One of the highlights of the Minnesota Lynx's thrilling 96-94 overtime victory over the Mystics was definitely Renee Montgomery's post game interview.
Two things went right in this interview: first, Montgomery is an engaging personality and second, radio commentator Alan Horton engaged her in a real conversation rather than asking the normally ridiculous post game questions ("What were you thinking when you took that game winning shot?").
I started to take excerpts from it for another post and then just decided to post the whole thing.
Montgomery is now officially a Rethinking Basketball favorite, with her own label in the label cloud and everything. Hopefully this is the first of many fun post-game interviews with Montgomery.
More to come on the actual game and Montgomery later, but for now, enjoy the interview.
Alan Horton, radio commentator: Renee Montgomery puts on the headset, joins us here courtside.
Congratulations, young lady!
Renee Montgomery: Thank you.
AH: Wow, what a game.
RM: Yeah…I’m..I’m still…I can’t believe we…I’m embarrassed right now to stand here.
AH: Why are you embarrassed?
RM: Because…you know you saw that foul…I’m so embarrassed.
AH: Oh the three point-…on the three pointer?
RM: Yeah
AH: Yeah… you guys committed two fouls –
RM: Idiots.
AH: [Laughs]
RM: You can say it…you can’t say it, but I’ll say it: that’s probably the dumbest minute of basketball anybody’s ever seen.
AH: But is that…are those kind of the learning steps you go through as a young team? You guys have not been in a lot of close games -- only the win in Sacramento. Are those the kinds of things you gotta learn along the way?
RM: Yeah-um…that stuff you learn in elementary, I think junior high. Maybe by the time you get to college, but we should know better. Um, I’m just happy we got the win. We really dug deep. So…
AH: Talk about your fourth quarter -- you kinda took over this game. You had 12 of your, uh, your 15 points at the end of regulation, 12 of those in the fourth quarter. What did you guys see in that fourth quarter that you were able to take advantage of?
RM: Um, the coaches actually put in a couple plays yesterday in preparation for this game. And she called it! And it just happened to work. So we was like, “Ok, we’re gonna keep on running it until they stop it.” And it worked. Like a lot of times Candice would set amazing screens. Um…and I was just getting an open lane to the basket.
AH: You went down a couple of hard times. How are you feeling?
RM: Yeah I’m gonna have to get in a cold tub and call Tina – you know, the massage lady. And ask her to help me out a little bit. But it will feel good in the morning when I know we won.
AH: A career-high 21 points, that has to feel nice. But that also has to feel nice that it comes in a victory…If you guys had lost this one off of the loss to Sacramento, that really would have been two tough back to back games.
RM: That would hurt. And it would have been our own fault because we would have shot ourselves in the foot. But hey, we won. So that’s all that matters.
AH: You know you guys couldn’t find a way to win that one in Sacramento. But you kinda found a way to do it here tonight. You kinda feel that way?
RM: We did. You know we did learn from the Sacramento game – you learn that the game isn’t over till that buzzer rings and you saw that…it really wasn’t today. You know we had .4 seconds and she really almost-…she coulda hit that shot that she just shot. So…I mean…it’s a 40 minute game – but in our case, you know, 45 minutes – but you know, you gotta play till that buzzer.
AH: Ok, thoughts on facing San Antonio, a tough Western Conference power, coming up on Friday night and rounding out this home stand.
RM: Um… I’m excited…um…you know, it’s exciting for me, personally, to play a team for the first time because this is my first year in the league and I don’t know what teams are like. And it’s just exciting, I’m playing against a great point guard – Becky Hammon – so it’s just exciting and I’m just looking forward to it.
Said Montgomery: "I didn't really catch fire, I just shot layups. It wasn't like I was on fire from (three-point range)."
OK, so maybe she dropped a few cliche's in there near the latter half...but it was still great. And how great is it to hear someone just be so excited to play the next game? Will be keeping an eye on her development this season.
Candace Parker was like everything anyone has ever wanted any rookie to become.
From my limited perspective, she was arguably one of the best rookies to ever enter any professional sport.
No WNBA rookie has ever won Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player in the same season (and only two NBA players – Wes Unseld and Wilt Chamberlain – have accomplished that feat). To that feat, you can add winning an Olympic gold medal and NCAA championship in the same year, within six months of each other. And, yeah, she also dunked…twice.
Parker set a gold standard for rookie performance last season that no player is likely to reach again. She was clearly at the top of an outstanding rookie class, which included other future all-stars like Candice Wiggins, Nicky Anosike, and Sylvia Fowles to name a few.
What’s funny is that even if people know Parker is a rare phenomenon, there is a tendency to treat almost every single rookie drafted like they’ll be the next big thing. And if they aren’t the next big thing, we really don’t have a good way to think about rookie performance. At no time is that more evident than draft day. I missed the WNBA’s draft this year, but did catch the NBA draft (as I do every year) and I think the spin is probably worse there.
Hyperbolic NBA draft day talk has become so commonplace that normally I wouldn’t bother to comment. And really, it makes a lot of sense: even if everybody except the newly minted millionaire’s mother knows that the player has no business being drafted in the lottery, you can’t just say that on national television.
It would be boring to say, “He’s going to be a great journeyman who will contribute 5-10 minutes off a fringe playoff team’s bench for 5-7 years.” Instead you have to say something like, “He’s a hardworking winner who can contribute to a team right away.” (Oh no, I’m not referring to anyone in particular).
And yet, ESPN still managed to go over the top during this year’s NBA draft. In fact, it was one of the worst commentated NBA drafts I’ve ever seen. It’s not just that they were making dumb comments; the problem appeared to be that the litany of meaningless clichés that have accumulated from draft days past had cemented in their minds to the point of preventing any sort of original thoughts being uttered about any player.
The comment that really generated a buzz among the basketball geeks I was watching the draft with came from Fran Fraschilla. After calling Ricky Rubio the best passer drafted in a decade (by “best” I’m assuming he meant “fanciest”) and comparing his feel for the game to Wayne Gretzky’s (feel for hockey, I assume), he later called Rubio “transformative”. Of course, the geeks object. This led us to talk about the difference between transformative (“the skies open and completely alter our way of life”) vs. transformational (“having the potential to change a team’s fortunes”).
(Note: Yes, I do find that type of conversation “fun”.)
Of course, what everyone is looking for – especially early in the draft – is those “transformative” players who can walk on water, part the defense, and float through the air to put the ball in the basket. So it’s not really uncommon I suppose for any league on draft day – I vividly remember Michael Cooper comparing Candace Parker to the Showtime Lakers’ entire starting five or something.
And occasionally, those players come along: most recently LeBron James and Candace Parker have been somewhat transformative. But even they have not been able to win championships in their first seasons (this is what separates Magic Johnson from most mortal basketball players).
Anyway, I always find it funny how after summer league (going on now), pre-season, and failing to get a starting spot on a losing team, the tone of the analysts change. After trying to cast everyone as the biggest thing since the pick before him, reality sets in and you start hearing things like, “It’s going to take time for him to adjust” or “He’s going to have to spend some time learning the game.”
Hopefully, reality has set in for you regarding the WNBA by now.
We’ve seen just enough to get a sense of what each player offers, but not quite enough to make any real solid claims about who is “best”. Nevertheless, after checking out the rookie point guards earlier this season, I did wonder about who was the best rookie overall. Which brings me back a question I asked last year: what is the fairest way to evaluate rookies?
There are many metrics we could use to determine who the best player in the WNBA is. In fact, most of the biggest APBRmetricians have a metric of their own to evaluate player productivity. However, I would argue that most of those are completely inadequate for evaluating rookies for one reason: rookies are wildly inconsistent.
Unless you have a rookie like Candace Parker or LeBron James, it’s almost impossible to know what you’re going to get game to game. That’s just natural: in addition to adjusting to the level of competition, they are learning a new system, figuring out how to move from star and/or leader of their college team to professional role player, and then there’s the issue of opponents eventually figuring out how to best defend them and constantly throwing different looks at them.
As Atlanta Dream commentator LaChina Robinson said during the webcast of at game in which McCoughtry failed to score as fellow rookie first-rounder Shavonte Zellous attempted to carry the Detroit Shock from the free throw line, it’s extremely difficult for a rookie to carry a team and it’s impressive when they do, even if briefly.
So although we are all looking for that dominant game changing rookie who can lift a team from the depths of the cellar to the glory of a WNBA championship, we probably will not get it this season. We are much more likely to be evaluating the player who is best able to adjust to the rigors of professional basketball and have any sort of impact.
Even trying to find predictors of future success is difficult because it all depends on which team they end up on, the role they are able to get on the team, and how hard they work behind the scenes. Given that, I tried to think to take a step backwards and rethink what exactly we should be evaluating when we look at rookie.
Rethinking Basketball rookie refresher
So last year I approached rookie evaluation from two angles: most promising/potential and most outstanding. This year, I’m abandoning the most promising approach simply because there are so many intangibles involved in realizing potential that I am not sure a statistical analysis is that valuable (I do however find Diamond Rating interesting and petrel has already posted those). So I’m just going to try to do an analysis of top rookies, with an eye on how well they contribute to team success.
Last year, I used the following statistics, based on Oliver’s Four Factors and past email exchanges with David Sparks:
Ball movement (unselfishness) Turnover ratio Offensive rebound rate True shooting percentage Valuable contributions rating
This year I am adding: Plus/minus SPI versatility
The goal of this approach was simply to examine the different ways each player is able to contribute to the key factors of success rather than trying to use one overarching metric to evaluate inconsistent production.
However, when I looked back at last year’s numbers I wasn’t quite satisfied with the process…especially for a year like this one when there is considerably less star power, but still a number of solid players. The problem is that every rookie this year has glaring flaws that keeps them from being a great all-around player conducive to high ratings on many of the linear production metrics that one might choose to use.
So I wanted to figure out a better way…
Two tidbits of wisdom regarding rookies
So as I looked around the web for wisdom about how to evaluate rookies, two things really stood out for me – nobody really has a good way of evaluating rookies…aside from waiting to see how they turn out. But within that, just surfing the web and reading other people’s analyses did yield a few useful tidbits.
First, Dave Berri has done some very interesting work looking at the NBA’s Kevin Durant and today he compared Durant’s rookie campaign to Carmelo Anthony and Jerry Stackhouse.
But Anthony is simply not outstanding at any aspect of the game. And to be outstanding, you have to do something outstanding. Yes, it’s that simple. ….
And that is my point. Players should be evaluated in terms of what they actually have done. Not in terms of what we imagine they might do at some point in the future.
What I like about Berri’s analysis is the focus on what a player does well beyond just scoring points. We all know from past experience that points per game simply is not a good indicator of how good a rookie is in terms of their ability to contribute to a team.
What’s important, whether we are judging the best rookie or potential success, is that a rookie be able to do something well.
Which takes me to another bit of wisdom that I heard in reference to the NBA’s Bruce Bowen during a broadcast one time. Someone made the point that what allows a player like Bowen to succeed in the NBA is not that he wows you with athleticism or dominant talent, but that he has learned to do one thing well on each side of the ball (making spot up threes and playing tough perimeter defense).
Along with Berri’s analysis, I think that actually provides a helpful framework for rookie analysis – what has a rookie shown that they can do well? And more importantly, what can they contribute to a professional team?
Overall productivity measures are helpful to give us a player’s net effect, but don’t answer those more specific questions that are probably more important for making an analysis of a player who is constantly developing. And therefore, I’m not entirely sure overall rankings are helpful.
When you think about a player like Crystal Langhorne, she didn’t dazzle anyone last year, but she did do two things rather well – getting offensive rebounds and score with a high percentage. She established that she had skills to build on. So if we look for those specific assets and how well they do those, I think we might be able to find a more nuanced way to analyze rookies…
Hmmmm….more on this tomorrow..
Transition Points:
Best drafted passer in the last decade: I think Chris Paul, Shaun Livingston, Jordan Farmar, and Baron Davis would all argue that they were pretty good passers coming into the league. In fact there’s a whole league of fancy passers who would rather show off than win games – it’s called And 1.
Rubio’s moves are nice, but let’s try to keep things in perspective: fancy passing is entertaining, but does not necessarily translate to wins, though it might get you an early playoff exit before the team decides to acquire a point guard with substance. Just ask Jason Williams…and he actually had a jumpshot. And he was already compared to Maravich too. But I guess since it was more than a decade ago, we can forget about that.
It’s not just that the Mercury posted a season-high 36-point third quarter, that they managed to out-rebound the Sparks 40-31, or that they ran off 11 straight points to start the fourth quarter. It’s how they did it that is noteworthy.
Although the game ended up a blow out, it was going back and forth until about three minutes left in the 3rd quarter when DeLisha Milton-Jones was whistled for a touch foul on DeWanna Bonner that forced Jones to the bench with her fourth foul.
After Bonner made the two free throws, the Mercury were up five. Then the shifting tide of momentum that the Sparks had seemingly held off for the previous three and a half minutes, swung completely in the Mercury’s favor.
What the Mercury did to the Sparks during the ensuing five and a half minute stretch spanning the 3rd and 4th quarters really cannot be measured, quantified, or even fully articulated without watching it.
To describe it as the Sparks “falling apart” would be to completely ignore that the Mercury got into a zone in which they seemed to be optimally coordinated as a team while almost effortlessly taking control of the game.
Commentator Tracy Warren may have described the sequence of events best at the end of the third quarter after Cappie Pondexter set up Bonner for a three to put the Mercury up 10.
You could see with that three a little bit of deflation from the Sparks. They’re feeling like wow. We’re can’t stop Taurasi, we’re having trouble with Pondexter, and now you’re us the rookie Bonner is gonna hit from outside. Tough matchup problems for the Sparks right now in the third.
That was before Cappie Pondexter took an outlet pass without about 6.5 seconds left, beat Shannon Bobbitt down the length of the court, and hit a seemingly ridiculous floating jumper from the wing with 1.2 seconds left to put the Mercury up 11.
That’s demoralizing. And sometimes that just means more on the court than anyone off the court can understand rationally.
What the Mercury did to the Sparks during that stretch was not just Mercury basketball at its best, but it was an almost perfect realization of what a fast paced offense should be. All the elements of what it takes to run successfully were on display: defense (to prevent the other team from making shots), rebounding (to initiate the fast break), and high percentage shots (to keep the pressure on the opposing defense).
When a team with three all-stars (yes, Temeka Johnson is having an all-star season) gets in that kind of zone, it’s difficult to imagine anybody stopping them…even if they are on the road.
From an analytical standpoint, the Mercury’s play during that condensed period of time is perfect for a case study of what the Mercury do at their best. However, it also reinforces the argument that the Sparks are simply not a running team but a team designed to thrive off of their Olympic frontcourt. And once they get all their pieces back in game shape, a team like the Mercury might not even get the opportunity to run them like that. A tale of two halves
Obscured by the final outcome of the game is that the Sparks played a very strong first half despite Candace Parker returning to play her first game after pregnancy and Lisa Leslie still sidelined by injury. Forget whatever you thought about the Mercury prior to the season – the Sparks were playing neck and neck with the best team in the West without a full roster. That’s impressive.
In the second quarter, when the Sparks built a six-point lead, the Sparks completely neutralized the Mercury – the Mercury only shot 26.7%, made four unforced turnovers, and gave up five offensive rebounds. The Mercury were forced into a number of contested shots or bad decisions just from the aggressive defense of the Sparks. With 3:22 left in the second quarter, I wrote the following note to myself: “pho falling apart”.
Granted, the Sparks needed a miracle shot at the halftime buzzer to take a 5 point lead, but they played well and kept the Mercury at bay.
But of course a five point lead is not what one would normally consider “safe”.
With 8:56 left in the 3rd, the Sparks were up 8 after a layup by Kristi Harrower. What allowed the Mercury to cut the lead was the Sparks settling for perimeter shots or getting contested shots inside. Meanwhile, the Mercury were starting to heat up, getting open looks from the three point line within the flow of their early offense and getting to the free throw line 12 times. They were getting easy points.
And that was before the Mercury started demoralizing the Sparks.
How the Mercury can demoralize an opponent
Last season I noted that the Mercury were best when they started moving the ball. While Taurasi can certainly single-handedly take over games, when she can get help it makes the Mercury extremely difficult to defend, as described in the aforementioned Warren quote. However, both ball movement and rebounding are what made the Mercury’s run possible.
The Mercury’s six third quarter assists matched their assist total from the first half. That’s not including at least four other “lost assists” – missed open shots or plays on which a player got fouled on a shot after receiving a pass -- that I counted. When the Mercury get into their uptempo zone, it’s not just one player leading the way, it’s a team effort.
There are at least three key reasons for the Mercury being so effective in the open court this season. First, the addition of Temeka Johnson has been perfect for the Mercury’s system. She not only has the speed and ball skills to get out on the break and find players in rhythm, but she can also spread the defense by hitting perimeter shots.
Second, the addition of Bonner was perfect for this team. Bonner is able to beat everyone down the court for easy baskets, which only enhances the Mercury attack. However, another key asset Bonner brings is offensive rebounding. Bonner had five offensive rebounds in the game, three of which came in the third quarter.
The Mercury as a team are not known for their rebounding, but they out-rebounded the Sparks 25-10 in the second half. In the third quarter, they grabbed 57% of all the available offensive rebounds, which is dominant. That means they were not only getting easy baskets and wide-open shots, but also extending their possessions and giving themselves second chances to score. Bonner’s tenacity in the paint despite her slight build was a large part of that.
Third, the other major “addition” to the Mercury is Cappie Pondexter’s improvement as a facilitator. It is well known that Johnson and Taurasi are playmakers with great court vision, but Pondexter has been an outstanding playmaker in her own right this season. Whereas last season she spent a lot more time looking for her own shot, often literally bulldozing her way to the basket with her head down, this season, she's looking to set up her teammates. Last night, she recorded a pure point rating of 5.74 to lead the team.
That means that not only do opponents have to keep up with the pace of the Mercury, but they also have to find a way to defend a team with three perimeter players that can facilitate plays for all the other moving parts like Bonner, Le’Coe Willingham, and Tangela Smith.
It’s not easy.
However, most important is the Mercury’s defense. As coach Corey Gaines said in the pre-season, they are employing the Rover defense differently this season, choosing to alternate between that and a man-to-man defense. With about 4:30 left in the third, they briefly started alternating between the two defenses which worked to slow the Sparks down just as the Mercury were starting to heat up.
The Sparks looked as though they were having trouble recognizing exactly what defense the Mercury were in. When they play the Rover effectively and use it as a tactic to sway the tempo rather than their base offense, they further keep their opponents on their toes.
In the last 2:58 of the third quarter, all those pieces came together at once, along with Taurasi being Taurasi. That is near unstoppable.
Of course, with Leslie and Parker healthy, one would imagine that the Mercury could not possibly have been so dominant on the boards and that would definitely have changed the face of this game. Not to mention the fact that Milton-Jones was out for much of this third quarter stretch after picking up her fourth foul.
But at the end of the third quarter, this is the Mercury you saw: working extremely well together, scoring from all over the floor, and limiting the Sparks’ scoring opportunities on the defensive end. That team is going to be competitive any night of the week.
Anatomy of a fourth quarter run: The Sparks’ search for someone to step up
However, things just worsened for the Sparks at the beginning of the fourth. And what became obvious at that point is that the Sparks are still trying to figure out their roles on the team.
Warren mentioned that Tina Thompson has said that she would defer to Leslie and Parker as the leaders on this talented team. Lennox is a good scorer, but usually inefficient. Milton-Jones was clearly the third wheel on last season’s Sparks team.
In other words, when the Sparks still had a chance to get back in this game despite the demoralization process, they didn’t know where to look to get out of the rut. There is a leadership void without Leslie and Parker at full strength.
Meanwhile, Taurasi and, to a lesser extent, Johnson had a field day.
However, as I was watching I took note of who was taking the shots for each team. Here’s an excerpt from my notes in the 4th quarter until the 6:30 mark when the Sparks found themselves down 22:
LA to Hayden Pho to Taurasi 83-70 LA to Quinn for 3 85-70: TJ for 2, open free throw line J Lennox missed j TJ to Bonner, fast break lay 87-70 Mercury switching zones DMJ bad throw in, Swanier fast break lay + ft 1-1, 90-70 DMJ to, Taurasi fast break lay, 92-70 LA timeout
While the Sparks are looking for Vanessa Hayden, Noelle Quinn, or Betty Lennox, the Mercury have the ball in the hands of Johnson and Taurasi and getting layups or free throws. I’ll take Johnson and Taurasi in that contest any day. Warren made the following comment late in the fourth quarter that sums up what happened to the Sparks.
This is a team that has shown they’ve got multiple offensive weapons and unless someone can stop them all, they’re going to have their hands full.
There is no way the Sparks could have matched up with the Mercury last night, given their personnel. But again, it’s important to reiterate that if the Sparks had one of their designated leaders on the floor during that stretch, the play by play would look a lot different.
Last night’s game should not Spark panic in L.A.
However, the easiest thing to focus on in the Sparks’ loss is the fourth quarter when they looked completely discombobulated and without leadership. One could imagine that the 11-0 fourth quarter run is what motivated Milton-Jones’ post game comments (quoted in the LA Times), that seemed to have a sense of urgency about solving the Sparks’ problems.
As a team that has already played nine games and had their coach question their effort, the Sparks know their own rebuilding effort can't take too much time.
"We cant keep patching up the leaks," said Sparks forward DeLisha Milton-Jones, who tied her season high with 15 points but was scoreless in the second half.
"We need to re-pipe the system with copper piping to make sure there is no more damage later on. Right now we're suffering a lot of water damage and our foundation is slowly cracking. But we have to find ways to get wins, bottom line."
While Milton-Jones is probably correct that there are leaks that need to be fixed in the Sparks’ foundation, one could conceivably modify the metaphor – it’s as though the Sparks’ foundation of Leslie and Parker was removed altogether and the water is just creating a mudslide in the dirt below.
This season’s team was put together with the assumption that they would have Leslie and Parker playing together in the post. Without that, they will have an extremely difficult time finding wins. Until that point, it’s difficult to critique the Sparks, coach Michael Cooper, or the personnel.
They have to remain patient and looking forward to establishing their system so that they are ready to win once Leslie and Parker return.
Warren’s comment with 50.3 seconds left speaks directly to that point:
Now I think It’s a different game if you get a healthy Lisa Leslie and a healthy Candace Parker and you see what happens in August and September.
The Sparks will still have to fight their way into the playoffs and likely need help…but if they do get in with a healthy roster, they will absolutely be dangerous.
Transition Points:
BobsScoutingReport made a post on Rebkell saying that Nikki Teasley will be working out with the Sparks today for a possible signing. One would assume that means the Sparks will be dropping a point guard. That brings up two obvious questions: 1) would Teasley add anything to their existing group? and 2) if so, which point guard should go?
First let me say that I think Teasley's performance in Atlanta was inconsistent, but not nearly as horrific as some Dream fans make it out to be. But anyway...
My vague general opinion: it depends on how the Sparks want to play.
A more specific analysis:
If they're looking for a distributor who can protect the ball, Kristi Harrower is by far the best of the bunch -- she has an outstanding pure point rating of 9.55 and an assist ratio of 37.05...while only turning the ball over on 3% of the possessions she uses. Quinn is by far the odd person out if they want a distributor.
If they're looking for a point guard who can distribute and score, Teasley is the best shooter of this bunch with a 56% true shooting percentage, but again Harrower is more efficient -- she has a 2 point shooting percentage of 45% and scores 2 points for almost every possession she ends with a missed shot or turnover. Quinn is not nearly the playmaker of the other three, but is by far the best shooter, with a 52% true shooting percentage and a 54% 2 point shooting percentage.
Quinn's scoring ability makes her the best player overall according to any overall metric I use and has the highest plus/minus rating. In addition, coach Michael Cooper has said that he likes her versatility. So she's probably not going anywhere.
That leaves Shannon Bobbitt without any obvious statistical value to the team over any of the other players. However, while she is probably the least effective scorer of the bunch, she's by far the quickest player, as she's able to get the ball up the court quickly, distribute the ball efficiently (pure point rating of 7.16) and apply pressure defensively. And hmmm...isn't she friends with Candace Parker?
The only thing that Teasley offers is a higher true shooting percentage than any of the current Sparks point guards at 56.68%, which is among the best of any point guard in the league.
So if it comes down to the Sparks choosing between Bobbitt, Harrower, or Teasley to fit their style of play, I would probably opt with maintaining team chemistry and just not signing Teasley -- I'm just not sure what she adds to what they already have. But if they're looking for (very little) additional scoring and size, while not losing much on the distributor end, waiving Bobbitt and signing Teasley does make sense. Either way, I'm not sure it's a move that would substantially improve or hurt this team.
Fast break points:Phoenix 23, Los Angeles 4 Warren commented on Phoenix’s style of play with about 2:20 left in the 4th quarter: “And you wonder how long Phoenix can keep this pace up? They really go about 7, maybe 8, deep – but typically about 7 players deep. So in August, can they still keep up this high-powered offense? They’ve done it the past three years.” So an interesting tidbit from last night's game: Phoenix used nine players for significant minutes. Those four bench players put up 37 points to the 22 points of the Sparks' significant bench players (Wisdom-Hylton didn't come in until late in the game).
Prior to last night’s game against the Minnesota Lynx, Monarchs announcer Krista Blunk tried to put a positive spin on the Monarchs’ struggles to start the season.
I definitely think they’re better than a 1-3 team and I think it is early. If this is the way the season is going to go, there are going to be games that teams could have won and should have won and there are going to be games that just slip away. And that’s exactly what’s happened.
After the Monarchs let yet another game slip away losing to the Lynx in a closely played 86-83 game, Blunk reiterated her point and Chelsea Newton had more hopeful talk.
We will have everyone back and be healthier. We have a whole week to work on our defense and that is our focus.
Normally when I hear this kind of talk I dismiss it as irrelevant spin.
Clearly, the Monarchs are not in a pleasant situation right now sitting at 1-4 at the bottom of a very competitive Western Conference.
However, the optimism about the Monarchs is not entirely unjustified.
As of today, the Monarchs have played the toughest schedule of any team according to petrel’s RPI rankings on Rebkell, playing 3 of the top five teams in their first 5 games in the WNBA’s power rankings.
Given the injuries keeping players out and the number of players playing with injuries, it would be something of a miracle if the Monarchs were above .500 right now. Even with a healthy roster, they would have to be playing close to championship basketball to come out of that schedule with a winning record.
So beyond what has to be a disappointing start, what can we take away from the Monarchs’ first few games?
I’ve had the opportunity to watch them a few times this season – the road loss against the Storm, the overtime loss against the Mercury, and last night against the Lynx – and this does not strike me as a hopeless team. The problem right now is that with so many pieces banged up, it’s been difficult to establish a rhythm.
So the question is, how good might the Monarchs look once they hit their stride? There’s no “I” in “team”…but there is in “win”…
The key to Monarchs basketball is their imposing frontline and that they play extremely well as a unit.
So as coach Jenny Boucek has said, even when they blew out the Mercury, the key to this team’s success is execution.
However, the biggest struggle the Monarchs have was touched upon by play by play announcer, Jason Ross. With the Lynx’s LaToya Pringle on the line late in the 4th quarter and the Monarchs up by 1, Ross said the following:
Every time it looks like the Monarchs may be establishing something here comes Minnesota to tie it…and Sacramento has had the lead for a lot of this 4th quarter but just can't seem to get any separation.
Ross’ description of the flow of the game itself is a perfect metaphor for describing the Monarchs’ on-court problems, especially without Ticha Penicheiro.
The Monarchs have a number of talented bigs who can score inside and dominate the offensive boards. However, that requires one of two things – either the perimeter players have to get good shots up within the flow of the offense or they have to get the ball to their bigs in scoring position.
Far too often, neither happened last night when the Monarchs needed it most down the stretch.
Meanwhile, Seimone Augustus was just reminding us why she got WNBA Player of the Week honors last week, almost scoring at will; she was in one of those zones where the defense couldn’t stop her, she just happened to miss occasionally.
As much as I personally love and value team basketball, a team cannot win without someone who can make plays when the team needs it.
The Monarchs’ guards were unable to penetrate and create openings to make plays for most of the game meaning they were making extremely difficult entry passes into the post.
That problem was only compounded by the fact that starting perimeter players Kara Lawson and Sholanda Robinson shot a combined 3-16 from the field and 1-6 from the 3 point line. Lawson did not get to the free throw line once and Robinson went 1-2 from the charity stripe.
In other words, all the Lynx defense had to do was pack it in and cut off the passing lanes. At the end of a close game, it becomes extremely difficult for a team to score when nobody is able to make a play beyond 5 feet from the basket.
At no time was that illustrated better than when the best shot that they could get down one point at home with 8.9 seconds left was a three pointer from Kara Lawson…who was 1-6 to that point.
A team simply can’t win when the defense is able to force them into relying upon a weakness.
Waiting for Ticha’s return…
One player mentioned in post-game interviews that the team is awaiting Ticha Penicheiro’s return and really that would address that problem of making plays.
Lawson is an efficient point guard in that she does not turn the ball over and can run the offense. But she isn’t the type of player who can really force the defense out of their comfort zone to make plays for others at the end of a game.
That’s what the Penicheiro of old could do. And she’s still got enough of that to really help this team.
Blunk suggested on a few occasions that she thinks the Monarchs should run more, but I would argue they don’t have the playmakers out there right now to make plays in space. However, something I was impressed with was the ability of the Monarchs’ bigs to make plays for each other.
Crystal Kelly and DeMya Walker did an excellent job of passing the ball in the post which helped to create plays that catered to their strength – post play. One idea would be to run some sort of high low offense where their post players play a hi-lo double post or some other scheme that would allow them to make decisions with the ball and free the perimeter players to get open in scoring position.
While Kelly still looks nervous with the ball and Walker sometimes looks hesitant to passing situations, the post game is absolutely their strength.
Defense still a work in progress, but offense needs help sooner
The Monarchs’ pointed to the defense as a reason for the loss to the Lynx and it was a problem. Anybody is able to penetrate the Monarchs defense: Augustus, Renee Montgomery, Candice Wiggins, Charde Houston, Nicky Anosike…even Kelly Miller made a cameo in the paint early on in the game.
Their perimeter defense was not just the failing of guards – it was like anyone caught in space with a Lynx player was destined to get beat. That has to be fixed…and likely will be.
But even if they play good defense, they have to be able to score on offense more effectively. Right now, they are almost too reliant on team basketball.
Transition Points:
Crystal Kelly never ceases to amaze me. Krista Blunk suggested she is better coming off the bench and I agree – Kelly is the epitome of a flow player. She sees the game extremely well and just identifies gaps in the defense and quietly puts herself in position to score. When she gets the ball, she’s decisive. As a result, she gets herself to the line extremely well and is able to contribute without appearing to be dominant. It’s really amazing to watch from such a young player.
Renee Montgomery looked solid against the Monarchs though she started off a little rough trying to establish herself by taking shots a little early in the offense at the end of the 1st quarter. In the second half, I thought she calmed down a bit and played within the offense much more effectively. The last three minutes of the 3rd quarter might have been her best performance of her short professional career – in the stat sheet, she recorded an assist, a three pointer, and a floating lay-up. Really, she should have recorded two more assists that were lost when her teammates missed makeable layups. In addition, she played extremely aggressive defense during that stint. Kelly Miller is the better fit as the starter for this team right now, but Montgomery stands to be an impressive point guard down the line.
Last night I was at a bar with a friend casually watching the Hawks-Heat “game” and talking about random stuff when I thought I heard Charles Barkley say something about the WNBA during the halftime show…
…This ain’t the WNBA…
Of course the volume was low and people’s voices were high so I couldn’t really make out much more… but fortunately, the TNT half-time shows are available online at NBA.com. And sure enough, Sir Charles did take a subtle dig at the WNBA...
(4:01) Ernie Johnson: “At any rate, it’s a 63-40 game and we’ll be talking about what happened last night with Dwight Howard also with Rajon Rondo and Brad Miller…”
Kenny Smith: “PHYSICALITY...IN THE PLAYOFFS IS HERE!”
Charles Barkley: I love it baby. It’s about time someone hit somebody. This ain’t the WNBA.
EJ: Why don’t you get physical with... Get physical with Kenny, Charles.
CB: I don’t wanna hurt her.
OK…so was this the worst thing going on in the world yesterday? Certainly not.
Worth raising hell over? Consider the source...he's a loud mouth and should be taken with a grain of salt.
But was it a necessary comment? No…and it’s unfortunate that he felt the need to degrade the WNBA in making his point about the NBA. Oh well…
More praise for the Huskies: Renee Montgomery is getting a ton of attention. I thought it was cool that Congresswoman Shelly Capito commended Renee Montgomery on the House Floor...
By most accounts around the web, the Liberty’s 90-87 overtime road win against the Comets last night was a great win coming off two tough losses.
WNBA.com labeled it an “instant classic” and a “magical moment”, coach Pay Coyle called it a great team win, and color commentator Mary Murphy called it a great moment for the franchise to “pull it together and end that losing streak.” And on the surface of it, it had all the makings of a great game.
There were outstanding individual performances from Janel McCarville and Lisa Willis – McCarville had a career and franchise-high 33 points as well as a career-high 4 blocks and Willis had a career-high 22 points. Olympian Tina Thompson had 34 points and rookie Matee Ajavon had 16 and four assists off the bench.
But as I watched the game, I had a distinctly different feeling about it. Maybe I just had higher expectations for the Liberty or something. But prior to the game, I could find no reason to believe that the Liberty would lose…unless they continued to play poorly.
So the fact that they blew a fourth quarter lead and needed overtime to beat the Comets who were missing two starters (Roneeka Hodges and Hamchetou Maiga-Ba) and a key reserve (Sancho Lyttle) just doesn’t strike me as impressive. Even on the road and without Shameeka Christon and Tiffany Jackson this was a must-win and really a should win against a banged up Comets team for the Liberty.
Against tougher competition and into the playoffs, I can’t help but think the Liberty still haven’t broken out of their Olympics-induced haze, with or without Christon. They are a team that has relied upon a methodical offense for most of the season with hard cuts and crisp passes. For some reason, they haven’t been able to establish that rhythm since the Olympic break.
If they expect to challenge for the top seed in the Eastern Conference or get past the first round of the playoffs, they’ll have to get back to the style that helped make them the hottest team in the league before the break. Here are a few of my observations. Individual performances are no substitute for a strong collective effort
Janel McCarville had an outstanding game last night. Really, it was another one of those games that you’d want to show to someone who believes that women’s players can’t create their own offense. She scored from everywhere – outside, driving layups, and strong post moves. Plus she had at least four potential assists that were lost because her teammates missed the shots.
In other words, the Liberty’s entire offense revolved around one player and that’s a shift from what’s made them successful for the majority of the season. It’s not just about points scored, but how they scored the points. When they face stronger teams and stronger defenses, they’re going to need more than one or two players to have career scoring nights – they’re going to need to get everyone involved.
McCarville and Willis shot a combined 21-30 or 70% from the field last night. The rest of the team shot 14-41 or 34% from the field. In their losses to Chicago and Detroit they shot 39% and 38% respectively. In other words, they didn’t play well enough as a team to win games consistently. Two players carried them…and even then they needed overtime to win. It would be unrealistic to expect two players to shoot that well again, even if McCarville continues to draw contact and score from the free throw line.
Where is the defense?
In the five games before the break in which they went 4-1, I had the Liberty with a 96.87 defensive dynamics rating. In the last three games, their rating has been 124.72. To put those numbers in perspective, the consensus best defensive team in the league – the Indiana Fever – had a rating of 99.57 for the season before the break whereas the worst – the Atlanta Dream – had a rating of 124.16 before the break.
They’ve gone from being a very good defensive team, to a very bad one. Last night, the Comets actually had a better team dynamics rating (132.82) than the Liberty (102.65) despite losing. In fact, the Comets outplayed the Liberty for the last three quarters of the game. And again, this was a Comets team that was missing three key players.
In the third quarter when the Comets started their comeback, the Comets had a team dynamics rating of 250.33. The third quarter against the Shock was similar – a team dynamics rating of 218.03. So what’s going on?
The common thread in both situations was that the Liberty were not stopping their opponents’ synergy, meaning their opponents had a relatively easy time moving the ball and creating opportunities to score. The reason that didn’t show up in the score as much as it did in Detroit is because Houston didn’t play that well defensively either and New York managed to keep their turnover percentage down.
I believe I heard Mary Murphy mention during the broadcast that Tiffany Jackson is a major part of their “55 press” defense and so perhaps her absence is affecting their ability to defend. But in the third quarter, the Houston got whatever they want going to the paint. If the Comets weren’t scoring inside, they were getting fouled and they made the shots – they shot 9-10 from the free throw line in the third.
It would be one thing to defend the Liberty by saying they had one off game, but it’s appearing ing to develop into a trend. Jackson can’t be the only reason for these kind of defensive lapses though so it will be interesting to see if they can improve on this in upcoming games.
Penetration to the basket
Just as penetration helped the Comets mount a comeback in the 3rd quarter, the Liberty definitely play better when they are able to penetrate into the teeth of the defense. Normally they do that with good passing through the defense. Last night, it occurred with McCarville driving to the basket from the wing or the elbow. But their guards are getting very little penetration.
In fact, the Liberty’s guard play might explain why they’ve been struggling so much over the last few games. If the guards were able to drive and kick out to shooters, it might be easier for the team run the offense and find open shooters.
Right now, we’re seeing point guards Loree Moore and Leilani Mitchell play more of the initiator style of point guard – they get the ball across half court and pass it to just initiate the offense. They’re not really doing much to force the defense to shift out of their sets and create scoring opportunities.
An example of how well penetration works for them was at the end of the first quarter when Leilani Mitchell was in the game running point guard. Mitchell brought the ball down the court and passed to McCarville in the high post. McCarville then turned and drove and passed back to Mitchell. And since the defense was then off-balance as the Comets collapsed on McCarville, Mitchell was able to turn the corner and drive to the basket, finding McCarville again for a nice assist and the layup.
Inside, outside, and penetration works best for the Liberty and for whatever reason they haven’t been able to do enough of that since the Olympic break. Point guards are the ones who have to be active to make plays like that happen consistently.
Some people may argue that the problem is Loree Moore and that Mitchell should replace her in the starting lineup or at the very least get more minutes. It’s hard to say whether Mitchell is ready for starter minutes, but there’s a strong argument for her to get more minutes.
Does Mitchell deserve Moore minutes?
Over the last three games, neither has played very well in terms of their pure point rating – Moore has a rating of -1.06 while Mitchell has a rating of -3.22. In plain terms, neither of them is doing much to create opportunities for teammates. But considering that Mitchell had a league best 6.09 pure point rating in my point guard rankings before the break, it might be reasonable to assume that will more minutes, she could be more effective as a distributor.
But the really troubling statistic is their points per zero point possession numbers. I find this metric to be important for point guards because it measures how effectively a player uses possessions – how often they end a possession with a score vs. how often they end it with a turnover. In simple terms, it’s about decision making – is this player overall helping more than they’re hurting.
The top point guard in the league before the break was Diana Taurasi with 2.62 pts/zero pt. poss. and the lowest was Shannon Bobbitt with .86 pts/zero pt. poss. Over the last three games, Loree Moore has had .33 pts/zero pt. poss. whereas Leilani Mitchell has had 1.74 pts/zero pt. poss.
So again in simple terms, Moore is hurting more than she’s helping in terms of putting points on the scoreboard and she’s not really creating many opportunities for others. Mitchell isn’t creating for others either, but she’s at least managing to score more than she ends possessions without a score.
Due to experience and leadership factors, I wouldn’t advocate for Mitchell to start. However, it’s clear that she deserves more than 10 minutes per game, especially when the team seems to be struggling to create offense.
Simple things rather than magical performances are what the Liberty need
The Liberty don’t need massive changes right now, they really just need to find a way to get back to doing the things that they do well and doing them consistently. Playing strong defense and finding their offensive rhythm are two things that they could easily adjust.
But I am still quite surprised that they’ve been playing so poorly since the Olympic break when you would have thought they had plenty of time to work on the little fundamentals that they need to win games.
I honestly did not think the Connecticut Sun could beat the Storm without Lindsay Whalen.
Coach Mike Thibault has called Whalen the “engine” the runs the Sun. She’s an MVP candidate, the best point guard in the league, and the Sun’s second leading rebounder. It just seemed that Sue Bird would control the game even without Lauren Jackson and pull out a key road victory that would give them sole possession of first place in the Western Conference.
So how did the Sun win without Whalen?
The victory against Seattle demonstrates that while Whalen is a valuable player for the Sun, the Sun are not entirely dependent on Whalen to be successful. And it’s not just because they have Asjha Jones to fall back on. It’s clear from the way the team played in Whalen’s absence that their collective faith in their system is what has them at the top of the Eastern Conference right now.
Commentator Doris Burke compared the Sun to the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs – the entire organization has committed to a basketball philosophy and they only bring in players who they know will buy into that philosophy. So when one player is missing – even an MVP candidate – the system doesn’t fall apart. Someone will be there to fill in.
Jamie Carey’s performance yesterday in Whalen’s absence is a perfect example of how the Sun’s success is due to their system rather than individual talent. Carey Filled in For Whalen Admirably
Carey does deserve a considerable amount of credit for the win – you normally hope that a back-up will just step in and not blow the game, especially when filling in for a player like Whalen. Carey did more than that – she ran the offense well, played excellent defense, and made great decisions with the ball (with the exception of a tough turnover late in the fourth that led to a fast break lay-up by Bird).
Of course Carey didn’t make the plays Whalen can – she had a pure point rating of -2.11 for the game, which is not indicative of an outstanding play maker. But even without Whalen’s play making – she had a pure point rating of 5.40 prior to the Olympic break – Connecticut managed to keep the ball moving and create shots within the offense.
An excellent example of this is their synergy score. From what I’ve tracked this season, a synergy score of below 70 is indicative of a team that is more focused on individual scoring, 70-80 is a fairly balanced effort (where most teams in the league fall), and above 80 is indicative of creating offense from outstanding ball movement.
Connecticut has a synergy score of 72.78 for the season, which is fourth in the league. Against Seattle yesterday, they had a synergy score of 85…without their lead ball handler. Part of that is explained by outstanding shooting – they shot 48.3% from the field for the game and a whopping 66.66% in the fourth quarter. But almost a third of those scoring opportunities came from assisted field goals and plays where players found themselves with good shots as a result of good ball movement.
When the entire team is moving the ball, all Carey has to do is initiate the offense and keep the ball moving. You sometimes notice the same thing with Whalen – she gets the ball moving and steps aside. While it sometimes appears that Whalen is simply being passive, I think we can say after watching the team get a win in her absence that she’s just relying on the system to do most of the work for the team.
Seattle’s “equal opportunity” offense
In contrast, Burke described Seattle's offense as an “equal opportunity” offense that depends on screens and individual play-making. And really, it’s a great offense when you have an all-star cast of players that are able to create scoring opportunities for themselves of screens and dribble drives.
Unfortunately, when one of those players is missing or having an off game, their absence is magnified. And there’s another problem that hurt them at the end of the first game against the Sun when they had Jackson – who takes the big shot at the end of the game?
The Sun went on a long 15-1 run in the 3rd quarter and it wasn’t just because they were hot or the Storm were playing terrible defense. The Storm were just getting good, but not great, scoring opportunities – they were taking a number of outside shots and a number of them were contested shots off the dribble, which are difficult.
Bird did as she needed to do taking on a bulk of the scoring load with 24 points and the team shot 45% overall, including 4 for 9 from the three point line. But when Bird went cold as she did for long stretches in the 2nd half, the entire team seemed to have trouble scoring.
Depth is what makes Connecticut’s system work
This is not to say that Connecticut’s system is better than Seattle’s – a large part of what makes the Sun's system work is their depth. Outside of their two major stars – Whalen and Asjha Jones – they have a number of solid, but not great players coming off the bench. And that includes newcomers Erin Phillips and Svetlana Abrosimova who combined for 10 points and 4 assists off the bench as well as Barbara Turner who contributed 4 rebounds.
Seattle doesn’t have quite the depth Connecticut has, so they have to rely on their stars to make things happen. But as the season has worn on and players are sore or out due to injury, it’s becoming a problem.
It’s not that Seattle has poor chemistry or that they’re a bad team, but I think they do demonstrate that just having a crew of all-stars and an offense predicated on individual performance is not necessarily the most reliable way to win basketball games. And that does seem to be the reason why Connecticut has beat them with and without Lauren Jackson.
“I thought we played a good game,” Storm coach Brian Agler said. “I thought we competed hard. We came in and had to rebound. We did that. We had to be efficient. We were. But keep in mind we played against an excellent basketball team.”
Connecticut is an excellent basketball team in the truest sense of the term and that ability to play together -- on both ends of the floor -- is what allows them to overcome the loss of one player.
Transition Points:
9/04 Update: I just saw an interesting piece on Eric Musselman's Basketball Notebook about the NBA that makes the comparison to the Spurs even more clear:
But while the Spurs are a somewhat different team with (Tim) Duncan on the bench, they have the same team identity and system. They can plug in a reserve and continue on, albeit at a lower level.
That's not the case when (Steve) Nash is out of the game for PHX. He gives the Suns their identity.
Again, you hate to say one style is better than the other because both teams are very successful...but when you get to the point of counting championship rings, it seems team structure might be generally preferable if the right personnel is available.
I chose to watch the Fever-Lynx webcast last night instead of the Sparks-Sun game because I figured it would be more interesting to continue following the Fever without Tully Bevilqua that the Sparks without 4/5 of their starting lineup.
I ended up feeling pretty good about that decision, but it came at the Fever’s expense as they blew a 9-point lead with less than 4 minutes left in the 4th quarter and ended up losing the game 84-80 in overtime
The game wasn’t especially “exciting”, but very interesting from a strategy perspective. Blowing leads has apparently been a problem all season for the Fever and the first thing that jumps out on the stat sheet and in recaps is the Fever going 16-for-16 from the free throw line in the 4th quarter. After the game Ebony Hoffman described the problem…and rightly pointed out that “it had nothing to do with the refs”.
"This is maybe the third or fourth game we haven't closed them out at the end and had a team come back. And we just foul them and send them to the line. We really can't have them shoot 36 free throws and make 31 of 'em and we only go to the line 16 times. It had nothing to do with the refs, just some bonehead plays we made."
I think Hoffman is correct – for whatever reason, the Fever started fouling instead of executing down the stretch and that cost them the game. But the flip-side of the fourth quarter collapse was a shift in offensive strategy predicated on playing it safe. And it was Indiana Fever color commentator Debbie Antonelli’s observations that brought it to my attention. Tan White's point guard play a concern for some
Part of the reason I was intrigued by the Fever game is that they tried Tan White at point guard, which was their best replacement option for Tully Bevilaqua, judging by the numbers. But for a large portion of the Fever-Lynx webcast last night, Antonelli focused on a major difference between Bevilaqua and White: whereas the former tends to quickly bring the ball up the court and initiate the offense, the latter has a tendency to play with the ball too much before distributing.
While I agree with the observation about Bevilaqua and White’s playing styles, I disagree with her assessment of the situation – White’s energy and efforts to penetrate were a huge benefit to the Fever and actually one of the reasons (along with Tamika Catchings) the Fever were able to build a lead late in the fourth. Conversely, Antonelli wanted Catchings or Katie Douglas to handle the ball because they tend to initiate the offense more quickly.
So when Douglas entered the game to run the offense with 3:31 left in the fourth and the Fever up 7 points, it was one of those fun opportunities to directly challenge basketball assumptions. And Antonelli made a comment that I think foreshadowed the reason for the Fever’s downfall:
Lin Dunn discussing with Katie Douglas what I believe will be, “Manage the point a little bit for us, Katie. Handle the basketball in the late game situation. Katie Douglas a good three point shooter, as is Tamika Catchings, under pressure.
Prior to that point, Antonelli and play-by-play announcer Chris Denari had wondered when the Fever would start taking time off the clock with their 9-point lead in hand. And once the Fever actually implemented that strategy with Douglas entering the game, the collapse ensued.
With football season on the horizon, the Fever’s late-game strategy reminded of the old cliché that “the prevent defense prevents you from winning” – when you start “playing not to lose” and inexplicably stop doing what got you the lead in the first place, you’re asking for trouble. And although Tan White is not a perfect point guard by any means, I think the late game collapse demonstrated the value of her attacking instincts.
Why hurry to initiate one of the league’s worst offenses?
In summarizing last night’s game, Fever media relations director Kevin Messenger (who provides us with the disclaimer that he’s not an X’s and O’s guy) wrote that despite solid defense, “Offensively, we don't get to the line.” You don’t have to be an expert strategist to figure out that the reason the Fever don’t get to the line is their inability to penetrate the defense. And in skimming through Kevin Messenger’s blog this season, he has mentioned repeatedly that one of the Fever’s biggest problems is their lack of a point guard who can penetrate. It’s a major problem for the Fever offense.
It’s no coincidence then that the Fever are one of the worst offenses in the WNBA, right ahead of the Washington Mystics. They score the second least points per game, have the second worst offensive rating, and the third worst synergy score. So when Tan White chose to follow her instincts and do something other than run the typical offense, it seemed like a good thing – at the end of the fourth, their 75 points exceeded their season average of 70 points per game.
Tan White is by no means a perfect point guard, but she brought a bit of that ability to drive to the basket and set up others that the Fever have lacked all season. White was one of the players I kept track of last night because she got the surprising (to me) start at point guard. What I kept noting is that she did an excellent job of penetrating and either making assists or setting up scoring opportunities for teammates.
The energy and rhythm that comes from a point guard that is able to penetrate is huge and it was noticeable for most of the game last night. White’s ability to get to the basket also put a lot of pressure on the defense to stay in front of her while also keeping an eye on scorer’s Catchings and Douglas. It kept the Fever off balance because there were three players on the court at most times that were all able to create offense for themselves and others.
They built their 9-point lead in the 4th quarter with Bond, White, and Catchings in the game driving or cutting to the basket finding each other for quality scoring opportunities. It was by far the most fluid stretch of Fever basketball of the entire game. It wasn’t just because White alternated playing the lead guard with Bond and Catchings, but they were in attack mode, forcing the Lynx defense to rotate and guard multiple options. With five minutes left in the fourth, they already had their highest assist total of the season.
So even though White was indeed playing with the ball (and turned it over 6 times), they were doing an excellent job of moving the ball and finding enough scoring opportunities to take a decent lead despite poor shooting. I was also following the Yahoo box score at that time and it keeps track of plus/minus numbers – White led the team with a +15.
So why change what's working?
The likely reason Katie Douglas came into the game at 3:31 is because Tan White had just committed a particularly bad turnover…because she was playing with the ball in traffic. I say that only because after the turnover, Lin Dunn threw up her hands in disgust and then called Douglas off the bench.
I’m not saying Douglas is the problem and I actually thought she would be one of the best replacements for Bevilaqua. But it seemed that the shift in strategy from attacking the basket to “managing the clock” was motivated by a fear of losing the game after White made a particularly bad turnover.
From that point until the end of the game, the Fever were outscored 12-3 and 21-8 if you include the overtime period. During that time, the Fever spent the majority of their time firing jumpers while the Lynx lined up for a parade to the free throw line. It was the result of very little ball movement, protecting the ball instead of trying to score, and a failure to convert on the scoring opportunities that led them to build the lead.
It just seemed like they overreacted when they didn’t need to and decided to play it safe instead of taking the risk that attacking the basket wouldn’t work. And you don’t win basketball games by always playing it safe – the fact that the Phoenix Mercury are defending champions should demonstrate that.
Inefficient personnel or poor strategy?
There is no doubt that the Lynx’s 16 free throws caused the Fever to lose. And (thankfully) the fouls in the last 3:31 – when the Fever had a 7-point lead – were good calls and bad plays by the Fever. But it didn’t help the Fever to shift to a strategy of milking the clock while they were up 7.
They probably did that because, as Messenger points out, they have repeatedly lost leads on their home floor. So it’s understandable that Lin Dunn got worried when it appeared that it could happen again. This was also an important game for them to create separation from Washington and Chicago, whom are now two games behind the Fever for the 4th playoff spot in the east.
But it seems inaccurate to claim that Bevilaqua’s absence or White’s non-traditional style of play is responsible for this loss. The Fever had lost 3 of 5 prior to Bevilaqua’s absence and their offense has been a problem all season. Somehow they need to find a way to keep up the driving energy on offense that helped them build a lead.
The problem is bigger than just one player when you blow three consecutive leads at home to teams playing without key players (Lauren Jackson, Dominique Canty, and Candice Wiggins got injured after 30 seconds last night). This does not bode well for their playoff chances down the stretch – the Mystics are something of a wild card now with their new coach and the Sky have Sylvia Fowles back and are playing good basketball.
This is good for the league of course because it sets up a very exciting fight for the playoffs involving a team with high expectations and two teams who look rejuvenated. Unfortunately, it has to be nerve racking for Indiana fans.
Transition Points:
Had the Fever been able to take care of the ball more effectively (they turned the ball over on approximately 20.5% of their possessions) they might have mounted a larger 4th quarter lead. 4 of their 5 starters, who played the majority of the game, had at least 3 turnovers. Ouch. Candice Wiggins went down with 3:19 left in the 1st quarter almost immediately after entering the game. From the Horton Report:
Injury Update: Candice injured her lower back in the 1st quarter on a drive through the lane, she collided with Tan White, got knocked off balance and hit the floor hard on her right side. Candice was in tears as she left the court in a wheelchair, it looked particularly awkward as she couldn't straighten her right leg. Last word we got was that she was headed to the hospital for further evaluation.
There were two things I feared about the Liberty Outdoor Classic: a sloppy turnover fest or a blow-out. Neither would do anything to attract casual fans.
Tonight we got both – the Liberty committed 21 turnovers (only one more than the Fever's 20) and got blown out “at home”.
Nevertheless, kudos to the WNBA on the Liberty Outdoor Classic – it was a great event for the league and for basketball. Wish I could have been there. It was an historic event and it seemed like an amazing setting.
But what about the fact that it wasn’t on broadcast television?
There's going to be an outdoor game between the Libs and the Fever at the National Tennis Center and it's not going to be on television? Fabulous planning, W. 'Cause that wouldn't have been interesting to the casual fan, or anything.
I understand that sentiment because it would have been great to watch the game on TV. And I’m not sure if there was a conscious choice not to televise it or if it was just a function of the terms of the broadcast contract.
But as the fourth quarter began and it just felt like the Liberty wouldn’t be able to muster up the momentum to get control of the game, it was evident that not televising the game was the right thing to do. I think Mary Murphy’s words near the end of the game summarized my feelings perfectly:
“The question that you hear from people – is it worth it? Is it worth it taking your team away from an arena where you’ve won five in a row and you really have it going? And I think the anwer is yes. When you’re trying to capture attention, when you’re trying to get the eye of the casual sports fan on you, you need to step outside of the box and do some different things. And the New York Liberty have done that in the past and they continue with this kind of game. The performance didn’t match the setting, but that doesn’t mean that this young team won’t go on to great success the rest of this year.”
The fact that the game occurred will generate some buzz and I imagine that could “catch the eye” of some casual fans. However, what the WNBA game didn’t need was one more reason for the casual fan to dismiss and demean the game because of one bad showing in such a special setting. And you don’t want to give off the impression that your sport is dependent on a gimmick because it lacks substance, especially in an otherwise great season.
And that’s exactly why the WNBA made the right decision in not putting the game on national television. With the buzz from this game and the Olympic buzz, it’s possible that a few casual fans could feel the impulse to watch a few WNBA games after hearing about the women’s national team….especially if they win gold.
But the game played tonight -- independent of the atmosphere -– was not a performance representative of the quality of play that would attract casual fans to the game. And that doesn't mean they should never do it again -- I hope they do...and I hope it's a better game.
I have wondered about the Los Angeles Sparks’ strategy all season, but when you can grab offensive rebounds the way they did against the San Antonio Silver Stars last night, it’s all a moot point.
The Sparks out-rebounded the Silver Stars 18-1 on the offensive boards en route to a 75-63 victory. It seems like that must be some kind of record for offensive rebounding differential.
Derek Fisher commented near the end of the game that if they win this game it will be an ugly win. Indeed it was ugly, but to me that the forceful interior play they displayed last night is much more indicative of a style that suits them than the up-tempo style coach Michael Cooper has tried to use to this point in the season.
Yes, Cooper apparently started out wanting to push the tempo to take the Silver Stars out of their game. But if you watched closely in the 4th quarter -- when a 6 point lead doubled to 12 -- it was the Sparks running a half court offense and solid half court defense. They played to their strengths, which is there All-Olympian front line.
In fact, when the Sparks play like that, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could stop them, short of getting Leslie or Parker to just foul out. The Silver Stars are arguably the worst rebounding team in the league, only grabbing 47% of the available rebounds per game. So sure it’s the right thing for Silver Stars fans or coach Dan Hughes to say that, “…we could have controlled our own destiny if we rebounded the ball better.” But rebounding is a major weakness for the Silver Stars and for the first time in a while, the Sparks exploited an opponent’s weakness rather than passively reacting to the opponents’ game plan.
Although the offensive rebounding was clearly the story of this game, I also found it interesting to look at this game in terms of their teamwork dynamics. And though the Silver Stars lost, I think this game says a lot about their style of play as well. Team dynamics rating & offensive rebounding
Over the weekend, I looked at ball movement, team synergy, offensive rebounding, and turnovers as a theoretical means to make teamwork dynamics somewhat more tangible. There were some interesting results in terms of characterizing teams’ style of play and their overall effectiveness.
The Sparks demonstrated something that I think the Sacramento Monarchs did well last season – if you can do one thing extremely well as a team, you can overcome other deficiencies…even if every other element of team basketball is your weakness.
At times during the game, their 36% shooting from the field didn’t even seem to matter. The way they were dominating offensive rebounds, it almost looked like they could just come down the court, toss the ball off the back-board, and watch as Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker dominated the paint.
But as ugly as it was you can’t complain too much about the "strategy" because it will work for them, especially if they can shoot the ball better.
Offensive rebounding percentage – the percentage of available rebounds that a team gets on offense – is actually a more telling statistic than the raw offensive rebounding numbers. Comparing offensive rebounds (23-1) between teams doesn’t tell the full story about how dominant a team was on the offensive glass because you’re not really competing against an opponents’ offense for offensive rebounds – you’re going up against their defense.
So to put these numbers in perspective – on the season, the Sparks are getting about 33% of the offensive rebounds available, among the best in the league. The league average is almost 31%. In last night’s game, they got 43%...and in the fourth quarter, the got 70%. That means they got the ball back and extended their possession on 7 of every 10 opportunities in the fourth quarter.
I don’t have all-time stats on this, but it’s obvious that that is dominant. They crushed San Antonio on the boards. San Antonio normally gets 69% of the defensive rebounds available – in the bottom half of the league – but didn’t even approach that against the Sparks.
The thing is, this wasn’t just about San Antonio having an off night or playing with low energy – the Sparks just played with a tenacity that made it extremely difficult to keep the Sparks off the glass. And although I’ve been attributing that to Leslie and Parker, it was the whole team – Shannon Bobbitt even had a career high 3 offensive rebounds (Parker had 2). Of course, that it a matter of Bobbitt’s hustle and energy, but it’s also the result of San Antonio having to expend so much energy just to stop Leslie and Parker.
This is just a problem that the Silver Stars have and they can make up for it with good team synergy normally, just not last night.
Team Synergy
Synergy – the ability for a team to move the ball and create good scoring opportunities (click here for more) -- is one of the more important elements of team basketball and one that I'm partial to. However, games like this one are a reminder that you can win without ball movement if you have dominant players on the court.
I always believe that any team's goal should be to move the ball better than their opponents – with a good offensive strategy and a defensive strategy that disrupts their opponents. You can argue that the Silver Stars did that – their assisted field goal percentage was 28.5 vs the Sparks’ 18.31 and their true shooting percentage was 52.44 to the Sparks’ 44.77.
Although the Silver Stars had problems with synergy in the first quarter (SA: 49 vs. LAS: 73), they were actually quite efficient in the other three quarters, especially the 2nd and 4th. They had a 57.59 true shooting percentage (5 percentage points above their season average) and a synergy score of 90.
This is important because one of the things I like most about the Silver Stars is their synergy on offense. They are the best in the league thus far this season. And what was impressive is that despite being down big at times in the first and the fourth quarter, they stuck to their offensive scheme and kept trying to execute it. That’s what allowed them to get back into the game at halftime and again in the 2nd half. Some teams would panic when things aren’t going well, but the Silver Stars trust their offensive enough to keep working within it.
That’s not to say everything was rosy for the Silver Stars – Sophia Young was 1-5 with 4 turnovers and was a complete non-factor during the game. Most of that was because she was trying to establish position inside and with Leslie and Parker roaming around the paint, that just didn’t work. And with a bona fide MVP candidate taken out of the game, that put extra pressure on Becky Hammon to carry more of the offensive load.
In the last 5 wins for the Silver Stars, Hammon was more than capable of carrying the team earning Player of the Week recognition. In the past five games, she had a true shooting percentage of 67.6, which is quite amazing to maintain across games (league average is around 50%). Last night, she had a true shooting percentage of 46.6. A large part of that was her 1-8 three point shooting performance.
Having her shoot so many threes in the first quarter was probably not just her being trigger happy – they probably wanted to “loosen” up the Sparks’ defense. Unfortunately, her inability to get going the end of the first quarter with a few driving baskets really her team.
On top of that, the Silver Stars weren’t exactly taking care of the ball very well either.
Turnover percentage
Moving the ball is no good if you’re moving it out of bounds or into the other team’s hands. Unfortunately for the Silver Stars, that was a major part of their problem.
The Silver Stars are one of the better teams in the league in terms of turnover percentage, but almost 25% of their plays last night ended in a turnover. When you consider that they were tossing away possessions while the Sparks were extending possessions (with offensive rebounds) the Silver Stars really needed stronger games from Hammon and Young to pull off a win. And when you think about the fact that they were actually within striking distance in the fourth, it makes that point all the more important.
The Sparks weren’t exactly a sparkling model of ball handling efficiency either as they turned the ball over almost 20% of the time…but their offensive rebounding probably made up for that.
Team Dynamics Rating
So overall, here are the final team dynamics rating, which is calculated by adding a team’s synergy differential to their offensive rebounding percentage and subtracting turnover percentage:
Sparks: 6.12 Silver Stars: -2.84
Hammon or Young… or both…would have needed a much more dominant performance to overcome that. Hammon had an off night and Young was stifled by the Sparks’ interior defense. The Silver Stars complete inability to rebound really hurt them, especially in the first and third quarters when they weren't shooting well either.
But imagine if the Sparks had even better synergy on offense? There were moments were they move the ball extremely well, but there were moments where they just reverted to their make-shift streetball offense. Dan put it best when describing the Sparks’ implosion against the Monarchs on the 5280 blog, so I’ll quote him:
…too often saw LA's offensive strategy reduce itself to "throw the ball to whoever is standing in front of the basket and hope the magic happens." Even with a future Hall of Fame center and one of the most talented rookies to ever enter the women's game, that's not the most effective way to run an offense. The times when I saw their offense working at its best was when they took the opportunity to move the ball in, out and around; maybe it was inevitably on-route to Leslie or Parker in the paint, but it at least had the defense on its heels until then.
Really, you could describe last night’s game in much the same way. Yes, they did a better job of going high-low and inside and out, but their inability to find many open shots for each other puts a lot of pressure on Leslie and Parker. The difference is the Monarchs are one of the best rebounding teams and the Silver Stars the worst. Beyond that, it’s hard to say that they played “better” offensively, though they did make more of an effort to play half court basketball, which suits them.
A major problem they’re having is that they lack any kind of credible outside shooting threat. Sidney Spencer is their best, but she’s easy to jam and neutralize because she doesn’t create much off the dribble. Bobbitt is great at keeping the team in rhythm and moving the ball, but not at all a consistent scoring threat.
I don’t know much about Amber Jacobs, but if she can shoot the ball and defend, she could get more playing time. From what I saw of her last night, she’s a good distributor and understands the need to actually run an offense, something that the other Sparks point guards lack. She only played a few minutes, but I’ll look forward to seeing her play again.
I’ll also look forward to seeing the Silver Stars go up against Phoenix tonight. Their trust in their offense could be valuable in heading into back-to-back road games…and since Phoenix really doesn’t believe in defense, I would imagine that they could pull out a win. And that would be an even stronger testament to the value of their team synergy.
Transition Points:
A quick note on the Sparks turnovers as they pertained to their much maligned point guard play – the three point guards accounted for 4 of the Sparks 16 turnovers. Leslie had 6 and Parker and DeLisha Milton-Jones had two each. While it’s reasonable to blame point guards when a team is playing less than fluid offense, in this case, it seems like there might be something with the team’s offensive strategy that is causing these costly turnovers. I know point guards are responsible for maintaining rhythm and distributing the ball as well, but you cannot do that either without a coherent offensive structure.
I still think Derek Fisher is a pretty solid commentator. He knows the game extremely well and is able to pick out the most important nuances of the game. However, I had to snicker when he talked about flopping. He said that he didn’t know why people had labeled him a flopper. But I’m a Warriors fan…I know why…check this out (the league later announced that the Fisher play was a bad call):
The Silver Stars did not break any records for least offensive rebounds, believe it or not. Apparently, that dubious honor belongs to the Houston Comets who only recorded one rebound against the Phoenix on July 27, 2006 (via p_d_swanson @ Rebkell).
