Submitted by | StormFanNo1

LJ - MVP, nuf said. She was head and shoulders above anyone else on the floor tonight.
 
Bird- Glad to have you back at full speed. Her cut through the lane in the second half was absolutely dashing.
 
Tully - Awesome. She was the second best guard out there. She only shoots when she has to, and nails the shots. Controls the game very well out there.
 
Greco - Wellcome to the team girl! There is no way you are going to be cut after today's performance. She can play defense, she can drive into the lane drawing fouls.  
 
Kamila - Same old dependable Kamila. She was slowed down by ticky tacky fouls, but the was solid on defense out there.
 
Janell - She has long long arms, very good for rebounding. Our third best post player.
 
Sheri - She had and off shooting day, but she made up for it with her hustle and defense.
 
Simone - She made a strong case for staying with the team today. There is a real good chance she will stick around, but her playing time will diminish due to Janell's presence. She is the fourth best post on the team and AD wants to keep 5 posts.
 
Adia - Not the same Adia of last year. She was slow and tentative, not wanting to run fast and always favoring her injured leg during jumps. I don't know if she is still hurting or just a psychological thing. If it is physical, then she should start the season on the injured list.
 
Alicia - Trying very hard but did not get many results.
 
Betty - She had the shoot first, think later attitude. Poor shot selection contributed to her 1 for 6 shooting. She was trying too hard and getting out of control on occasion. If she is our starting SG, then SG is our weakest position.  
 
Maren, Andrea and Shaq played very few minutes. Barely saw them in action. It feels like these players are on the cut list.
 
Trina was in street clothes. So we don't know anything about her capabilities or how she fits with the team yet.

After the last game, coach must have talked to perimeter players about passing into the paint because that was what the Storm mainly did during the first half. Good things happen when we do that, as seen by our 62% shooting and 12 pt differential in the first half.
 
LJ was money in the bank. She scored every time she touched the ball. They double and triple teamed her to no avail. Whenever she got fouled, she completed at the free throw line.
 
Thanks mostly to the fouls LJ drew, Storm spent 8-9 minutes in each half in the bonus, which explains why we went to the free throw line 33 times.
 
Towards the end of the first half, we had a UConn  vs UConn rivalry going on the court. Sue and Diana went after each other. Sue nailed a two, then Diana came back nailing a three, right after Sue nailed another three, etc.  In the end Sue won 82-72.  
 
Storm was never threatened in the second half. After pushing the lead to 20, coach pulled her starters out of the game and let the bench play extended minutes. That was when Phoenix came back and closed the gap to 11.
 
Announcers have yet to learn the players names. They kept calling Betty "Penny Lenox"...
 
Taurasi did OK. She nailed a couple of shots when left open. Later she was defended vigorously (Sheri and Adia) and did not get an open shot. She was passing the ball too hard too fast. Most of her 5 turnovers came when the ball bounced out of her teammates' hands. I remember Sue having the same problem the first year. Must be a UConn thing...
 
Christensen continues with her flops and keeps getting foul calls in her favor. When will the refs wake up.
 
Can't leave DeForge unattended for a second. She immediately nails a long jumper.
 
Lindsay Taylor didn't play at all. I was looking forward to seeing her play.  
Tuvic didn't look good either. Phoenix doesn't have a solid post player.  They can't be a force in the west without a strong post.

Submitted by | scowl

Greco is so calm and reserved. She flubbed a few TO's running the point (No don't go back into that corner!) but showed some real promise. Wow. And she has that cool foul shooting technique of looking at the floor, then glancing up the basket and shooting it immediately. I guess I'm interested in foul shooting more than most people.  
 
Poor Betty! She seems to have that "Rookie of the Year" fixation with scoring. She regularly got herself buried under posts in the paint with no way out other than to shoot, pass or foul. She rarely passed and didn't shoot very well so she made some bad offensive fouls. She doesn't look very mobile. It looked like maybe she was so concerned about TO's that she squated over the ball instead of driving with it. In one foul she easily could have avoided the player but instead drove right over her with impunity. I'm concerned.
 
Anyway everyone loves this team. We've got players with such a wide variety of skills that any one of them could spontaneously take over a game when you least expect it.  
 
And the Mercury continues to improve! If they could control that lightnening fast ball movement and keep the turnovers down, they will be hell to defend. I was having trouble just following the ball with my camera! I can't believe that second string rookie who did virtually nothing on the San Jose Lasers a few years ago was the same Anna DeForge.
 
And Roy, you still suck! Fonzie, you messed up a couple of times too so sit on it!. Shelley, OK job I guess.

Submitted by | Shobe

Now that's the last place Phoenix Mercury that I remember from last year.
 
Anne, what were you thinking?  How could your take Lauren out with four minutes left in the game, and LJ stuck on 29 points?  Let her get her 30!
 
Of course I'm biased and would like to see fellow Duck Shaqualla Williams make the team, but based on tonight, it does not look like it is going to happen. Williams hardly played at all, and Michelle Greco got plenty or PT and looked good. You figure one of them will be the last guard chosen, so this does not bode well for Williams. Still it makes me wonder. If Anne wants to go with Greco, why did she bring in Williams in the first place?  That's not really sending a vote of confidence Greco's way.
 
I know Jrod is not a fan of Williams, so I know she must have been steamed to see her get Michelle Marciniak's #3 jersey.  
 
So do we keep Simone?  She is a veteran who is making around $50,000 a year, but she has never really developed beyond being a back up player.  Do you go with a younger, less expensive player?  It also does not help that Simone did not come into camp until this week. The way Simone worked the crowd at the STH event, including her rap song, I felt this was Simone's way of trying to get on Anne's good side.
 
Diana Taruasi had a good game, and one can't help but figure she will real develop her game by the end of the year.
 
Talk about our VIP's, Scott and Angie got seats directly behind the Storm bench, and Sass was courtside beneath the basket.  
 
The good hands award goes to Scott for bobbling an Adia Barnes underhanded toss of a t-shirt at the end of the game that Mr. Administrator bobbled and lossed. The throw could not have been from more than six feet away. I know it's pre-season, but let's work on that technique.
 
The Stick It To The Man Award goes to Storm Fan Seven, for standing up the the Storm Land Security Facists who would only let us get in one line for autographs. You go girl! Talk about a crappy way to treat season ticket holders. And what a lame excuse, that the players needed to go home early and get to bed. Please! They could have easily gotten everyone in and out of both lines in less than an hour. Thanks for standing up to mindless authority Seven. As a result, I got a picture of me with Sue, and one of me with Lauren, both signed.
 
I gotta say it, what was up with that outfit LJ wore at the STH event?  I love Lauren, but that outfit was ghastly.
 
I gotta disagree with Czhech Chick.  Kamilla's spiked red do is totally badass.
 
I was watching NW Cable News when I got home to see game highlights and instead there was an endless viewer call in segment about what was wrong with the Mariners. A lady name Kimberly called up and said, "I don't know what is wrong with the Mariners, but I know you have devoted 15 minutes of this show to why the Mariners suck, and you have not even mentioned that the Storm won their first home game tonight." The host fumbled his way through a response saying, "Well it is not the official opening, that's sometime later this week and we will be all ove that." Way to call them on this, Kimberly.
 
It was great to see our Storm community all together again. God, I'm glad the season is here and our long, cruel off-season winter of discontent is over.

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