Final score: Storm 63 – Monarchs 76 (L) (13-10)

Attendance | 7411

Anthem Watch | They did it with all the lights on - weird.

Fan Psyche | Yeah! Hurt them! Put them back in their place!

Game Highlight | Meh.

Halftime | There is nothing I wanted to remember.

Game Photos | Game Photos (Scott Larson)

Before we all agree to never speak of this game again, I need to do my brief game report.

This game was ugly, painful, sloppy, distressing and just this side of horrible. As good and as dominant as the Storm played the night before against Phoenix, they played equally bad and lackadaisically against the Monarchs. Say what you will about back to back games, road fatigue, or a bevy of other sports cliches (whether they are accurate or not) - the Storm were outplayed at every turn in this game.

The biggest two reasons the Storm lost - 22 turnovers and 2 bench points.

The turnovers were the most obvious result of the overall slow gear that the Storm were in. The Monarchs were hyper aggressive and the Storm were on their heels. Every time the Storm put together a run or even traded baskets with the Monarchs, Sacramento answered bigger with steals, fastbreaks and threes.

The pivotal point of the game, in my opinion, came near the end of the first half. The Storm had gotten the lead down to 12 and had the ball. They were showing signs of fighting off the Monarchs determination and taking control of the momentum. Instead of sharply executing their offensive set and getting a good score, they turned the ball over on a bad pass and the Monarchs were off on another fast break. Before we knew it, the half was over and the lead was back to 17.

The Storm seemed to come out of the half with some new energy, but everything they did was again answered or stymied by the Monarchs who quickly built a 20-pt lead. With the starters scoring all but 2 of the points, the Storm were able to scratch their way back to 12 or 11, but no closer.

The bench just didn't produce. You could argue that they didn't get the chance to produce. They only played a combined 26 minutes while the starters played a combined 174 minutes. In that 26 minutes, they only took 2 shots, had 5 rebounds and 5 turnovers. A far cry from their performance against Phoenix. They may have done better had they been in longer, but while they weren't producing, the Monarchs were having them for lunch so Coach Donovan had the starters in most of the game.

Coach Donovan was as mad as any of the Storm fans in attendance had seen (the group included myself, Angie, Leighway, Birdjack, Jezzie, StorminInCali, Trinity, Trinity's hubby, Scowl, Stormfan7, Shed and GoShorty - although we weren't all sitting together). She argued with the refs during the game and even chased them down after the game while they were trying to leave the court. In one exchange, a ref I didn't recognize (a woman with long, bushy, light brown hair) gave the Monarchs the ball after it had pretty clearly gone off of Kara Lawson right in front of the Storm bench. A timeout was called and Coach D went up to the ref and argued the call. The ref seemed to agree with her and even said, "Okay," but didn't reverse the call. Coach Donovan replied with an incredulous look on her face, "What do you mean, okay?"

Coach Donovan was also fairly stern with the players. Every time someone came out of the game, Coach made sure they sat at her end of the bench. Most of the time, she let Jenny Boucek do the "instruction." When a player had really screwed up - like when Lassiter allowed two of the Monarchs' forwards to get loose and uncovered for two early game back-door cuts and easy buckets - Coach D did the talking. It was not pretty by any stretch of the imagination.

My only hope is that from this fairly brutal loss, the Storm will choose to rally, come together and reestablish their game, their tempo and their style of play. We have the right coach. Our All-Stars are producing like they need to and are peaking at the right time. The Storm will be primarily playing against other playoff-bound teams the rest of the way, so their playoff fate is still in their own hands.

Other notes:

The only good thing about Arco Arena was that they had a live DJ near the floor playing music and taking requests. That was pretty cool. The rest of Arco's high school gym-like "amenities" left us unimpressed. The seats, lighting, scoreboard - everything pretty much was under par compared to the Key.

The Monarchs' fans were a mixed bag too. There were good ones like the woman who came up to us before the game and who turned out to be a friend of Quacy Barnes (a former Storm player for the newbies out there) and talked to us for quite awhile. There was also the two women we first saw in our hotel and then found sitting just a section away. Jezzie and then the rest of us talked to them for awhile after the game. We also had our share of jerks, like the woman who yelled at us to shut up when we cheered for the few good things that happened for the Storm, or the people who threatened Leighway when she went up to the concourse alone, or the multitudes who clapped and cheered when Sue got knocked to the floor.

Except for the game - the whole reason we were there - our mini-group road trip was a lot of fun. We spent the day on Sunday in San Francisco and Monday chilling at Birdjack's sister's house outside of Sacto. Our flight back was delayed and we ended up stuck at the airport for a few hours, but we made our own fun (and I'm sure we had our fellow passengers convinced we were all drunk - we weren't). Next year - Phoenix and maybe the All-Star game if it is on the west coast.

The other thing to report is that, for good or ill, we kept bumping into the team. I say it could have been both a good and a bad thing because while each instance was purely coincidental, I think they thought we were stalking them or something. 5 of us ended up flying down on the same flight as the team. We choose the flight because it was the cheapest. It also happened to be the earliest flight out that morning, which they are required to take. We ended up at the same hotel. We chose it because we wanted a nice hotel downtown. Once we got there, we decided to have breakfast - and found the coaching staff in the hotel restaurant. When we were getting together in the hotel lobby to go to the game, who do we see? The Storm making their way to their own transportation to the arena. After the game, we came back to the hotel to get some food and "beverages." As we waiting to be seated, who walks in but the team. Kamila stayed for awhile and joined us. Simone chatted with us while she waited for some "take out" to take back to her room. The rest of the team went the other direction. I don't blame them - I'm sure the last thing after that game they wanted to do was to chit-chat with a bunch of fans. That was too bad because as a group, we were the fans least likely to bug them with dumb questions or for autographs. In fact, with all the opportunities we had, the only things any of us really said to them were a couple "good game" comments before the game and then after the game I asked Tully how she was and how she was injured during the game (a Monarchs' forearm across the nose). My concern is that in their minds all fans have been categorized in the psycho mold - autograph hounds, never ending picture takers (I only take pictures during official events and didn't even try to get them when they were on their own time), constantly asking the same questions and/or wanting something. If this is the case (and again, I understand their need to protect themselves and to be wary), it's a little sad.

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