Final score: Storm 72 – Comets 55 (W) (10-19)

Attendance | 6003

Anthem Xtra Notes | Yes

Anthem High Note | Not bad

Anthem Style | A little soul

Fan Noise | Not enough if we're playing the champs

Signs | Too busy watching the game

Fan Psyche | What the???

Halftime | Storm Quest concentration

Why beat around the bush?

The Storm defeat the 4-time WNBA champion Houston Comets for the first time in the our short history, winning by 17 points.

Let that sink in a little bit. Let it simmer. We’ll come back to what that means a bit later.

We have to start with Michelle Marciniak. After nearly losing her head and neck to Lisa “The Rock” Leslie in Saturday’s game at Los Angeles, Michelle is given the start tonight in place of Sonja and ends up rocking the Key. Steals, assists, and 3 three-pointers added to the scrambling, disruptive defense that she brings every night equals 3M’s best game of the year. Michelle is quickly becoming a fan favorite because of the energy and determination she brings into the game anytime she comes off the bench. We don’t know what her start means for the future, but if 3M can repeat this kind of performance every night…

Lauren plays 39 out of 40 minutes tonight. While she doesn’t put up huge offensive numbers, she definitely produces on the defensive end with several blocks, altered shots and steals. She pushes Tina Thompson and Tiffani Johnson around as much as they push her, and they really push her around. Thompson actually throws Lauren to the floor during the second half without getting a call. After the recent instances of horrible officiating, we were out of our seats howling with outrage. But, they play on.

All of the players who were in the game tonight produce (Stacey, Allesandra and Katy all get DNP-Coach’s Decision). If they aren’t scoring, then they are getting assists or steals. Simone does score 17 big points, 7 of them from the free-throw line. Charmin and Sonja both hit the open threes that the Comets give them. And here’s a great stat – the Storm only have 9 turnovers to the Comets’ 18. All in all, this game is a great team effort. This is one of the few times this season in which the Storm’s defense leads to offense and helps win the game. So many times, and I’ve starting harping on this recently, the Storm will play great defense and then not be able to convert it into points. Tonight they do.

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned the word rebound yet. If there is one dark cloud over this otherwise stellar game, it is the rebounding.

Even though the team wins this game, the rebounding issue has to be looked at. During the first half, there is one point where the Comets are outrebounding the Storm 25 to 8. The final rebound tally is 37 to 27, in favor of Houston. If the Comets had been able to convert those extra 10 rebounds into points, the final score could have been very different.

Before you start to think that I’m being too picky here, after all we did beat the Comets for crying out loud, let’s get back to what this win means in the bigger picture.

True, the Storm beat the 4-time defending world champs. Why then did the Storm lose twice to the Washington Mystics, or twice to the Minnesota Lynx? Why did the Storm lose to Phoenix or Utah in the last week, or so many games that they should have or at least could have won in the last month? Believe me, I am overjoyed that we are now 10-19. My sense of hope for the future has been renewed and strengthened. I’m also left wondering what might have been if we were sitting at 14-15 right now, or even better.

I know, you are all thinking that I’m being too negative, that I should quit complaining and be happy with this win. Mine is the typical never-satisfied fan behavior – always finding something to complain about. Guilty as charged.

This team has shown flashes of brilliance this year. This game is one big flash of brilliance. It is a great example of what can happen when things go consistently right for a change and what this team is capable of. It is a great feeling to leave KeyArena on the right side of the final score. This is a feeling I want to have more often than not. The time when this will be the case is coming, and I think it is coming soon. If I come off as unsatisfied after a great win, it’s only because I know that there are more great wins in this team then what we’ve seen so far this year.

Notes:

We need to check the record books. We think that by scoring in the game’s first 20 seconds or so, the Storm must have broken a team record. Does anybody have a clue if this is true or not?

We are a little disappointed in the crowd tonight. All of the above complaining aside, we beat the freakin’ Comets! We expected the Key to look like a gathering of extras from The Planet of the Apes – uncontrolled whooping, hollering and lots of bouncing off the rafters. True, the crowd was loud, but not nearly loud enough. Chalk this up to the never-satisfied fan syndrome if you want, but come on people, WE BEAT THE COMETS! Make some noise.

A related side note to the unfortunate souls who were sitting in front of us tonight (including a bunch of senior citizens 2 rows down) – quit looking over your shoulders, fingers in your ears and giving us dirty looks. You’re at a professional sporting event, expect some noise (see the above note for clarification).

Michelle Marciniak comes out after the game to do an interview with David “I never met an opposing team I didn’t like” Locke. The best comment she makes is that the during the first half, the Comets looked stunned because the Storm were playing such strong defense. Amen to that. We like having the other team look stunned.

Fastbreaks! I almost forgot about the fastbreaks! Not one, not two, but four or five fastbreaks tonight. Great defense leads to quick and easy offense. That means fastbreaks and taking it to the rack. Yahoo! (Not the search engine… the other, happy kind of yahoo).

Kamila looks no worse the wear for the six stitches she received after the LA game. She of course gets cracked in the head again tonight by one of the Comets with no call from the refs. Maybe since it’s the other side of her head they think that it’s okay.

The Starbucks shooting contest reappears, only with 2 women as the shooters instead of grandstanding “how hard can this really be” men. All I can say is that the only person to ever get a goose egg at this game was one of the guys. You form your own conclusions.

And finally, how many times can the KeyArena announcer say “bobblehead” during one game? Apparently not enough. We here at stormfans.org have obviously been living under a rock (or spending all of our time producing a website – same diff) because we don’t get this whole bobblehead thing. We will, of course, be one of the first 5,000 in the door on Friday to make sure we get OUR Lin Dunn bobbleheads. We may be clueless, but we’re not stupid. Can you say Ebay? (Just kidding. Well, mostly).