Submitted by | czechchick7

Tully didn't hit the floor that I remember.  Is that a first?  
 
Shaq-if looks could kill, Greco and/or Donovan would be dead. She was definitely not a happy camper after the game. Don't worry jrod, MM's number won't be used this year for long.
 
Alicia-what a cheerleader on the bench!  That gal wears her heart on her sleeve and lets everyone know it on every play someone makes. Hard to know how good she is, but it sounds like she was a player AD wanted, so we'll have to see.
 
Simone-played alot vs. Gardner, but this may have been her evaluation time.  Late to camp and salary could kill her, along with her inability to keep her hands on the ball.
 
Michelle-love that kid!  She's like Sue and Tully put together (sweet and tough). Hard to tell she had a broken nose less than a week ago, with the scrappy way she played. And she loved the fact she was cheered in Seattle for once, instead of booed (UCLA).  
 
Kamila-I see the refs are playing the game "when in doubt, call it on Kamila" again this year. But Shobe, spiky dyed red hair on her just isn't right! 
 
All the fuss over Taurasi-she's a rookie, making as many mistakes as good plays. I was more concerned with Taylor and Deforge.
 
And I've come to the conclusion that Phoenix must bring in a drama coach and practice flopping. They do it so well, even the new players!

Submitted by | norwester

First, I don't think words can express what a relief it is for the season to be here once again. I know that you all share my feelings, relieving me of the burden of trying to express this; it was also good to have our ladies home at the Key. In the STH event afterwards they all echoed this, though I believe AD brought up the point that the road is where it's going to be won or lost this year. Things looked really good, though. Despite frequent substitutions we clicked for the most part.
 
Mostly random observations:
 
I kept looking up at the score board in the first half to see LJ with over half of the Storm's points, then nearly half, etc. It was as if she was playing at a different level than anyone else out there. No one on the Mercury could guard her, not to mention no two or no three. Williams would try to hold position, and LJ would walk through her as if she weren't there. It was great for the Storm fan, but you kind of had to pity them for resorting to trying to hack her to death, and still failing to stop her. Oh, and at one point they practically had her jersey over her head, it was so far up her back.  
 
I think this is a good point to insert a blurb about the officiating. It wasn't the worst ever, but it was really bizarre. I don't think I've ever seen so many offensive fouls grouped so closely together. I guess we can accredit much of that to the hard work Phoenix did on flopping. Again, Kamila with the crap calls. And again, though it's boring to even mention such an integral part of the game, they'd call ticky-tack on one side, then totally ignore stuff on the other (or the same side).  Ho-hum, same old, same old. And though the majority of our fouls in the 1st half were offensive, their constant hacking of LJ kept them mostly in the penalty (yea!). Plus we generally got our own back.  At one point Kamila got called for her fourth or fifth foul (?), and LJ came down and delivered a shot with her elbow as she turned around and made the shot, about took the poor girl's head off, and ended up going to the line herself to complete the play. It happens.
 
My favorite part of the game? Blocks. And the monster LJ block was right in front of me.

Burse also had a couple of blocks right down there under the basket, and showed a lot of hustle on defense and offense, going after loose balls and rebounds. Our rebounding was a little weak at points. Phoenix did a good job of getting position there. They out-rebounded us in the first half, but when you shoot 62%, what can they do?
 
Flopping. Phoenix did it. Almost enough said, except that I think it was charging on Lennox (who fouled out, half of them offensive...she was a bit out of control, trying too hard, whatever). She lowered her shoulder quite a bit.  She was always crouched really low when I saw her, but perhaps that's because I sit near the basket, and by then she had driven too far into the tall trees and had no where to go, then turned it over (B-money?). I was trying to figure out her style for a lot of it. AD at the STH event said that her offense would come, and that it was her defense we were liking now.  She seemed pretty frenetic and unfocused out there to me, but if the coaches decide they like her, then I'll trust them. She hit the floor so much, I thought we'd have to give her the Tully award (and I don't remember Tully hitting the floor at all, though it wasn't due to lack of hustle). I did like her attitude at the STH, I guess, giving LJ her props.
 
Our defense was awesome for the most part. A couple of missed rotations early on, but we gelled for the most part, making them run down the clock.  It was beautiful to watch.
 
Diana Taurasi played fine, but I agree that Bird was better. I loved the exchange of threes near the end of the half, when DT came down and hit, so Bird calmly dribbled the other way and got it back. Good times. I think she was getting a bit frustrated that so many of her passes just hitting her teammates' hands then ricocheting out of bounds or to us.  Some of those passes were things of beauty, though, so I see good things in her future.  But Bird had some stunning no-look passes of her own.
 
Adia got a fabulous reception when she came into the game.  She may have been a bit tentative, but I thought she hustled well on defense, and that's what we've always paid her for.
 
The score board had issues in the second half.  Did it ever correct itself?  I think I stopped looking.  It was stuck on the players from the end of the half (for our side at least).  Whatever, it was preseason.
 
Greco was very poised and looked good.  Sam had a solid outing.  Penny Taylor was working hard out there, and made LJ run around quite a bit on defense.  She took her lumps and didn't slow down.  After the game she and LJ hugged.  It was all good.  LJ also flung her arm across someone else's shoulders...Tuvic?  I should get better at names.
 
Tully looked really, really good and deserves the back-up guard spot.  
 
I like the new picture on the tickets, with a Sue and Lauren silhouette in a lighted tunnel. They showed a pretty cool commercial/promotion focused around the two of them a couple of times during the game. There was also a highlight reel, and we can never get too many of those.
 
Half time entertainment was something they're doing this year to raise money for charity called Shoot the Hoop. They gave balls away free before the game this time (though they may have said the first 1300 fans), but from now on it'll be $1 or $2 or something per ball; they blow up this big shoe in the middle of the court and everyone tries to throw their ball into the shoe.  It was pretty funny to see all these balls flying through the air. I think 13 people won. I was off by a mile
 
STH Event:
 
At points as we waited to climb the stairs to the upper parts of sections 125-127 for our cheese and crackers it felt like only STH attended the game.  I continued pssed the first crush, and towards the end the tables were better provisioned.  I couldn't find any bottled water, though. Apparently those got snatched up (if there were any in the first place...note to management:  more bottled water in the future). I thought the buffet thing was adequate.  Some fruit salad, a big cookie, some egg rolls, and I really like cheese and crackers, so I was good.
 
I find myself in the position to defend David Locke a little bit, and when it all comes down to it, I can't find it in me to really be more than mildly annoyed by him, because he is really passionate about this game...I could forgive a lot of people a lot if they loved the Storm (I was going to say WNBA, but I really don't believe in my heart that I could give a Sparks fan, for instance, hardly anything).  
 
That said, he was talking when we came in, and he would tell us what was going on, but mostly he was chatting with the fans already seated and taking their yelled questions (there were no microphones before the players came in, but someone did finally suggest it and they acted on that right away).  Due to the lack of mics, it was hard to tell if he was going off on a tangent, but specifically someone two rows in front of me asked about Simone's experience in Israel, and while I rolled my eyes, Mr. Locke gave the question consideration and gave the fan who asked it the information they requested, correcting them from Israel to Italy, etc.  Clearly not every STH is as informed as we Stormfans members.  I found myself in that position when I became a STH after attending one game.  I was pleased at the number of hands that went up when they asked how many there were first-time STHs.  We veterans must be patient with the rookies.
 
Over all I thought that the event was a good mix for the well-informed and the neophyte. The players introducing one another ("The player to my right is...") were definitely the highlight, though it was nice to hear directly from Anne Donovan what has been going on, what her thoughts are, and her feelings as to how it's going.
 
Counting the days until Thursday...

Submitted by | Leighway

I was urged by a couple of people to give a game day report… however mine will not be like the others since it does come from the “other side of the light”. The visitors side that is.

Diary of schizophrenic:

I had left the University District Fair around 5:45 and I was frantically driving down 45th ave. glaring down I5 to see nothing but a parking lot so I made a sharp turn to avoid it and all I could think of was THANK GOD the season is finally starting.  I’m sure the van I almost hit was thinking something totally different. I made it to the Key in about 7 minutes, don’t ask me how and I pulled into a parking spot and changed out of my Sue Bird shirt and into my Diana Taurasi #3 UCONN shirt. Yes, I was a trader in a sense but not really; I still wanted the Storm to win.

As I ran into the arena with just minutes to spare I thought about how perplexing this season was going to be for me. There are way too many college players I have followed and enjoyed watching these last few years spread across the WNBA that it makes it hard to rout against them.  
And worst of all my two favorite players were squaring off; Bird and Taurasi back on the court together but in different uniforms. Something was just not right about it, (but it might have just been the glare off those horrible Phoenix uniforms).

I bought a ticket behind the visitor’s bench and was really the only one in the row except for a woman that showed up later in the game but she was about eight seats down to my left. There was no one around me cheering for Phoenix and I felt quite alone in my shirt that has enough 3’s that I’m sure everyone knew who I was there to cheer on. It was like huge targets plastered to my body screaming “HIT ME HERE! HIT ME HERE!”

I felt like a part of the Phoenix team as I was asked for water and tissues a few times from the team when they came off the floor. I guess because I was sitting in the last seat by the water and I was all alone they figured I was part of the crew.  Luckily I did not have to talk or it would have come out as mumbles as I’m not too savvy when it comes to talking to… well, just about anyone in a basketball uniform.

I missed shoot around but was there in time to say hi to a few of my fellow Stormfans who pointed at my shirt, gave me dirty looks and then sighed. Yeah, okay. Was it really that big of a surprise?  Then I ran to my seat in time to hear the Phoenix huddle and what Graf had to say to them. She told them to stay positive and body up and play good defense… blah blah… nothing new same old coach stuff.

It was really hard to see the game with Lindsey Taylor standing right in front of me in the beginning. They stand until someone hits a basket so I was just begging for someone to hit one, luckily it was not too long before they were sitting and she moved to the end of the bench.

The game seems like such a blur now and I’m still recouping from a busy weekend so it’s hard to remember everything. I do remember the game being pretty physical and that’s what Graf wanted; she told them to put a body on every player and stop every cut to the basket.

The players were very vocal to one another about what they should and should not do.  They seemed to get along pretty well, except some of the bench was not too happy about Deforge’s shooting selection. It made me chuckle a little when she would go for a shot and they would say; “No! Not that shot!” then it would go in and they would say, “Good shot!”  There was a lot of cheering for Dee on the bench and they were very supportive even when she threw a bad pass or missed a shot.

I did see a lot of swearing from both teams; Moore (Phoenix player) came off the floor at one point jumped up and down like a four year old and said the F word really loud before sitting down. I didn’t like her much… not a really good personality from what I could see. Taurasi said some words more than once when she came back to the bench after she got her third foul.  Bird cursed a few times in the second half but I couldn’t figure out why; I didn’t see anything happen. She is no longer using the “pull your jersey over your mouth so no one can see you swear” routine.  Sam yelled out a few different words I could not clearly hear but I’m sure it was not something you would want to say in front of kids.

My favorite moment happened in the second half, okay, second favorite moment, the first was a wink I got from Dee when she saw my shirt. My second favorite moment was when Slick Rick had just called a foul on a Phoenix player; I have no idea who it was but he came running by the Phoenix bench and Dee said, and I quote: “You saw that foul from way over here did ya?”  He turned and said something and smiled but I couldn’t hear him clearly.  I’m sure it was packed full of WNBA reffing wisdom whatever it was.

I could hear just about everything that was said on the bench until the music came up or when the crowd went wild. Nothing really exciting, just a lot of chatter about what needed to be done and how they needed to turn up the defense to stop the post players from having their way inside.

I felt schizophrenic cheering for Storm plays then cheering for a Taurasi basket, assist or rebound. There for a minute I thought I was watching a game of horse between Bird and Taurasi; Dee hit a three then Bird came down and right over Dee hit a nice three, then Dee made a pass inside and they scored, then Bird came down and made a nice pass and they scored.  It was pretty entertaining to say the least.

I was really happy when the Storm were up 20 but they lost the lead again and let Phoenix close it to 10 but they still won so all is good. Hopefully, with the cuts the team chemistry will build stronger and we will not be seeing those kinds of breakdowns at the end of games.
 
I have to say I was very impressed with they play we got from Grecco. I thought she did a great job even with a couple of rookie TO’s that I’m sure will not happen all that much as time goes by. I loved her energy and I loved what she brought to the team. As my friend from NJ would say, “she’s got moxy baby.”.

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