Final score: Storm 81 – Sparks 76 (W) (15-13)

Submitted by Gym.Rat.07 and StormFan7

"Wouldn't it be cool if we could go down to LA and watch the Storm vs. Sparks game?"
"Are there any tickets behind the Storm bench?"
"Nope. That section is all sold out."
"Oh, too bad. I would have gone if you could get tickets close to the Storm bench."

As we head down to California my dad reflects on the lesson he learned that day back in June. Never, under any circumstances, underestimate the power of a Storm fan.

Before I left I heard horror stories about the LA fans and I've seen enough of their "sportsmanship" attitude on TV to realize they would probably kick my gym.rat's a** if they knew I was a Storm fan. Well, I've already gone on my scenic trip around the sun, so I put on my Marciniak jersey and headed to the Staples center.

Security there is tight but not in that odd slang term that all of the kiddies use. It is tighter than too small undies on too big booty. They open the doors 1 1/2 hour before game time at which 20 fans cram into the arena. Everyone has to go through a metal detector before they even hit the turnstile. Obviously I set the metal detector off (I always set off those things - it's the bionic women in me I suppose). Mr. Security Man wands me and then inspects my sign (it was about 20"x30"). "Too big," Mr. Security Man says so I have to rip it in half. I realize I'm not in Key Arena anymore. StormFan7 got off worse than I did though - they confiscated her camera because it looks like a professional camera. My shoes look like a professional basketball player's shoes - but you don't see me out on the court blocking the Diva's shots do you?

Staples Center is huge. It was like if someone slapped Key Arena, Safeco Field, and the new Seahawks' Stadium together to a big ball and flung it to LA. It is that big. Outside the arena they have a Team LA shop, a sports restaurant, and the administrative offices are located in an adjacent building. Inside, it seems bigger than the outside would lead you to believe. They have a huge lower bowl - which isn't big height wise. It's actually very shallow compared to the Key (I suppose same comparison could also be made amongst the two teams). While it's not deep - it is very wide. It's seems like they took the rectangular court and made a perfect circle around it with purple seats.

The middle section of the center is packed with suites. There were 3 floors of them! Above that there was the upper section that they don't use. Coach Cooper was sitting in the stands watching the Storm shoot around and he told us (me and StormFan7) that they don't use the upper section but it still gets pretty loud in there when they sell out. If he was trying to scare us - it worked. I then saw that they don't close off the upper section with a curtain like they do at the Key so, to me, it felt emptier than it really was. Long explanation of Staples Center - but this place was freaking HUGE!

On to the game. I didn't get a great view of the game because my seats were right on the floor behind the Storm bench. I did get great views of coach Dunn's back though. I'm glad she wasn't wearing her bright neon orange blazer for this game - I left my sunglasses at the hotel. What a game! We came out good and got a little lead, LA came back and got a little lead for them selves and then we tossed the lead back and forth for a while. You could tell that the Sparks' players were going to do anything and everything they could do to win this game. After their loss to the Sol on Tuesday, they did not want to lose 2 in a row at home. All of our players got knocked around. I can't think of one player who did not get thrown to the floor. Kamila got the worst of it. There were two times that I recall when she got down and didn't pop back up. I jumped up muttering, "get up get up get up get up" over and over again. There are few things that I hate in the world, and seeing Kamila V. on the ground like that is one of them. Looks like she got knocked in the eye at one point, she came out and put a huge bag of ice on her face.

The story of the night was, of course, the "rematch" between Byears and Marciniak. It didn't happen. Michelle got welcomed with a low rumble of boos when she stepped on the court for the first time (coach Cooper immediately put in Byears when 3M went into the game - I thought that was interesting). While 3M played her game, Byears continued to play her game and was whistled for a flagrant foul for knocking down Kate Starbird. As 3M played her game, she was pushed to the floor hard. The referees choked on their whistles on that obvious foul. As Michelle was picking herself up she looked over to the Storm bench and couldn't help but laugh. What else could she do? Michelle continued to play her game. In a one on one full court press, when defense would usually body up from behind their player, 3M got in front to deny the pass. She kept getting the steal, which converted into turnover points for Seattle. No fists were flung or words exchanged in this rematch of Byears and Marciniak - only basketball was in the spotlight and our gal still came out ahead.

Coach Dunn has always perplexed me on her sometimes whack rotation. Watching her sub in and out players at this game though - I think I'm starting to understand what she's doing - and it scares me. She has found a good starting five in Bird, Lassiter, Barnes, Jackson, and Vodichkova. Simone Edwards will sub in for either LJ or KV depending on who has the most fouls (and the two of them seem to rack them up). Starbird will go in for Barnes to provide a rebounding spark. Marciniak will go in for Bird to give her some rest and up the tempo on both sides of the court. Felicia Ragland will go in for Lassiter to drain some 3's or run the court on the fast breaks. The players seem to know their roles and when they see a certain player coming in they know who's going out. After all of the searching and experimenting with line-ups and rotations - this one works. Kate Paye and Takeisha Lewis have gotten lost in the shuffle and that's the unfortunate outcome of a 8-9-player rotation (Lewis, IMHO, could have gone in for Edwards or Kamila at anytime though to grab those rebounds when the Sparks overpowered the boards).

The entire Storm team contributed to the win today. The Sparks threw everything (and everyone) at us. On just about every possession a Storm player was on the ground. The game was very physical and the refs, flat out, were not calling the game as tight as they should have considering the rivalry between the teams. For every push, pull, yank, tug, elbow, scratch, and clobber that the Sparks handed out, the Storm hit the Sparks where it hurt them the most -on the scoreboard. My folks and I stopped work, something we haven't done in about 8 years (we're self employed so when we don't work we don't get paid) and drove down to LA. I had less than 2 hours of sleep on 2 days and when that final buzzer went off I thought I was dreaming. No way could the Storm come into the Staples Center and beat LA - but they did.

"Wouldn't it be cool, if the Storm got into the playoffs, to go to their road games?"

Gym.Rat's Droppings:

Before the game they have some lady doing a LA Pre-Game Show on the court. She talks about the Sparks and what they did in their previous game, blah blah blah. I don't know why they bother since there were only about 30 people in the stands at the time.

The Staples Center has a monster sound system. It's like a rock concert where you can actually feel the bass.

LA's intro music is Nelly's, "It's Getting Hot in Here (you better take off all of your clothes)." I'm going to need some hypnosis or something to get rid of that mental picture.

LA's jumbo tron visuals are pathetic compared to the Key. They are so bland and boring. Plus, they cover up the score and stats during the game to tell people to go "Ohh Ohh" or "D-fence." They have like 80 freaking leader boards around their arena - leave the stats alone!

Simone Edwards was fronting the Diva and totally shut her out of a couple of the Sparks' possession. That was a beautiful thing.

Some peeps were screaming something for LJ, sounded like "LOZZA!" but I can't be sure. All I know is LJ looked at them, smiled, and shook her finger at them in a mockingly "shame on you." This wasn't during warm-ups either. This happened when the Diva was shooting a free throw. Diva missed and LJ got the board. She didn't put it back up for 2 (thank goodness) but she was still smiling. She told me later that those were some of her friends so it was all good (she said it differently though).

Fee was on the court and wasn't producing points wise. Coach Dunn sent Amanda Lassiter to go in for her. As Lassiter was waiting to go in, no later than 5 seconds go by and Fee gets the ball and drains a 3 pointer. Coach Dunn motions for Lassiter to get back and as she gets up and walks to the bench, she smiles at coach Dunn, and says, "Fee's on - I'm not going in for her now" (not an exact quote).

They have people selling food up and down the aisles during the game - cotton candy and Krispy Kremes! Cotton candy - very ritzy.

The Sparks' Dance Kids are an ok bunch. They look older than our dance team; probably average an age of 15 years old. But they had more costume changes than Cher! Every time they came out they had new clothes on.

The people in LA are a strange sort. You got your die-hards who wear the Diva jerseys. You got your NBA fans in withdrawal that wear the Lakers' jerseys. Then you got your suicidal fans that wear Storm jerseys. Ahem. It seems like they really get into the game - at points that place was super loud! After the game though, the fans just seemed like they walked out of a movie theater with a "well that was a way to kill a few hours" look on their faces. Where were the emotion people? Man, back in Seattle we talk about the game until we run out of things to talk about - then we talk about the next game. I didn't get ANY flack about wearing my 3M jersey - it's like they didn't care. Just when you think you got them figured out...

For anyone who cares, it took us 18 1/2 hours to get down to LA. It would have been sooner but we took a pit stop at Weed, California to pick up some stuff for LaTasha Byears. ;)

Notes from StormFan7:

The 13,000 fans that were there were NOT louder than 4000 fans at the Key. - Metal detectors are all around the arena. Gymrat went in first, and since her poster was too big (more than 11 X 17) she had to rip it in half. My camera was confiscated because the lens was too big. They said they were not responsible if anything happened to it once they took it from me.

The Storm players were excited to see us there. Sue said we were crazy, Kamila and Michelle said hi and Takeisha had the biggest smile on her face. Karen Bryant, Billy McKinney and Sam Maccarrone were also there.

The arena is huge - at least three times the size of the Key. If you walked around the main level all the way around, it would be almost a mile. They have a McDonald's, a Pizza Hut and numerous Krispy Kremes inside the arena. The music was great, tons of rap and R and B mixes. Running tickers with advertisements went around the arena.

The game started and the stares came soon afterward. I now know what it must be like to be the recipient of a Pat Summit stare because the LA fans had their eyes on me the whole night. The game itself was great - I am so excited I can't really describe it.

In the excitement of the two technicals and flagrant foul, you might not have noticed that Mabika fouled out.

SPoG of the game: Kamila Vodichkova. I don't know what her line was tonight (after 18 points I stopped counting) but she was awesome. Honorary SPOOG: Kate Starbird for her quickness that lead to a couple fast breaks and steals.

Lin Dunn drank Diet Pepsi out of a Diet Pepsi bottle and water out of a water bottle.

If I had an nickel for every time I heard that LA was the WNBA champion, I could own the LA Sparks. It is so bad that this information is printed on the tickets, too.