Thursday, September 3, 2015

September 3rd, 2015: Chicago at New York

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Courtney Vandersloot's 21 points led a long-distance barrage as Chicago dominated New York 82-60. Elena Delle Donne and Allie Quigley each added 19.

For flamenco, lost souls, injury concerns, clampdowns, transit concerns, bad mojo, and things left unsaid, join your intrepid and concerned blogger after the jump.


This could be the big one. This could be the regular season title game. Chicago visits New York for most, if not all, of the marbles.

If these Delle Donne fans don't stop wandering around looking for someone to ask questions of, someone's going to have to take them in hand.

We're expecting a fairly large crowd, but it might be a late-arriving one.

Tina, you and Avery should stick to your day jobs. (Upon further review...)

No Pondexter, but Delle Donne is present and in the starting lineup.

Should have switched the anthem singer and the "God Bless America" singer.

At halftime, Chicago is laying a 46-27 smackdown on New York. Their defensive intensity is phenomenal, and the three-point shooting is out of this world. The Liberty have no answer for either- we're just not used ot teams meeting us on the same level defensively. And Tina Charles is taking a lot of bad shots, and not seeing any better options.

Refs definitely letting them play.

Damn it, how can you not like Elena Delle Donne when her first reaction after a collision is to check on the opponent, even before getting up? Stop being so gosh darned sweet, Elena!

I can't say I was expecting this. I expected a tight game, but not for Chicago to come out like gangbusters on both ends of the floor. They played their game better than we played our game- it's in fact fair to say they played our game better than we played our game.

Pokey Chatman put everyone in in a line change at the end of the game. So many substitutions at once. There were a lot of subs throughout the game- both coaches were adjusting on the fly with their personnel.

Jamierra Faulkner is really quick. She's not very big, and in a dead run she's not necessarily very fast, but her feet move quickly. That's how she makes up for her lack of size- she gets to the right place at the right time. I suspect my penance for sins committed in another life is to forever be haunted, and taunted, by Quigleys. As a Johnnie, I spent six years tormented by the DePaul duo... and now Allie Quigley is hitting jumpers on my team again. Unlike those other two blondes, she was hitting them from the midrange instead of from long range. She picked Chicago up in the fourth quarter when the Liberty made a little bit of a run.

The sets that Chicago was using emphasized speed and perimeter play over power, so Clarissa Dos Santos didn't get a lot of playing time. She boxed out really well on free throws. Betnijah Laney kept busy on defense. I kind of wish she'd used up the airball a few months ago, maybe during the first round of the tournament.

Courtney Vandersloot slayed us from beyond the arc, especially in the first half. I don't know how she did it, but she did it. She did it a lot. Tamera Young hit jump shots, which is not a thing that I am used to seeing happen very much. She was also tough defensively- going with the big lineup allowed Chicago to smother Epiphanny Prince, both with her and with Delle Donne on switches.

We got on Jessica Breland early, remembering what she did to us last game. She played well on the boards, and when we reconfigured the defense desperately in the third quarter, she got jumpers. Érika de Souza played solid on the boards and was all over Tina Charles, as part of the reason why Tina looked so awful tonight..

Elena Delle Donne transcends my usual division of guards and posts, so she gets her own paragraph. What impressed me about her tonight was not her shooting, because she didn't hit a lot of the shots she got, even the good looks; nor was it her ability to take contact, get to the line, and convert the free throws. What impressed me was how well she fit in the general scheme of the offense. She set some really tough screens, and she crashed the boards very quickly. I know there's been a lot of talk about her becoming more post-oriented, but this is the first time I've seen it in action in person. She really is the complete package. And she has the gall to be a genuine human being, too. And she's pretty. Not fair.

Avery Warley-Talbert, would it kill you to grab a rebound? Or take a shot? Kiah Stokes did a lot of the non-box score stuff, but she spent a lot of the game looking either lost or like she was hung up on her mistakes. Essence Carson definitely doesn't have the step she once had to catch up with players who get past her first move, but her handle was also shaky tonight, which was a problem because of the injury to Boyd and because she ended up playing far more point guard than a small forward (in Bill's system) or shooting guard (in the modern WNBA) should be playing.

We knew that Brittany Boyd's intimate love-hate relationship with the hardwood was going to be trouble one of these days, and she hit the floor hard on one of those drives and hurt her left hand. She tried to play through it, because she's tough and maybe a little bit crazy, but she had to come out after dinging it a second time. Love her hustle. Candice Wiggins was very vocal and active on the bench, but I think her Stanford showed a little bit on the floor- she was overthinking her passes through the smothering defense. Sugar Rodgers showed some spark in the fourth quarter, when there was still a chance for a comeback, but faded out late.

This was one of the worst games I've seen Tina Charles play. "But Queenie, 17 and 8 is pretty good!" The raw numbers are pretty good, but she took shots that would have made Cappie blush. She was taking desperate panic shots, unable to handle the double and triple-teams coming at her. She took shots out of her range and shots that had no reasonable chance of going in over the Chicago defense. When we weren't the only ones in our section calling for Avery to sub in near the end of the first quarter, there might have been a problem. Carolyn Swords had trouble hanging on to the ball, but was gritty on defense and had a couple of nice taps out on rebounds. Swin Cash got the unenviable task of trying to help defend Delle Donne. That took most of her energy.

Tanisha Wright tried to spearhead the second-half comeback. She turned up the defense, and came up with a couple of shots. But you can only drag people so far. Epiphanny Prince didn't get a lot of looks, but when she was able to cross her defender over or deke them back, she converted.

I was most impressed with the coaching in this game. Every action had a reaction. Every move had a countermove. That's not what I expect from Chatman, but Chicago read our switches and answered with their own. They beat us fair and square. So much for Cappie, huh?

I still have faith in this team, though I'm worried about Boyd now. We've managed to avoid the injury bug for most of the season, but you never know when an infestation will hit. I think they'll be okay. I think we'll adjust.

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