Final score: Storm 58 – Rockers 63 (L) (9-11)

Attendance | 8072

Anthem Xtra Notes | None

Anthem High Note | Yeah, got it

Anthem Style | Pretty straight for a jazz singer

Fan Noise | Loud at times, but too quiet overall

Signs | A lotof 3M signs

Fan Psyche | Didn't we just blow out the reigning champs?

Halftime | Danceteam intros

I was afraid of this. If these two games hadn't been back-to-back, if the team had just a little more time to come down off the raging emotions tied up in the Sparks game, if someone could have found just a little more energy, if, if, if...

The cliché is that after an emotional game like Thursday night's battle between the Storm and the Sparks, there will be an inevitable mental and physical let down. After the game, I heard the same old tired excuses that the Storm is a "young team" and you have to "expect" them to be up and down, that the Storm is fatigued and needs rest, blah, blah, blah. Throughout most of this game, the Rockers were only up by 4 or 6 points. Yes, the team was flat -no one wanted to take a shot, no one wanted to go get a rebound and seemed to wait for it to come to them. But I don't buy the whole young team, veteran league, fatigue crap any more. Sue I believe is tired - she has a legitimate reason to be (extended college season, media demands, extra travel to award shows, etc). The rest of them - no. I think this game was a mental loss much more than a physical loss because the Storm also believed all the clichés and when they couldn't get past that 4 point lead, they as a team started to roll over.

Cleveland played their signature defense. They executed their offense and were able to get easy scores (especially directly under the basket, again and again). They were on the rear end of a back-to-back, and on the road to boot. They were understaffed and were getting beaten up by the Storm, yet they continued to find a way to keep the Storm under control. And make no mistake, the Rockers were in complete control of this game from start to finish. Even with single digit leads, they made those leads feel insurmountable. They made the Storm struggle to get anything. Last night, the Storm played LA at their own game and beat them. Tonight, the Rockers imposed their will on the Storm and Seattle wasn't able to adjust.

You would expect that after last night's extracurricular activities, this game couldn't be as physical and that the refs would call it close to keep it from getting too physical. Well, I would say that the Storm were nearly as physical with the Rockers as they were with the Sparks. The "don't back down" attitude was still there. Lauren clocked Mery "woman-behind-the-mask" Andrade hard enough so that Andrade walked away checking her front teeth. Penny Taylor was leveled hard enough that she had to be literally carried off the court by the Rockers and Storm trainers. Lauren and Chastity Melvin got into a jawing match and were both T'd up. Lauren ignored it, but Melvin got very upset and kept yelling at the refs (should have gotten another T in my opinion). Players on both sides ended up on their butts, in the first row, and bouncing off the backboard supports. For being so "fatigued," the Storm were playing hard. The difference though was what happened after these incidents. LJ immediately checked with Andrade to see if she was okay. The Storm and the Rockers were helping each other up off the court and patting each other on the back. Each team acknowledged that the physical play was not personal and just part of the nature of the game.

That said, the refs screwed up. The physical play started early, as did each team's efforts to check on or help up the other players. The refs seemed to only see the altercations and not the after-the-fact gestures and stayed with their "we will control" this game stance the whole night. I'm sure they were instructed to keep it clean and not let things get out of hand. But just like a coach or a player who has to make adjustments during a game to react to the flow of the game or to counter the opponent's moves, I think the refs too need to be cognizant of the game's flow and character. When things start getting "extracurricular" then yes the refs need to call the game close and diffuse the situation. When the teams are in a flow, the refs need to call the game in such a way that keeps it clean and fair, but doesn't disrupt the flow. The refs at this game not only called it tight, they seemed to take every opportunity to kill the flow of the game. A "Let them play" chant was heard a couple of times. The players on both sides were getting frustrated. As I have outlined, yes this game was very physical, but the refs didn't not recognize or acknowledge the character of this game and tried to call it like the Sparks game. One last comment about this item - I truly think that the consistently bad officiating is one of the reasons more "traditional" sports fan stay away from the WNBA. I've heard this from friends who have come to a game or watched them on TV. High on their list of reasons to not care about the WNBA is definitely the officiating. All we want is consistency and fairness.

Enough complaining. Coulda, shoulda, woulda - the theme of this game.

Well, one more complaint - rebounds. This isn't necessarily directed at only this game, but at the Storm in general this season. Except for a couple of players, the Storm do not go after rebounds half as aggressively as they need to. It's like they wait half a second to see if someone else will get it and allow the more aggressive opponent to get the ball. If we had ended this game with 4 more rebounds than Cleveland instead of 4 less, I think the Storm would have won.

Notes:

The "Larry Who?" t-shirts were on sale Friday AFTER the Cleveland game, not before (I swear they told me 4:30). Your best bet is to just go up and talk to either Ian or Loren. They'll hook you up. I have their contact info, email me it you are out of town and want to connect (I'm not going to post their phone number on the web).

The 3M Fund was a hit. We collected $390 at the game. If I get all the mailed checks that are supposed to be coming, we will comfortably hit the $500 mark. Angie talked to a friend of Michelle's before the game who had talked to her Friday morning. She heard that we are doing this and, as he described it, is "overwhelmed." We will be getting the money to her next week, so if you want to contribute get your check in the mail on Saturday if possible. Check the Forum for the thread about the fund to get our address. Thanks everyone.

Lucienne Berthieu traveled with the Rockers even though she is on the IR (not something the Storm allow their IR players to do apparently). She took time to talk to Danielle McCulley (oh to be a fly on the wall there), a few fans, and signed some autographs. I overheard someone ask her about being on the IR and she answered that "of course" she wasn't really hurt and was looking forward to getting some playing time. I said that she was just waiting to come back here and light us up for 20 points and 10 rebounds. She smiled, but didn't disagree. She also said something to the effect (I wasn't eavesdropping well enough apparently) that she knows she a rookie and isn't expecting a lot this year.

Takeisha Lewis' brother (couldn't miss the resemblance) and Sue Bird's father were in the "family and friends" section tonight.

We had to again inform newbie fans about the "stand until they score" tradition after they kept telling us to sit down. We also had people giving us dirty looks when we were yelling during the game (even when the freakin' arena vision was calling for noise). You know, attendance be damned. If you people are going to come into this arena, OUR arena and expect a sedate, snobbish, too-polite Mariner's crowd, you are in the wrong building. Speaking of attendance - I'm skeptical of the 8000 number. Right before the half, Angie and I estimated 4500.

They showed part of the Portland / LA game on the arena vision before the start of our game and then put up the OT Sparks win results later on. It was like choosing between 2 evils because to be happy that the Fire lost (when we still had a chance to make up some ground) meant that we were kind of supporting the Sparks. When they showed the score, both Angie and I were like, "YEAH, um, ohh." Couldn't they both have lost?

One last note about the crowd size and noise - at the Sparks game, we could not hear Loud Guy Loren even though he was doing his normal arena-filling cheers. Tonight, we could definitely hear him the whole game.