June 25th, 2003: Phoenix at New York

New York Liberty 70, Phoenix Mercury 64

Adrain Williams is with the band, the Mercury can't buy a bucket, and Tari Phillips is pretty darn awesome.


A sign that Phoenix truly and utterly sucks, beyond the fact that I don’t know who half the people are: Adrian Williams, after stretching but before shooting drills, ran up to talk to the band. I’m sorry, but good, disciplined teams do not go chat with the band.

Memo to Blaze: this team needs a handwriting lesson or two and a fashion consultant. Miko looks like she could come off the bench for the Knicks with that getup. Meh. Miko in street clothes makes me sad. There’s no dancing, no gettin’ on of the groove. This is not good. There is a band; therefore there needs to be Miko groove.

Kate, WHERE WAS YOUR JERSEY? I can see you from here, you know, and if you and your crew are not jerseyed up, I worry most deeply. Miko out of uniform is one thing, but if you’re out of uniform, it’s not of the good.

Stormaniac would have freaked at this anthem rendition; more notes in it than I took in my favorite poli sci class. Geeeeeeez.

Halftime notes: VJ, VJ, and more VJ. She’s been wonderful. Right before the half, she took the ball to the three-point line, dribbled, and put up a picture perfect three-pointer as the buzzer sounded and the light went on. Mistress of timing. Squee. Playing the part of Tamika Whitmore tonight is Elena Baranova. Playing the part of Elena Baranova tonight is Linda Fröhlich. Playing the part of Linda Fröhlich tonight is a random bench chair.

You know a team sucks when they get five chances to put the damn ball in the damn basket and they come away with no points. Phoenix did so. Phoenix did that, to a lesser extent, many times. Phoenix had their troubles putting in the basket many times, except when the Liberty played that very, very porous zone which Jackson and DeForge zapped with threes up the wazoo. Threes up the wazoo hurt a lot.

Not that Lindsey wanted to be in the game or anything, but she spent the entire game with her warmup shirt off. Sorry, Katester; I was disappointed too, especially since I had brought a friend along who happens to be Asian. Poor Linda… I think if I had been down there I would have been able to learn many interesting words in German as she commented on her foul situation. Elena looks much better. *applause* I noticed, however, when Elena hit that first bucket of the game Miko did not clap. Bad Miko. Miko should be classier than that. And I don’t think she stopped chewing her gum once tonight, even during the national anthem. VJ was awesome, as always. Despite the screams of the crazy lady behind us, Tari did have a good game and she deserved to stay in. Spoon looks worse and worse every game. I hate to say that the end is near, but the end is near. This one really bothers the living daylights out of me. It’s all good that Elena gets tangled in jump balls, but WHY DOESN’T SHE WIN THEM?!

Tamicha Jackson is faster than fast. I mean fast. I mean day-um fast. Adrian Williams is all limbs; she was very conveniently good for my virtual team. Anna DeForge is better-looking than I thought; so maybe Lieberman wouldn’t have been so out of it. Supposedly Iziane Castro Marques, the Brazilian sharpshooter, played, but I saw no signs of her presence. Lisa Harrison was very distracting when it came to inbounding the ball. Plenette Pierson had her own little mini-run, but she has yet to learn that the WNBA is not kind to rookies. She’a s big, powerful girl, though, and she’ll only get better. Charmin Smith is just as the Storm folk remember her- a great teammate, a great defender, and lacking in offensive-threatness. Phoenix committed a shitload of fouls against the Liberty, some of them especially egregious. Phoenix is not a pretty team to watch, though Tamicha Jackson leading the fast break is a thing of beauty.

Unwanted Midriff Sightings included VJ, Crystal, Elena, Tamicha Jackson, Kayte Christensen, and Anna DeForge. They made a big deal out of Al Roker showing up, but I haven’t been able to take him seriously since Mad parodied him in the "Livin’ La Vida Loca" parody.

Joe, sorry I couldn’t do more than introduce myself; my friends were hustling me out the door. Now I’m certain you’re the guy I saw at open practice who warmed the cockles of my heart ‘cause of your Tari jersey. Swing by sometime next game. I’m still in 210 E11 or 12. I really don’t bite; ignore all those ugly rumors.