the ball inside to her at the end of the game, and I don't like the number of free throws she's been missing lately. But I'm glad to see her rebounding again. I would like to see if we could get back international Amanda Zahui B. That would be nice. She hit an early three, but so much of her offense was perimeter-oriented, and I've said this before: post players being able to hit threes is a nice surprise weapon, but it ceases to be a surprise when it's all that you do. I would also like Bria Hartley to get her act together. I know she's better than this, but she's coming off as terrible when she's on the floor, even when she hits shots. She had some inexcusable defensive lapses where she essentially just gave up on her assignment, and that's unacceptable.

Okay, I'm sorry. I'm cutting the notes off here, because it's been two days and while I'm still at a casino and resort, I’m three time zones away from this game. Given that I had to cudgel my brains to remember who was starting at guard for the Liberty, I don't think I can produce acceptable notes at this point. Sorry, Sun fans. Courtney Williams was amazing in the second quarter, Jasmine Thomas took over late, and it really seems like Curt Miller has to choose between Brionna Jones and Kristine Anigwe.

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July 20th, 2019: Los Angeles at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Solid bench play fueled the New York Liberty's 83-78 win over the Los Angeles Sparks. Marine Johannès had 17 points to lead New York, while Kia Nurse added 14. Nneka Ogwumike had game-highs of 20 points and 12 rebounds for the short-handed Sparks in the loss.

For a truly international game, distressing superstars, Chiney Ogwumike's earnest belief that she did not commit that foul, and role reversals, join your intrepid blogger after the jump.
Happy belated birthday, Maddie! Happy anniversary, moon landing! (Happy birthday, dad!)

It's game day at That Dump in White Plains, known to less cynical fans as the Westchester County Center, as the Los Angeles Sparks (or at least whatever's left of them) come visit the New York Liberty.

After the smooth sailing of last game, it's back to the usual tangle of confusing and crossing lines, waits at security, and not having the ticket ready to properly. (Yes, I'm not sitting in my ticketed seat. No, I do not believe situating my mouth directly above the visiting bench is a good idea.

I don't know what happened, but I saw a trio of Sparks in hot pursuit of a teammate. No idea what was going on. Mostly guards, I think.

New DJ today. I like their taste better than the usual woman's.

On the other hand, substitute announcer is not as good as Mike.

Anthem singer thinks he's Whitney Houston or something. Narrator: He was not Whitney Houston.

It's 44-37 Liberty at halftime, and it's been reserve play doing the job for the Liberty. Marine Johannès is putting in work, with 13 points and some spectacular passes (unfortunately, Kalani Brown blocked the finish on the best one). Nneka Ogwumike has 12 points and seven rebounds for the Sparks, while Chelsea Gray has come on strong in the second quarter with 11 points, but most of the rest of the Sparks have been... not good.

There's a French family in the rows behind us cheering enthusiastically for Marine, and I love it.

I don't know if someone sprung for a spa visit for Katie or something, but she looks amazing. Refreshed, relaxed, well-coiffed, sharply dressed.

Asia Durr's street clothes brought to you by the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network.

Beating the Sparks is always fun. After all, this is the league's oldest rivalry. How we did it honestly amazes me as well. I'm not used to our bench play being so solid.

There is a whole lot of Kalani Brown, but she seems somehow less balanced about it than her draft classmate Teaira McCowan. Her thighs/upper legs seem out of proportion to the rest of her. She brought a lot of physicality to the floor. Her foul trouble did not help with the Sparks' lack of available depth. I see her potential- she did a couple of numbers on Reshanda Gray with a quick turnaround for her buckets- but if she can't stay on the floor, she's not going to be any help to Los Angeles. Marina Mabrey drove hard and missed just as hard. I'm not surprised Fisher didn't go back to her in the second half. She was out of control. Karlie Samuelson took threes and hit a pretty big one late in the fourth to help keep the Sparks close.

Such a loss of depth for LA in the backcourt. Losing Parker is a big blow, but losing three guards forced Fisher to do a lot of juggling, and I think he was less prepared to juggle than he was to play without Parker. At least up front you have the Ogwumikes.

Yes, I know she has the assist numbers today, but Sydney Wiese is not a point guard. I don't know what she is other than a shooter, and a very quick one at that. She's certainly not a starter, and she's not the person I want initiating my offense if I have Chelsea Gray available to do that. (Which, to be fair, LA did not have for stretches in the second half when Gray got into foul trouble.) To borrow and abuse a turn of phrase from Shea Serrano, Chelsea Gray was out there ruining my life with big threes and ridiculous steals. She's so good. I was relieved and shocked when that last three was so off line. (And the petty part of me wants to say, "C'mon, you committed a push-off to get that open and that's the best shot you could get off?") Her hands are so quick, and she's so relentless. Physicality isn't necessarily the right word for her game, but she's not afraid to use that big build of hers to create space on offense or make her assignment uncomfortable on defense.

Speaking of making people uncomfortable as a defender, shoutout to Tierra Ruffin-Pratt for doing ridiculously hard work on players much taller than she is and often knocking those shots off line. There were a lot of switches by LA, and she's part of the reason they could get away with it. While I don't necessarily like how quickly Nneka Ogwumike moved into Tina Charles's head today, or how physical she was with Tina at both ends of the floor, I can respect it, more or less. I didn't realize how much of a perimeter game she'd developed until she was hitting threes early on in this one. For most of the first half, it was her, Chelsea Gray, and a bunch of not particularly helpful people. She's so good. I have to respect that. I do not have to respect Chiney Ogwumike's inability to shut up, stop whining, and sit down at appropriate moments. Yes, shockingly, Chiney, if you hit someone it's a foul. You went to Stanford, I know you're smart. Now that she's not on one of my teams, she annoys me too much to write about her.

Someday, Katie Smith will run a five-nation line-up out there, and I will rejoice. You don't even need to trust Han Xu to do it! You need Amanda, Marine, and Bec, plus either Nayo or Kia, plus one of the Americans! Presto, instant United Nations!

(In case you weren't sure I was a giant nerd. Spoilers: I am.)

For the honor and dignity of all Rebeccas out there, Imma need Rebecca Allen to please stop committing stupid unnecessary fouls on defense. She committed two of them pretty much back to back, and it was extremely frustrating. Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe played the first half like her hair was on fire (her hair was not actually on fire)- going up strong inside and stepping outside for the trey. She cooled down in the second half. Reshanda Gray pretty much won the game for us. She had a couple of huge rebounds right at the end, and got the steal when LA had it within two. She was relentless. I do still need her to get the foul trouble under control, although in this game much of it had to do with these terrible officials and I place no blame on her getting called for a foul when she was the player getting hit.

So, this was my first look at Marine Johannès in a Liberty uniform, and I like what I saw. She needs to either tone down the fancy passing or she'll get more used to her teammates and more of those too-much-mustard-on-the-hot-dog passes will find their way to their intended recipients and things will get fun again. She gave us a long-range option with style, which is very nice to have, since most of our long-range threats are people I would like to not be volume three-point shooters (hi, Amanda). Maybe this was her best game, and we know no one is ever as good as their best game, but I think I'd be happy with even half of what she produced today, at least early in her tenure here in New York. Brittany Boyd needed a good thwack with the clue-by-four in this game. On one hand, I do sympathize with her getting clocked in the chin by a Chelsea Gray elbow and not having it either called or reviewed. On the other hand, that is no excuse to pull back from the shooter and basically stop playing. That was bush league, and she got pulled out of the game shortly thereafter. She got her head back in the game eventually, after a good long sit on the bench. She had her moments, but there was something missing.

I'm going to need Tina Charles to stop doing her Cappie Pondexter impression now. She's not very good at it and I don't want to see her descend into Cappie's fashion "sense". She took terrible shots early in the shot clock. She shot directly into unnecessary double-teams. She generally forgot about the existence of her teammates in order to take terrible shots. She was not good on defense. She let the Ogwumikes, especially Nneka, have their way with her. I know she's better than this, or at least she has a history of being better than this, but lately I'm starting to wonder if she's approaching the McCray cliff. Amanda Zahui B got off to a hot start offensively, but cooled off quickly and never seemed to recover. She got passed over in the second half by both Nayo and Reshanda, and I think Katie made the right call on both accounts. She's capable of banging, but she doesn't do enough of it to match up well with LA.

On the petty, shallow tip, I don’t like Bria Hartley's new hairdo at all. The gilding doesn't suit her. According to the box score, she lined up at three, but that's a little disingenuous; inasmuch as any of the guards in our three-guard set could be considered a small forward, Kia Nurse is probably the best candidate for the role, and none of them are particularly suited to it. Bria did not look ready to be back in the W after Eurobasket. I think she'll shake it off, but for now she looks bad. Kia looked out of sorts and under a lot of pressure. LA's switches defensively did her no favors. Ladies and gentlemen, your All-Star starter. (For the record, I didn't vote for her. Then again, I didn't vote for anyone.) I'll say this about having Tanisha Wright on the floor: there seemed to be a lot more vocal communication on the floor when she was out there. Even if it highlighted the team's issues with knowing the playbook and people knowing where they needed to be, it showed that at least people were willing to step up and address those issues. She's not a long-term solution at point, but if she can mentor Boyd and Marine, passing the torch without too much of a hiccup, I'll be okay with her sticking around for this year and maybe even next. (But next is a stretch, and honestly at this point I'm hoping that one of the people she'll be mentoring if she is here in 2020 is Sabrina Ionescu.)

Hoo boy, these refs. Love to see two terrible out-of-bounds calls in the first five minutes of the game. There was a lot of physical play, and a lot of the worst of it wasn't called. Credit them for some consistency, though: the sequence where the defensive player gets sandwiched between two offensive players and is called for a foul because... I don't even know... was called on both teams (Bec for us, TRP for them). I think the Sparks have a lot of nerve being upset about the foul differential, with the elbows they were throwing, but some things don't change.

Shockingly, if you give Liberty fans a beat to get the "Let's Go Liberty!" chant going to, we'll get it going. It was announced as a sellout, but there were a lot of empty seats. Something tells me there will always be a lot of empty seats, even if they claim to have sold every ticket. When we had reason to make noise, we made noise.

Look, kid, you already have one t-shirt, stop screaming for another one.

The guy who lost "Don't Get Torched" got screwed. The last shot was clearly after the buzzer.

I'm not expecting our reserves to play like this every game (but on the other hand, I'm not expecting our starters to play like this every game, either). It's great to see them do so, and I love how Marine is settling in with this team.

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July 7th, 2019

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Las Vegas started strong and only got stronger as the game went on, taking out New York 90-58 on the road. Kayla McBride had a team-high 24 points for Las Vegas, with Liz Cambage adding 21 points and 11 rebounds. Tina Charles had 13 points and eight rebounds to lead the Liberty.

For the boiling point, misplaced fans, terrible shot selection, and what is this I don't even, join your intrepid and very tired blogger after the jump.

On to the next one! This time it's off to That Dump in White Plains, as the Liberty take on the Las Vegas Aces. I'm getting a weird feeling of déjà vu for some reason.

The Mexican place, El Poblano? Best damn mole I've ever had in my life, and I've had some good mole.

Security was a breeze today. I know we're well over half an hour from tip time, but I'm not liking the emptiness of the seats right now. The crowd filled in well enough later.

Anthem singer: "Microphones? Where we're going, we don't need no stinkin' microphones."

If I find the ticket rep who sold Aces fans seats behind the Liberty bench, we are going to have words, and most of them are going to be unsuitable for children. Most of the section across from the road bench is empty. GO OVER THERE. GO AWAY. GOOOOOOOO.

It's 44-32 Las Vegas at halftime, and it feels like it could have been a lot worse. Our energy is high but unfocused. We appear to have forgotten what defense is, and the existence of our teammates on offense. Too many possessions have involved guards (usually Brittany Boyd, but not always) dribbling for way too long, panicking, and expecting Tina Charles to bail them out with a shot at the end of the shot clock. There are occasional variations in which a post player not named Tina has the ball, but these interludes usually involve someone freaking out.

T-Spoon is on the bench in a "someone is going to die today" suit. It may be a contract hit, it may be an impressionable femme swooning over her, but she looks sharp.

It's probably a bad sign when the team is so disorganized, the chemistry is so AWOL, and the star is so frustrated that I'm pretty sure Tina Charles yelled something to the effect of "DON'T MAKE ME TURN THIS CAR AROUND!" at her teammates, and that was only in the second quarter. People did not know where they needed to be on the floor- there were way too many occasions where someone was screaming at someone else to set a screen or use a screen. I choose vodka.

The Aces were relentless on defense. When you've got two big erasers on the inside like A'ja Wilson and Liz Cambage, you can afford to take more risks on the perimeter, and Las Vegas did so very effectively. They swarmed us, and we were not ready for the pressure. Offensively, both halves of the inside-out equation were working, which meant we were screwed either way we tried to defend. Ultimately it meant that we didn't, period.

I'm assuming Carolyn Swords's knee or something is acting up, which is why she came in so late into garbage time. She had good pursuit on the ball in her limited minutes. I love JiSu Park's energy on defense. Her shot needs work, but her nose for the ball is good and she works hard on the floor. She's got so much potential, and as a WNBA fan I look forward to seeing her develop. (So don't screw this up, Bill.) Dearica Hamby also brings a lot of energy, although hers was a little less effectively focused. She did have a nifty defensive stop on Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe that I think ended up as a Liberty turnover. She's chippy. She's got one of the best to learn from in that regard on the bench.

Sugar Rodgers got a decent hand when she came into the game, and showed her sweet stroke (though mostly from the midrange instead of beyond the arc). I'm still not sure how we managed to leave her open at any point. I mean, most of y'all have met Sugar, right? You know who she is and what she does? Y U NO GUARD JUMP SHOOTER? *insert meme here* I keep forgetting about Sydney Colson's vertical until she does something ridiculous like drop the hammer on a post player's shot. She did that to Avery Warley-Talbert, and I was embarrassed for Avery's sake. She's not necessarily flexible positionally, but she allows other players to flow into other roles when she comes into the game. Tamera Young is good at annoying people, including me. It's been 11 years and I'm still not used to her having a jump shot that remotely approaches reliable. She had one pretty one that she kissed off the glass, which I remember mostly because I was yelling at the rim for letting Aces shots through. (I recognize this is irrational, but when the game is happening, I am always irrational.)

I have taken a profound dislike to Kayla McBride. It's mostly the respectful kind that comes from a player ruining my life, but there are also moments when it's because she's not afraid to give a little shove or engage in some holding. She gets open, and the shot goes up, and it goes in, and the world keeps turning because that's one of the universal constants. Kelsey Plum's shot wasn't falling, but she was tenacious on defense, often to a fault (yes, Kelsey, I saw where your hand was on that Boyd drive; I hate to break the news to you, but I don't think you're her type). Neither she nor Jackie Young really seems to fit as the point guard for this squad. It's like hammering a square peg into a round hole- it doesn't fit, and if you do manage to get it in, it'll lose its edge. It's a good thing Las Vegas has players who can create their own offense, because no one's really going to initiate it.

Speaking of which, dear Lord is Liz Cambage unstoppable when she wants to be. She goes in the paint, and she puts her hand up, and she gets the ball, and she hits the shot. It's just that simple. She creates space, or she finishes through contact, and she hits the shot. She's big, and she's strong, and sometimes I think she would not object to ripping someone's heart out and raising it above her head in triumph (except that it might ruin her nail polish). A'ja Wilson had a monster block on Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe that I felt the pain of in my soul. She had more trouble finishing at the rim than Cambage did, but she had plenty of looks and hit her fair share of them. She's so long and so smooth with it.

Vegas has a lot of good pieces- but I'm not sure how they all fit together. When McBride and Cambage are both on fire, it sort of papers over the questions in the backcourt and the lack of guard depth.

Our bench is going to look so different after everyone finally meanders back from Eurobasket. I have to remember this. We have four players either returning or debuting. That's going to shuffle things around. I have to remember this.

Nayo Raincock-Ekunwe looked scared out there. She was careless with the ball, she didn't go hard, and she generally looked like she was pressing too hard and not getting any results from it. I think she knows she's on the chopping block, and I think she might just be okay with it. Avery Warley-Talbert worked hard, but she was a hair slow, a step short. She should have hit the shots she had at the basket- they were close in, and she was often unguarded. She showed both the reasons why she'll always be in camp and the reasons why she'll usually be the last cut or a regular temp. Han Xu got extended time in the fourth quarter, much to the joy of the crowd- she got a ridiculous hand when she came in. I don't know if it's because she's now a folk hero, or if people just want to see her do well because she's so adorably naïve, but the roar when she scored her first basket, and when she hit the three the place went nuts. She looked a little more awkward out there than she did in the preseason, but she was far from the only Liberty player to not know where she was supposed to be on the court.

Tanisha Wright started the second half and I don't know why. (The postgame tweet congratulating her on moving up the all-time assists list provides a possible reason, but a terrible one.) She's doing better running the offense than Brittany Boyd, but both of them are offensive liabilities. Tanisha repeatedly passed up open looks I know she would have taken a couple of years ago. She's a safe pick for now, or at least a safer one than Boyd, but we should not be thinking so heavily in the short-term. Tiffany Bias is adorable, but it's abundantly clear that she was just a temp. And I have no idea why she and Boyd would ever be out on the floor together; inasmuch as Tiffany has a position, it's point guard, and Boyd at off guard is a terrible, terrible idea. (Generally, shooting guards should both be willing and able to shoot.)

I guess this flows into the general sense of "WTF, Brittany" that has hovered around Brittany Boyd this season. I feel like she's hit a wall, and I don't know if it's one she can't climb or one she's decided she doesn't have to climb even though it's clearly in her way. Her passing was careless and often right to a Vegas player, and she wasn't finishing at the rim. Unless she gets her shot together and relearns some passing discernment, she's hit her ceiling so hard that she bounced off on the way back down. I want to see her do well, and when she's on she's amazing to watch. It's just that she's been off more and more often as time has gone on. Kia Nurse's shot was off, although it was often contested (it's like she's good and defenses are learning to key on her or something). What bothered me more, to be honest, was that her defense was flat-out terrible. I'm not used to her being a bad defender, but she was getting blown by and left behind by pretty much everyone she tried to defend. Asia Durr had a couple of big blocks, which surprised me. I'd have liked to see her looking for her shot a little more.

Reshanda Gray got into early foul trouble, which not only limited her effectiveness, it forced us to go to our bench, which...um... was even less of a good thing than it tends to be. When she can't be physical against taller opponents, she's up a creek without a paddle, and this goes double when it's the dual threat of Wilson and Cambage. Tina Charles took bad shots, but she was getting pounded inside, so I don't know if I blame her for retreating to the perimeter. And a lot of those shots were at the end of the shot clock, when she was the human equivalent of the panic button. But Tina's ones of the best post players in the world, or at least she used to be. I'd like to see a little more of that. I know I sound like a broken record in that regard, and that it's never going to change, and that it's going to get worse as she gets older. Let me gripe about getting these kids off my lawn, okay?

If we don't have a point guard worth her salt, we have a problem, because this offense needs directing. We don't really have anyone who can consistently create her own offense (Asia's the closest, but consistency is the key word in her case; she's a rookie and I'm not going to throw full responsibility for the offense on a rookie.) Maybe Bria's return from Eurobasket will be the answer. Maybe Marine Johannès will slot so smoothly into that role that we'll forget we never had a point guard. Maybe Boyd will have a revelation. I don't know.

The game got very physical, and there were plays I was amazed weren't called fouls. (I mean, really, Plum had a whole handful of Boyd's posterior. Rude.) But we knew this crew was working back-to-back, because we'd seen the game at Connecticut the day before. So I can't say I'm surprised.

Liberty fans are trying to get behind this team, we really are. But the squad's not making it easy. (On the other hand, being in the lottery wouldn't be a terrible thing.)

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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

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June 16th, 2019: Seattle at Connecticut

Just the Facts, Ma'am: A finishing kick in the fourth quarter propelled Connecticut to a 81-67 win over the Seattle Storm. Alyssa Thomas had a team-high 20 points for the Sun, with Jonquel Jones adding 13 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists. Natasha Howard had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead the Storm.

For a lack of weather jokes, drama, karma, the unit divide, and looking gift horses in the mouth, join your intrepid and tired blogger after the jump.

Happy Father's Day, fellow travelers! It's game day at Mohegan Sun Arena, as Connecticut hosts Seattle.

Our day started out quite adventurously, as ticket sales for the bus were held up by someone claiming the coordinator had attempted to defraud him of his money. Three rounds of cops later, and with the timely assistance of a key witness, it was dealt with, but we almost didn't make the bus because of him. Jerk. I hope every bus he attempts to get on is sold out and that if he does make it to a casino they clean him out.

(We talked our way onto the bus and gave the guide a big tip; she moved us up closer to the front of the bus for the ride back. We gave our match play coupons to a fellow rider and he bought us donuts. Truly, this is the strangest timeline.)

Mohegan is popping today, and I'm trying to figure out a way to strike up a conversation with the kid a few seats over who's also playing Pokémon Go without being exceptionally creepy.

FEED THE BEAST

Interesting anthem, half vocal and half saxophone instrumental. I liked her sax playing better than her voice.

Shoutout to the fan in the Natasha Howard jersey. You're a real one.

That third quarter run by Seattle made things more interesting than they really had to be, but Alyssa Thomas was a wrecking ball in the fourth quarter, and that plus defense was enough to push down the understrength Storm.

Sue Bird traveled with the team, but it looks like Jordin Canada did not.

Courtney Paris got some run in the first half, and her size was effective against Kristine Anigwe, who did not seem ready to handle quite that much defender. But she didn't play in the second half, as Seattle stuck to a slightly tighter rotation. Crystal Langhorne seems to have convinced herself she has a long-range shot. Based on today's game, this is a supposition completely without merit. She did play excellent defense on Anigwe. You could almost see her baiting the rookie into thinking she was open and then SURPRISE Terp inna face.

I honestly don't know if you really need both Sami Whitcomb and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis on the same roster. They both essentially do one thing- shoot from the perimeter. KML occasionally considers the possibility of shooting inside, and Whitcomb can pass a little better, but they both look to shoot the long ball as their first, second, and third options. I do like Whitcomb's footwork to ensure that she's behind the line. But when rosters are as tight as they are in the WNBA, having two dedicated shooters seems like much of a muchness, and it seems like Whitcomb brings more to the floor than KML does. Shavonte Zellous's midrange jumper was deadly, and she was a steady hand bringing the ball up the floor. She was much of the reason why they repeatedly came back on Connecticut. She just refused to lose for as long as she possibly could.

Natasha Howard was fantastic in the paint. She threw up one-handed push shots that went in whenever she wanted them to. She was ferocious on the glass. She's just so springy and uses her length really well. Mercedes Russell used her height well in the early going, but as the game wore on, she seemed to have more trouble holding on to her rebounds, instead tipping them out to the perimeter, and Connecticut was ready to pounce on those opportunities. Alysha Clark brought the defense, as she does.

I'm looking at the box score right now, and it still doesn't feel like Jewell Loyd hit as many of the shots she took as she did, even with hard evidence in front of my face. I understand that a lot of the burden is falling on her with no Bird and no Stewart, but she seemed to be settling for a lot of difficult shots from low-percentage areas of the floor when there were available teammates. (I mean, also credit to the Sun defense for making those shots difficult, but they got help.) (Side note: I thought it was interesting that she was introduced with her hometown, not as being from Notre Dame. An FU at McGraw, or some kind of technicality?) Blake Dietrick is... well, I guess she was there? She brought the ball up when she was in the game, and showed some good presence of mind on the edges of the court, but she was an inoffensive non-entity otherwise. I don't know if that's the right dynamic for this team right now. I know this is out of necessity with all the injuries, but if Canada is out for any length of time and Seattle does want to try and win games, they might need a different style of point guard.

I hope Brionna Jones isn't hurt. She never took the jacket off, even when Coach Miller was getting Bridget Carleton up in the last thirty seconds (she never got to come into the game because there wasn't a stoppage, and he eventually called her and Morgan Tuck back to the bench).

I was not expecting this kind of defense out of Bria Holmes! She showed really good hands against the ballhandler in her minutes. I mostly know her from her shooting, so this was a pleasant surprise. Morgan Tuck looked a little overmatched. She gave good effort, but even against this motley Seattle crew she didn't seem to have a good match-up. Kristine Anigwe took the minutes that normally would go to Brionna Jones and acquitted herself very well on the glass and in the paint. There's definitely still an adjustment period she has to go through against larger and faster defenders, but it was good to see her get a chance to show she can contribute at the W level.

Rachel Banham's shot just wasn't falling. She took a couple that were not the best shots she could have taken, but some of them were just bad luck. I'll live with it. Layshia Clarendon drove hard and ran a solid offense, although she and Jasmine Thomas were both uncharacteristically unaware of the shot clock in this game.

Connecticut's bench really needs to step its game up if the Sun are going to succeed. Someone's got to step up and be a true sixth woman. Right now, the drop-off is painfully apparent.

Bad day for Jasmine Thomas, and it's unusual to see Connecticut manage to power through one of those. She took a lot of contested shots and a lot of forced shots late in the clock. Her passing was off target. She persevered, and there were a couple of plays to Alyssa Thomas that were beautiful, but this was not her day. Courtney Williams has to learn to take some contact. I know she's small and I know she doesn't like contact, but it's part of the game and she's going to have to deal with it. I love her hops, and her drive-and-dish game was on point.

Alyssa Thomas looked at that game in the fourth quarter and decided that she was going to take over. She bulled her way into the paint and got either buckets, free throws, or both. I'm going to stick with my favorite descriptor of her as a little bit terrifying and a little bit awesome, and I'm going to resist the urge to start singing about how she came in like a wrecking ball. I know y'all are going to do it for me. ;) Shekinna Stricklen hit shots that weren't threes! My heart almost stopped from the shock of it. There was one I really liked, where it looked like she was using her shoulders to get position against the defense, and a little part of my mind was chanting "YES!" over and over again in joy. She got buckets at the right time. I mean, there's no wrong time to get a basket, but hers always seemed to be cutting off a Seattle run or kicking off a Sun one. Jonquel Jones does such amazing work on the glass with those long arms and her long fingers and her ability to control the ball mid-air until such time as she can bring it down and truly lay claim to it. She had herself a day.

Connecticut's starters are so good and usually work so well together. There were some really weird stretches of bad passing that worry me, though.

I know we were playing much more of a perimeter game, but I side-eye the foul differential in the second and third quarters so hard that I think I sprained my cornea.

Seattle has a lot of fight in them, and that will serve them well when Bird comes back, as long as there isn't too much deference to her when she does.

We were in the lucky section! Except that it's "selfies" only, except that it's not even a selfie because one of the staff members takes the picture with your phone for you. How is that a selfie? Ugh. I'd rather spork my eyeballs out than do photos, so we just awkwardly said "good game" to Court and Kristine as we left. Judging from the fact that maybe 10 people from our section stayed, we weren't the only ones less than enthused about the prospect. At least make autographs an option, for heaven's sake, instead of just setting up a black curtain and having done with it.

As always, I worry about the sustainability of this Sun team, but they're fun to watch when they're good.

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June 9th, 2019: Las Vegas at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Defense and a balanced attack powered the New York Liberty to their first win of 2019 as they defeated the Las Vegas Aces 88-78. Tina Charles had 21 points to lead the Liberty, with Bria Hartley chipping in 17 points and six assists and Kia Nurse adding 15 points. Kayla McBride led all scorers with 25 points, and Liz Cambage had a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds.

For physical play, endangered point guards, a rousing return, and getting off the schneid, join your intrepid and hectic blogger after the jump.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends; it's game day at That Dump in Westchester, as the New York Liberty take on the Las Vegas Aces. Your intrepid blogger is going the long way around today, because I don't feel like dealing with Metro-North, Metro-North fares, and things potentially being on fire. Things being on fire is not fun unless they are shooters.

Just for the record, if Liz Cambage wants to express her opinion of That Dump in a public setting, I volunteer to hand her a mic.

Since the entire Aces coaching staff was at the game on Friday, I assume we have been fully scouted and will therefore be obliterated in a logical and well-executed fashion. And then we lose players to Eurobasket. I'm not even there yet and I'm already too tired for this.

I hate This Dump. I hate the ever more asinine security procedures we go through. Now they have to look at your keys just in case you're carrying a weapon on them. First of all, WTF, this is new. Second of all, the odds are that any weapon on a set of keys is being carried by a woman in self-defense, which, if you are trying to take that from someone at a Liberty game, that's not going to end well. Third of all, any Girl Scout worth her salt- which there should be plenty of on Scout Day- knows that the keys themselves are a weapon three different ways, so either you have to confiscate the keys or abandon this whole security theater nonsense.

(Also, do not touch my wallet. It is in my bag for a reason. Do not touch my wallet.)

(Also, do not gaslight me into thinking I touched the sides of the metal detector when I know damn well my fat ass didn't.)

Honestly, I'm already ready to fight someone and Vegas hasn't even taken the floor.

We're not losing. I am extremely confused by this. It's 45-37 Liberty at the half. Tina Charles has 12 points to lead New York, but it's been a really balanced effort. Bria Hartley got the start in place of Asia Durr, who looks like she'd really rather be at home in bed with a fuzzy blanket and a mug of chicken soup. Vegas has 10 points each from Liz Cambage and Kayla McBride, but Cambage looks really frustrated about it.

Our halftime entertainment is a martial arts presentation that has not been terribly spectacular except for occasional flying pieces of wood.

We're still having a lot of moments where the offense is more improvisational than structured, but it's mostly working. I anticipate the Aces adjusting, because we're not a second half team right now.

My heart goes out to Sydney Colson and getting her head busted open when Bria sat on her. Get better soon, Syd!

Between the sneakers and the short-sleeved top, Spoon looks ready to suit up in case of emergency lack of point guard. Don't tempt Bill, Teresa.

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I was not expecting to get the win against Las Vegas's size and skill. But while they have an imposing front line, possibly the most imposing front line in the league (except maybe Los Angeles), their backcourt can be streaky and their bench does not seem consistent. And if Colson is out for any length of time, they're in for some interesting juggling of their rotation.

I was honestly surprised that Carolyn Swords and JiSu Park got so few minutes. Swords is pretty solid, and Park showed a lot of potential last year. I guess Dearica Hamby's emergence in the early part of the season has put the kibosh on that, and Park certainly looks less confident than she did last year. Hamby was in foul trouble for much of the game, which somewhat limited her effectiveness; she was like a pinball out there for stretches, and I was surprised that Laimbeer kept her on the floor with five fouls late in the game.

Sugar Rodgers got an enormous cheer from the crowd the first time she checked into the game, and then she reminded us why some of us were perfectly okay with letting her go by throwing the ball out of bounds. She does have a pretty shot, but she's streaky. We know this. Tamera Young hit a three-pointer, and for a moment I wondered what timeline I had managed to wander into. I guess she came in for her defense? Ugh, I feel so embarrassingly naked without a scorecard, even an improvised one (my printer decided it didn't like my ink cartridge). Sydney Colson has nice speed, and heaven knows Vegas needs a ballhandler off the bench, so I hope she and her face are all right.

Jackie Young has an incredible first step. Once she gets the hang of how to finish with it, she's going to be amazing. But it seems like she's trying to make shots that she could get against college defenses, not having yet adjusted to the fact that professional defenses are usually bigger, faster, and more physical. That's part of the rookie learning curve, and I get that. She's going to be fine (though I think she could have used another year in college) and she's going to be the kind of player who sticks around because she can do a little bit of everything well- she was picking up a lot of our long rebounds that bounced strangely off ill-advised jumpers. Kelsey Plum seems to need a lot more time to wind up on her jumper than I remember her needing once upon a time. Maybe it was our defense, or maybe she was having a bad day, but she just didn't seem to fit in whatever Las Vegas was trying to run. I don't know if she can co-exist with two ball-dominant inside presences like Wilson and Cambage; I don't know if she really knows how to.

Kayla McBride gets buckets, whether they're inside on strength or outside on jumpers. I have to admire her toughness, I guess. She killed us on our endless switches, because no one on the team seemed to know how to defend her. I don't know if we could have done it even if we did, but that's a whole other story. She kept the Aces in the game most of the day. A'ja Wilson got a lot of hard looks and took a lot of contested shots. I don't know if she really needed to take some of them. She and Tina Charles were going at it hammer and tongs most of the day, throwing shoulders and hips into each other on every possession on both sides of the floor. I don't know if Tina was in her head, or if the general physicality of the game was just getting to her, but she took a lot of bad shots. It's not like we gave her good shots to take, but she didn't show the discernment not to take the bad ones that stretched her out like she thought she was Reed Richards or Helen Parr. She didn't have the angles. Liz Cambage did well when she got away from the basket, which seems counterintuitive given her height advantage over everyone who played for the Liberty, but when she got the midrange shot going, she was able to elevate over her defenders, while smaller but stockier defenders were able to leverage their size to move her. I don't know if she's slimmed down, or if her Achilles issue is making it harder for her to plant, but she was getting moved around a lot by our defense in ways that I was not expecting.

I don't know if Las Vegas has the personnel to do the things that they want to do right now. It's like they have two different teams, the backcourt-oriented one and the frontcourt-oriented one, and Bill hasn't figured out how to mesh them all together yet. McBride seems to be the only one who knows how to shift between the two systems.

Poor Asia. She did not look okay. I would like to see some more minutes for our deep bench, especially when the game is decided, but on the other hand, it's become clear that Nayo and Tiffany are nothing but placeholders for Kiah and Marine, there to be extra bodies and provide some enthusiasm (at least in Tiffany's case; Nayo mostly seems like she'd like to return to Canada already).

Great rebounding work and physical defense from Reshanda Gray in this one. She got low on Cambage and made her work. I would have liked to have seen more consistent finishing at the rim from her, but I will most definitely take the screens, the rebounding, and the defense (there was one screen she had on a drive by... I think Tanisha?... that was glorious and perfect). She's really made the most of this chance with New York, and I think it's affected our roster choices. I'd a million times rather have her energy than the lack of it Nayo's shown so far this year, and I don't think that was the original plan. Rebecca Allen continues to exist in a liminal space between the frontcourt and the backcourt- her offense has been almost all perimeter-oriented, but she does a lot of her work on the other side of the floor crashing the glass. It gives us flexibility, but it also leads to mismatches. Fortunately, the dark necromantic ritual that powers Tanisha Wright here at the end of her career was at its peak, and she had her best game of the season. The offense was clicking with her in the game, her defensive instincts were on point, and she looked (mostly) like the heady veteran presence she was supposed to be for us. I like this version of Tanisha. Okay, I maybe don't like the version that throws passes into the crowd, but other than that I was thrilled with her play.

And that was our bench. I can't really say I'm surprised, except for Katie's utter lack of trust in Han Xu.

On one hand, Brittany Boyd actually showcased a perimeter game in the second half. On the other hand, the mechanics of her jumper still need a lot of work, which is not a good thing for a player in her fifth professional season, and she committed some incredibly stupid mistakes on the floor. (I mean, really. Inbounding violation? I expect better.) It was clear that she was the third best point guard for the Liberty in this game, because Tanisha was playing well and Bria Hartley was playing really well. So that's a thing I don't know how to feel about. According to the starting lineup and the box score, Bria started at small forward, but she spent most of her time running point, even when Boyd was in the game, which left Boyd hung out to dry. Bria played really well- she hit her shots at the right time, and the offense just seemed to click when she was in the game. I thought there were stretches where she was trying to do too much and the offense became one-dimensional, but that's not a problem unique to her, so I'm going to throw that on Katie. Kia Nurse also seemed to be forcing shots. She's presenting herself as a solid second scoring option, but I don't know if she's doing it in the flow of the offense. Then again, I don't know if our offense has a flow to be in, so that's a problem. I honestly don't know what to think of her sometimes.

Amanda Zahui B is not necessarily great when it comes to rotating on defense, but once she was on her man, she was a star. She made Cambage work and got some good blocks in on the inside. I am not enthralled by her love for the three-pointer, especially when it's not going down, but I love the work she put in defensively. That's been one of the things Liberty fans have been riding her about for quite some time, so if she's making strides in that department, more power to her. (Also, really, Vegas, you should know better. You don't mess with the hair.) Tina Charles continues to be doubled and tripled, and continues to try and shoot through it. Her teammates did a better job of making themselves available on the kick out, but Tina's still trying to do too much offensively, and that's a habit she has to break. She's got talent around her- she and they just need to be aware of it and trust in it. This was probably the most physical game we've seen from her all year, and I don't know if that was Katie's game plan, Bill's game plan, or a natural cause and effect of her going at it with Wilson. But she was going hard on the glass and spending a lot more time in the paint than she has been most of the year.

There was so much motion in this game! And it was a good thing! For the first time this year, the offense was moving, both in terms of pace and in terms of people not just standing around waiting for things to happen. It was a refreshing change. I mean, yes, there were still times when whoever had the ball forgot that she had teammates and tried to go it alone, but there were fewer of them than there were in the last few games. Maybe we're turning a corner. I wouldn't place money on it, but anything can happen.

There was a lot of physical play on both sides. Bria should probably stop sitting on people. Conversely, the crew was like "LOL what even are travels". I think one of the officials had family over in the next section- either that, or someone was heckling her particularly hard and she wanted security to know about them. It wasn't us, I swear.

We've still got deep-seated issues. But this game showed what we can be if we get our act together and play to our potential. We have enough talent to compete; when we put in the extra work, it puts us over the top.

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May 25th, 2019: Washington at Connecticut

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Connecticut opened the season strong with an 84-69 win over Washington in the Sun's home opener. Alyssa Thomas led all scorers with 23 points, with Jonquel Jones adding a double-double of 10 points and 14 rebounds. Emma Meesseman led Washington with 14 points.

For free swag, the squad coming through, starters versus reserves, careless cameramen, a poster quest, and energy, join your intrepid and well-traveled blogger after the jump.

Basketball never stops, and neither does your intrepid blogger. We go from home opener to home opener, as the Connecticut Sun open their season with a Saturday night special at Mohegan Sun against the short-handed Washington Mystics.

Somehow, despite the busted seats, the weaksauce air conditioning, and the appalling stench coming from the bathroom, this is still a more pleasant ride than the endless Metro-North ride to That Dump. I'm still wrapping my head around the images of Connecticut in spring. It's so green! And I think I just saw a bus stop. Maybe we're closer to civilization than I thought. We're certainly closer to population; I think we just hit the Stamford traffic jam, unless Connecticut is feeling enthusiastic today and it's actually the Norwalk traffic jam. Well, we are in construction season.

I can simultaneously think it's very cool that the game opened with a traditional (although one presumes modified) Mohegan blessing and be weirded out that the game opened with a prayer, right? That's not too much double-think?

Our bench needs work. Our bench needs a lot of work. Our starters can go toe to toe with anyone in the league and look good doing it. But our bench's inconsistency is going to kill us against teams that aren't sitting a quarter of their roster due to injuries.

Myisha Hines-Allen seems to have bulked up since the last I saw of her, and it was working for her tonight. She gave the Mystics good power inside offensively. I didn't realize she took so many shots until I looked at the box score. Tianna Hawkins made a lot of plays with her butt. These were not always good plays. I think she might actually have deflected the ball with it at one point, and she definitely hit people with it. She's going to need to play a lot better for Washington, especially with their lack of depth right now and the specter of Eurobasket looming.

So... this is what you kept Kim Mestagh for, Coach T? To come in for a few spot minutes as a shooter? She's definitely got that Colorado State touch from beyond the arc, but if she doesn't play it's very hard to gauge her skill on the W level. Shatori Walker-Kimbrough was first off the bench in each half and provided good length, but couldn't finish and made careless mistakes.

I really like what LaToya Sanders brings to the floor for Washington. She didn't do a lot of scoring, but she was very active in motion, setting screens and creating space for her shooters to shoot. She did a lot of hard work on the glass and on the floor, and not all of it is going to show up in the box score. But she was one of the most important players out there for DC tonight, and damn it someone's going to respect her for it. Emma Meesseman's footwork seems to have regressed- she really should have been called for a lot more travels than she was tonight. Like, you know. Any. That's not what they mean by the Eurostep. She's so smooth when she makes the move that it's almost forgiveable. Almost. She's aware of who she has to be for Washington with Delle Donne out, and who she has to be for Belgium, and she's taking on that role.

Kristi Toliver brought her shot tonight, but her game was cut short by a collision with a cameraman with whom she was tangled for quite some time. She left limping and came back with ice on her right knee. We'll see how that goes. She looked so sad and lonely when Coach T threw in the towel and sent in all the reserves he had left. Ariel Atkins kept getting to the line, and I have no idea how. She penetrated, but it didn't look like she was taking the kind of contact that would keep getting her free throws. Maybe she was just taking advantage of us being in the penalty, which is still praiseworthy for clock and foul awareness. She's got touch, but I don't know if she has consistency. Ask me at the end of the season. Natasha Cloud did an amazing job cutting through our defense, and defending on the other end herself. There's an intensity about her defense, a carefully-controlled focus, that's a little bit scary and a little bit cool at the same time. It's like she's determining how she's going to slice you up and if she should use the Ginsu knives or bring out the Henckels.

Washington seems extremely interchangeable. There are days when that will be helpful to them because someone will step up when they need them to. And when they have their full rotation back, then they'll be able to plug in the hot hand and sit whoever doesn't have their act together. But this is a supporting cast in search of a star right now, a problem that will only be exacerbated if Toliver is out for any length of time.

Coach Miller, Y U NO PLAY ANIGWE?

I like what Rachel Banham can bring to the floor on offense, although on that end she looked a little more hesitant than I like. But on the defensive end of the floor, there were at least two moments where I was putting up prayers for her soul after she was immolated on a crossover or a sudden first step. The effort is there. The energy is there. The skill is not. I was under the impression that Bria Holmes was a shooter. Shooting did not happen. Not much of anything happened from her. There was a point in the game where I was done with Layshia Clarendon, which was about five seconds before she found her second wind and started driving the lane more and making better plays on defense. I'm relieved, because I like Layshia and I want her to do well.

Brionna Jones looks like she'll be very effective for short stretches, and then her conditioning or whatever will catch up to her and she'll start slowing down. She brings the power and she brings the pain, but we're going to need her to be able to play more minutes. I did like the big block she had on Tianna Hawkins. Turtle-on-turtle violence is a beautiful thing sometimes. Morgan Tuck hit a couple of threes in the second quarter that got the crowd going (although, to be honest, Morgan Tuck's continued existence is generally enough to get the crowd going, it's sort of refreshing that they've extended their obsessive love to random Huskies to all Huskies instead of... ahem, select ones) but was getting beaten on the boards by Hawkins. She just didn't have the height to compete with Washington's posts, and in most of Connecticut's lineups, she seemed to lined up against Washington's posts so that the other forwards could exploit mismatches.

There are a lot of crazy arrows on my score card indicating amazing ball movement, and a lot of them originate from Courtney Williams. I'm so used to thinking of her as a scorer that seeing her as a facilitator makes me do a double-take. But she realized that her shot wasn't falling, so she passed back. Some of the ball movement with her and Alyssa Thomas was beyond outstanding- they were the types of quick passes you make when you've known someone forever, Ticha-to-Yo kinds of passes. Jasmine Thomas got victimized by rims that were really being too kind to Washington most of the night, but she made some clutch plays defensively. She's the engine that makes the Sun go, much as Kelly Miller was for the champion Mercury back in the day; even when she's not making a statistical impact, she's making things happen for her squad.

Alyssa Thomas, human wrecking ball, took the offense in hand and made sure Connecticut was going to win this game no matter what. While her teammates put in a lot of work to extend the lead, she was the one who took on the scoring load when the game was tight. She drove the lane and took contact without hesitation and without fear. I'm not always thrilled with her floaters, but they were falling in this game, so that seems fine. I was disappointed in Jonquel Jones's willingness ot follow her shot, but she racked up enough rebounds close to the paint with her sheer height that I can't really complain. I'd like to see her take fewer threes, but at the same time I recognize that her ability to stretch the floor is part of what makes her dangerous. It's just frustrating when those long shots go down and there's no one there to rebound except maybe AT, surrounded by four jerseys in the wrong color. Shekinna Stricklen made some surprisingly good defensive plays- there was one sequence where she forced an out of bounds on the sideline that was really slick- but there always seemed to be more on the floor that she could be doing and wasn't. I'd like to see her develop more of a midrange or inside game, even though I know by now it's not going to happen.

The bench needs to get going faster. We lost too much momentum with the reserves in, and the extension of the lead in the second half was as much because Washington collapsed in the absence of Toliver than it was anyone really stepping up big for the Sun.

Camera guys. Stay in your boxes. After the second collision, which was the one that took Toliver out of the game, the entire Washington coaching staff was out on the floor and not shy about expressing their displeasure about the situation, and the officials were talking to the cameramen afterwards. There seemed to be some pushback, so I can only assume there was a debate about the definition of being in the box versus not being in the box.

Officiating was fairly loose for a while, tightened up for a while, then loosened up again. There were some physical plays that could genuinely have gotten someone hurt, like Atkins going knee-to-knee on someone. She got pulled out of the game for that stunt.

The t-shirts look really nice. Well done, Sun.

Nifty entrance video, well-chosen music. The only change I'd have made would be to have even the casual gear be Sun gear. Cal did something similar a few years ago- still showed the different players' different styles, but showed team pride and team unity. (And also, you can market the merch. Cash Rules Everything Around Me.)

Nice touch: the big entrance video features the orange jersey, the "get loud" hype video features the navy blue jersey. Yay, you get to see both sets!

Our neighbors are cool- older folks, season ticket holders since day 1, willing to get loud and support the entire team. I'm going to feel really bad about yelling around them when the Sun play the Liberty. It's not like I'm not going to, though.

"Game of Jones" is funny, but maybe not timely? Please do throwback episodes with Joneses of the past.

Somewhere, there is a coach looking down on an orange Connecticut and laughing. I love it.

Connecticut is definitely more fun to watch than New York. New York is still my squad, but Connecticut seems to enjoy playing basketball far more than New York does.

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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.

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