Monday, May 30, 2011

Pre-season: Seattle Storm vs Tulsa Shock, 29 May 11

It was nice to be back in Key Arena. I'm adjusting to new seats this season. My view is a tad more obstructed in some ways (I'm more on level with the people in front of me), but I'm enjoying the shifted perspective in other ways. Ultimately I don't know whether it's my prolonged absence, the new vantage point, or just changes the players or coaches have made in training camp, but I noticed some things I hadn't before, so I was quite entertained overall, and can't wait until the season starts.

New merchandise was already available at the stands inside Key Arena: t-shirts and a greater variety of youth apparel than I've noticed in past seasons. They were limited on sizes in some of the styles, though. And the new jerseys aren't available yet, but they hope to have them out for opening day.

I didn't do a thorough examination of the concessions, but I've heard there are some new ones this year. Ivars? One thing that was noticeable was the prevalence of vendors walking up and down the aisles selling cotton candy, sodas, kettle corn, etc. Two thumbs up from me. This was something I noticed during Rat City Roller Girl games this year, and it's a great convenience, particularly if you'd rather rush to the court to watch warm-ups when the doors open, rather than stand in line for "food".

I heard there was an issue with the in-arena stats, which seemed to have affected box scores at ESPN, etc. At least my brother-in-law kept texting me asking for updates because the stats on ESPN weren't changing and seemed suspect. Hopefully this is just an example of getting the kinks out of the system pre-season.

Pre-game other stormfans and myself sat and discussed who was playing for a spot, and how many were available. It seemed to us that with 8 spots absolutely assured, and the addition of A-rob, that there were tentatively two spots up for grabs. With Smith hurt, speculation on whether Brian might keep Zoll for rare depth at guard (for the Storm) ran high. That would leave one spot between Monroe, Ibekwe and Thomas. So those were the 4 we were keeping an eye on.

I might as well not play coy at this point, though. Monroe has already been cut post-game. I can't disagree with that. Watching the players, the only ones of the four who seemed like they belonged on the court (i.e. they knew where they should be and made a positive impact) were Zoll and Ibekwe. Both had good defensive plays (Zoll drawing a charge right away and Ibekwe snatching away a steal). Ibekwe looked great offensively, scoring by both slashing to the basket, and hitting from the outside. Zoll had at least one good pass right within the flow of the offense, and I liked the look of them running Sue at the 2 while she was in. I think there's potential there. Monroe and Thomas just didn't show anything while they were on the court except a propensity to foul (both on defense and offense) and be out of position defensively. Though the debate about needing size and post depth is a good one, I don't see Thomas getting playing time even if we keep her. And Zoll might. But ultimately it's up to the coaches, and apart from my opinions expressed here, I don't really have a strong feeling either way.

Pre-game and at half time we had Team Auburn: Commit to Fit performing various activities such as jumping rope. At half time they brought out the juggle sticks, hula hoops, etc...as I sat there and ate my candy. :( ;D

During warm-ups I had to keep wondering whether the Shock were really cold? They were in full warm-ups: pants and jacket, while the Storm were in their long-sleeve t-shirts and shorts. After a few minutes Cambage stripped down to the same uniform, but everyone else kept theirs on. I have to say, Key Arena was chilly. I don't know if this will be a pattern, or if I'm just sitting under a vent now in my new location, or if the facilities folks are still experimenting with balancing the temperature. I guess I'll see. Meanwhile, Cambage showed some really fancy footwork around the basket, and she seemed to move quite quickly. She also showed a good touch with the ball inside and out. She's certainly an unmistakable presence out there, and it she can find her comfort zone in the WNBA she's certainly going to be a force to be reckoned with.

Pre-anthem they displayed Margo Dydek's picture up on the screen and we had a moment of silence (apart from the fans around me whispering initially about what had happened to those who didn't know). It was touching. I know that it's been reported elsewhere that LJ was wearing black tape around her bicep. I remember when we drafted her, back when I was a Starzz STH. It was nice to have some acknowledgement, and I wonder whether this is something that will be league-wide, or if this was just the Storm organization's decision on how to honor her.

STH Cathy Crosslin gave us a gentle rendition of the anthem with only a few little flourishes. It's awkward for me to see the flag in my new seats. It's basically right behind and above me. Oh, well. Neck-craning.

Ivory Latta and Tiffany Jackson gathered at center court with Sue and Lauren as co-captains.

Sheryl Swoopes and Betty Lennox got he lion's share of the Shock applause during introductions, though Pederson caused a short spike, as did Cambage. Oh, and also Teresa Edwards was introduced as an assistant coach. 8-)

We had a decent crowd, particularly for a pre-season game. Reportedly our ticket numbers are experiencing that post-Championship bump, and we are potentially set to break League-wide ticket-sales records. 8-) Let's go, Seattle!

As far as the Storm, I've always felt that it's extremely mean (though as far as rookie hazing goes, fairly innocuous) to have the rookies come out first during introductions. Usually they'll stand in the wrong place after running the Dance Team gauntlet and handing off the basketball to a waiting child, but today since we had like 5-6 newbies they'd formed a solid line by the time L'Coe came out (wearing a robo-brace this game), kind of stopped and gave them all a confused look like "why are you all standing here"? I can't remember the precise order, but whoever was first handed the ball off after greeting Doppler, then sort of looked around in confusion, hemmed in on both sides by dancing and clapping Dance Team kids. She confusedly kind of stood where she was near the end of the line, inside the gauntlet. Being the mean person I am, I was laughing out loud at this predicament, because the next few players followed her lead, as I stated. We started to run out of room for the new players to stand, but the Dance Team, bless them, just continued to dance and clap without missing a beat. :D The look on L'Coe's face was priceless, and a couple of players later they sort of turned the line of players so that there was more room. Ah, pre-season! 8-)

From the tip, the tone of the game was established. LJ sort of jumped up and crashed into Cambage when she came down. No call (the refs really let them play early, letting a lot of contact go; I don't know if names are the same with numbers this year but we had #17 Scott Twadarski, who was the same--he always craps on our post players, so I remember him--#43 who might be Brenda Pantoja, and #34 who might be Maj Forsberg...I'm not as familiar with those two, so someone else is going to have to vouch for me; I was using a 2010 list to get their names). Storm controlled the ball. Tanisha scored within seconds to sit us down. Coming to the other end it was highly entertaining to watch LJ take it to Cambage defensively. In fact, she was extremely energetic on defense the whole game. She met every opposing post at the top of the key with a hard forearm. Bam! And she was sure pushing Cambage around down there, working hard to not let her establish position. Flailing arms and elbows. I've never watching any Aussie or international ball in person, so I can't really compare how physical it is in the paint. I can't imagine it being much more physical than this, though, and we were successfully controlling Cambage's ability to establish position. Though it didn't really look like her teammates were trying to get her the ball. I'm sure that's something they'll work on more once they have a better established roster. But in the meantime, the Storm roared out of the gates looking like world-beaters, clicking smoothly both offensively and defensively and by the time Tulsa called their first timeout only a minute and a half into the game every starter but Swin had scored and the Storm were up 10-0. I felt that this was a little deceptive because we were hardly even spending any time running an offense. We were just hitting outside shots. And Tulsa for their part looked totally rocked back on their heels. They've got so little continuity that it's not surprising. They showed their scrappiness later, though.

But early on it was track meet. We were really blowing the carbon off of our starters. The Shock finally scored off of a Storm turnover on a botched in-bounds play with like 6 and a half minutes to go in the 1st quarter. This led to a spate of Storm turnovers, but we were also subbing the bench in. It's only pre-season, so it's tough to take any real conclusions away. There are definitely things the Storm have to do to tighten up their game. Part of the deal with the turnovers is that the Shock play this sort of scrappy defense predicated on pressuring the ball and causing turnovers, but part of it was just due to miscommunication within the Storm ranks as well.

Swin finally scored with around 4 minutes to go in the 1st quarter, the last starter to do so. And we saw the first newbie action with Ify checking in a minute later. This led to a sequence where A-rob missed a few chippies, but stayed with the ball showing a little more fire than I've seen consistently from her, and she ended up with an &1 opportunity. And it's something that's never changed since A-rob joined the team: the whole place goes crazy any time she does anything positive, not just for blocks, but for every made shot. It's not only been for her over the years, but she's the one with the most longevity. So predictably her made shot and foul draw brought us to our feet, from the fans to the players watching on the bench. And that kind of emotion is probably one of the reasons she sticks around. That was the start of an exciting sequence, anyway, where Ify forced a turnover, and A-rob got a block and recovered the ball! ;D 1Q: 24-6

Clearly we dominated the 1st quarter. Ify looked really good in her few minutes of playing time with her steal, a couple of rebounds, and some really good offensive moves, including an athletic slashing lay-in. Ashley Robinson looked more confident, and knows how to pick her spots on the floor, though sometimes her concentration still seems to lapse, and she gets boxed out more than I think she should for rebounds. But she's not just a wasted roster spot, particularly in comparison to the tentative play of Monroe and Thomas. Perhaps that's not fair, since she has multiple seasons under her belt, and they are just rookies (or nearly, in Monroe's case). Her free-throws are as bad as ever, though. ;)

As the 2nd quarter started Brian started to mix the bench players in with the starters more, and often this led to some interesting line-ups. We started the quarter with LJ, Tanisha, Ify, Camille and L'Coe. One guard line-up? LJ continued her brutal fight for defensive position as Cambage came back into the game. Brian was really coaching hard from the sidelines. With only Tanisha really running things on the floor we looked a lot shakier. Tulsa also started to get their sea legs, and really seemed to ramp up their defensive intensity (though this may just be my perception based on the fact that we were lacking ball-handlers). We started to miss our outside shots, and were one-and-done quite a bit, definitely more than we should have been given the amount of size we had on the floor. This allowed Tulsa to start to gain some confidence and start to chip away. In addition, though, the refs really started to make their presence felt >:( starting with Camille. To be fair, Cambage started to establish better position on the block, at which point you basically have to foul her. She's solid from the line, too. No hack-a-Shaq here. ;) Tulsa kept narrowing the gap, and we called a time out about half-way through up 28-16. Krystal Thomas got some brief playing time, but LJ was basically keeping us ahead from the outside, widening the gap again. She didn't score from the inside until there were only 2 and a half minutes to go in the half, though! :o She had a ton of shots that usually go in go in and out. She'd have easily had 10 more points at least if those shots had dropped rather than rimming out.

With 3 minutes to go we were in the penalty with a 5-1 foul disparity (which I helpfully pointed out to the refs ;)).After letting so much contact go early, they were becoming inconsistent with what contact would draw a whistle. I guess it's pre-season for the refs as well. ::) Brian yanked Thomas back out pretty quickly, I think after she picked up an offensive foul. Sue had come back in, and after that play was talking intently to Thomas, then Brian took that on when he pulled her. Explaining where she should be and what she should be doing, I assume. It's hard to tell in pre-season if the coaches have already decided to cut players, and that's why they aren't playing, or whether they think they'll keep them, so they want to have a look at others.I mean, we'd seen neither Monroe or Zoll, yet. Anyway, half-time rolled around with the Storm maintaining a 20 point lead. HT: 45-25

When LJ went to the bench at towards the end of the half, she took her towel and drink and sat on the floor at the end of the bench near the tunnel. Sometimes she would crouch there, but mostly she was just sitting there cross-legged. Not enough chairs on the bench, LJ? Want to stay away from the coaches? :D I don't think it was either of those things. Potentially she wanted to chat with Snell, who was at that end, or maybe it feels better on her back? Sue, Katie Smith and Sharnee Zoll were usually chatting intently together in the center of the bench whenever Sue wasn't in the game.

L'Coe started the 2nd half instead of Camille. She got whacked in the face in the first couple of minutes and it was a heads-up play by Tanisha to foul in order to stop play while she recovered...of course, Tanisha ended up fouling out. :-/ Overall our shooting woes really came to the fore in this quarter, and again we weren't getting rebounds, particularly on offense, so there was a lot of running back and forth. With four minutes to go Tanisha picked up her 4th, so I looked to the bench to see what Brian would do. He paced back and forth for a minute, then gestured for Zoll to go to the scorer's table. Immediately upon entering the game she drew a charge. Then she initiated the offense at the other end, making some good, in-rhythm passes, one on a pick-and-roll that was competently executed. But LJ kept missing chippies, and she wasn't the only one. I shudder to think what our shooting percentage was. And Tulsa was really competing. 3Q: 57-45

It was Camille, L'Coe, Swin, Arob and Tanisha to start the 4th quarter. A couple minutes later Sue and LJ came in with Jacinta Monroe. We started to edge in front a little more, prompting a Tulsa timeout. Meanwhile there was some frustration on the floor from Sue, who threw up her hands and put on Shocked!Sue face at the refs when they blew the whistle. You can hardly blame her, but she was mollified when she learned it was just Tulsa calling a timeout. :D There were clearly some broken plays out on the floor, though. I don't know if we're trying out some new stuff, or it's the presence of unfamiliar players, or if the chaotic Tulsa defense is actually effective, but it led to a lot of shots being jacked up from the outside. :( Not very pretty. Brian put the starters all back in, perhaps to make some kind of teaching point. This led to discombobulation on Tulsa's end, but Swoopes was able to bail them out with a 3, since absolutely nothing else was in the offing. Sue had been trying to run the offense the last couple of times down, but this time in response to that 3 she put on a couple of hesitation dribbles, and went the entire way down the court for a lay-in. Then LJ led a pass perfectly to Sue in traffic, and Betty basically tackled Sue on the sidelines. I don't think Betty looked bad this game, but she didn't really make an impact, either. Holt was really the star for the Shock, capitalizing on our defensive breakdowns, and otherwise just shooting whenever she got the ball.

Ify came back in, and she and Betty ended up in a jump ball, prompting plenty of coaching from Brian and the other Storm players for Ify--and we ended up controlling the ball. In the last several minutes Brian switched people in and out often, predictably leading to a rather chaotic game. Ify went back to the bench, sitting next to Jenny Boucek, who was coaching her intently while sitting there (though really, I guess they could be discussing anything). Arob blocked Cambage and got called for a foul, which garnered some boos from the crowd. It looked pretty clean to me. The hand is part of the ball, is it not? Sue, Katie and LJ were taking up the center of the bench at this point, chatting up a storm. Sue kept stretching out and massaging her neck, as if it was stiff. Perhaps from her earlier tackle? Jacinta got a little bit of playing time in the final minute as Brian tried to coach the team to hang on to victory. After going to the line to put us up 6 with mere seconds remaining, Tanisha fouled out. And then "Another One Bites the Dust" started playing. 8-) It's nice to be back in Key Arena. Final: 76-71

Dick Fain interviewed Ify Ibekwe post-game. Big cheers. No surprise she runs the floor well, but he asked her how she felt to see her work on her outside shooting paying off? She said it feels great. He asked her about the team, and she said she was really lucky to get to play with this great group of veterans, and that they were teaching her to always compete.

In conclusion, I'm not to surprised to see Monroe get cut. Though it's tough after only having a few weeks of training camp, it seems to me that with our short rosters you have to pick things up quickly and be able to make an impact. It's no use keeping size if the big player doesn't know how to wield that effectively on the floor. For this reason, I wouldn't be surprised to see Thomas get cut as well. At least Zoll (after significantly less time) seemed to know where to go on the floor. But perhaps the coaching staff will see something in Thomas they think they can groom. Who can say? LJ looked good out there: energetic. She wasn't missing her shots close, and she was consistent from long range, so I'm sure it's just a timing thing that she'll get back quickly. Sue was Sue. Arob looked more confident that she has lately. L'Coe was solid, and Camille displayed her typical flashes of brilliance, particularly offensively. Swin was as scrappy as always, and after a slow start seemed to find her rhythm. She and Sue also have a really good chemistry, that's useful in transition. I can't wait to see Smith and Snell on the floor. I really feel like we were forced to play more posts at a time than usual, and it will be nice to get some sort of balance back there.

Run-off:

  • They had some good give-aways this game. Uncharacteristic based on the last pre-season game I attended (though, granted, that was like 3 seasons ago). One such event was during a Fan Dance in the 2nd quarter where the winning fan would get an Xbox Kinect, and that fan's whole section would get a Kinect game. Fortunately for me (because I can't dance a lick) I already have a Kinect. But it was still pretty cool.
  • Another thing they did that amused me was play a video-game sound-effect on made Storm free-throws that sounds just like when you get a coin in Super Mario Brothers (and I'm sure other games).
  • I hadn't heard of the Smithsonian Channel, but they sponsored a half-court shoot out between the 3rd and 4th quarters. Surprisingly, a shot was made fairly quickly. I think the winner got volumes 1 & 2 of "The Real Story" a program on the SC. Oh, and bragging rights. ;)
  • I didn't win the 50-50 raffle. :( Heh-heh. Not that I ever really expect to. ;)
  • Did I mention that I love the mobile concessions? I didn't partake this game, but I did help hook a little girl up with some cotton candy (she was having a hard time getting the vendor's attention, but I have a well-trained ref-yelling voice).
  • We were wearing our new uniforms today. They looked really white. Other than that I guess they're fine.

Stormin' the Lake 28 May 2011

A surprisingly sunny day at Green Lake brought out really decent crowds, as others have mentioned. The court there at the Community Center is newly-cleaned (thanks to Storm staffers), and sporting the Storm logo (formerly a Sonics logo). Dick Fain and Shelley Hart were our MCs. I wondered if Adia was unable to appear as a Storm representative, now that she's an assistant coach in the NCAA, but she was out of town attending a wedding, so that could be the explanation there.

After welcoming us out, they introduced the coaches then the players. The newbies all got applause. Katie came out with her dog (part of the fun of the Green Lake event is the dogs everyone has). It was funny to see a lot of the players with scarves and jackets on. I thought it was quite warm in the sun, though a lot of them are returning from warmer climates, I guess. I thought Tanisha in particular was quite bundled up.

L'Coe had a little black dog (doesn't Ashley have one too?), but she must have let it go, because when LJ was introduced she almost stepped on it as it ran around people's feet, until L'Coe's son picked it up. The players looked fairly relaxed and happy. Coach Agler was interviewed briefly, and he said that he hopes to have a full roster available on opening day, that most of the injuries are day-to-day type affairs. I've heard various things about Katie's injury, but they said the A word (Achilles) today, so I hope they don't rush that one like they did with Wendy several seasons ago.

The Storm Dance Troupe came out and performed, and it was pretty hilarious to watch the team standing behind them. L'Coe knew all the moves and was doing the dance right along with the kids. 8-)

After those brief remarks it was straight to the balloon toss. Coach Agler was talking trash about how he's won the past two years, and he did end up being one of the last 10 or so teams, but didn't make the cut. I think it's really funny to watch the players in these instances because they all get so competitive. It was really chaotic at first, with balloons being tossed everywhere. Perhaps next year they should explain the rules while everyone is still gathered around the stage? Anyway, LJ was paired up with Doppler, so you wondered if that was fair, but they ended up winning the whole thing! Towards the end it was Sue's team, LJ's team, and one other, but Sue's team busted out. Then both the final teams busted out, leading to overtime. LJ and Doppler won, which surprised me. Can you really see well from within the Doppler suit?

After that everyone kind of milled around, talking to the players and getting autographs. Some of the players went to certain "stations" spread around, and some mingled in the crowd. I know that Snell and Katie Smith were both chatting with fans. There was the normal face-painting station, and ticket reps and staffers were also wondering around to answer questions. All-in-all this is a pretty relaxed event, and with the weather cooperating it was a great way to kick off the summer season. :)