Submitted by | connvex

That was some damn fun basketball to watch. I feel like I just played 40 minutes. I kept wondering if Vlad Radmonovic (in attendance, PF for the Sonics) has ever seen such good basketball.
 
Quick props to some Lynx. Ohlde is gonna be phenomenal if that is how she plays on average. Smith is spot-on as ever and I firmly believe it was our tight (with some lapses) defense that kept her from scoring 25. Teresa Edwards was fan-friggen-tastic. She looked like she was about 28 years young and played even younger. Gorp still scares me. No, really. If I was a kid she’d scare me more than ET. And oh, how I miss me some Lassie…real good to see her doing well (especially on D).
 
LJ- Looked a bit drained for the early part of the game. The Lynx centers (as well as Tamika Williams, now a 4) defended her well and were very physical. I kept sayin' "Ohlde is outplaying LJ" cause they were even in points and Nicole was out-rebounding Lozza to boot (that’s an expression for all you Aussies, not a place for storage in the back of a car). Some where near 8 or 9 minutes left AD gave her a talkin to and LJ listened. She just turned on the nitro and pulled away from the pack. I’m still confused about our rebounding, though. Between all of those 6’4”ers, how do we get out rebounded?
 
Sue- She hit some beauties tonight and kept the passes fairly practical. When everyone is on the same page in our half court sets, she will perform better and she will make everyone else perform better. Tonight though, she poured ‘em in when they hurt Minn bad. She has a sharp repartee; when a team nails a 3pt I think it ups Bird’s 3pt ability for the next 20 seconds by ~25%.
 
B-Money- Yeah, I said it. B-Money. This guy was real glad to see some of those shots drop through the ring, tonight. Did you see the score? Every point counted and Lennox showed us what she’s got. And dang chica, how do you get all those rebounds? She’s our second or third energizer bunny…maybe the Tasmanian Devil is a better analogy ‘cause Betty got bite!  
 
KV- She got her usual ration of phantom calls but the shot was off, the rebound was off. Vod had some assists but that’s about it. Anne didn’t hesitate to pull her because now we’ve got a nice backup with Burse. Speaking of that…
 
Donovan- You gotta give AD some credit for her work tonight. She got bird out when we needed Tully’s ferocious D, put Burse or Simone in for LJ when she was looking down, pulled Sam when she lost Smith in the screens and set Adia loose. And not to mention yelled in a refs ear for about a minute (during game play) after a ball went out of bounds right at her feet. I thought she might get a technical for that one.
 
Tully- If anyone has ever seen defense like that before, let me know. Bev is Seattle’s best Glove if ever there was one.
 
Sam- She made some great steals early to set the tone and plays like the savy veteran we need. Between her and Barnes we had enough to muffle the indomitable snowwoman (Smith).
 
Simone and Burse- A good batch of back-up centers. If Burse turns on the scoring and/or rebounding while KV is in this slight slump, I could see her taking the starting role. Still not sure what I think of her or Simone playing the 4. I guess there is just no replacing LJ though.
 
Ugh. Tired. Must rest up vocal chords for Saturday. Tonight I’ll be dreaming of the rest of the season with a smile on my face.

Submitted by | Norwester

This one was a nail-biter. We all got "thunder sticks" when we got to our seats. Hit Explosion, a live band available for parties and such were playing before the game, and at various moments. Did they get new little lights and things under the scoreboard (i.e. black light, and lights that project little Storm logos and swivel around on the floor) or have I just never noticed?  I'm sure I'm just out of it and everyone else knows that the scoreboard is new this year. Well, they should do something to work the kinks out, if that's the case, or the operators should wake up, because several times during the night I'd look up to see if that was Kamila's third or fourth foul, or to confirm LJ's new score after she hit a 3 and the board didn't even show them on the floor. And it wasn't just for our team. I'd look up mostly to see fouls for their side, and they wouldn't even be listed, etc.  
 
Anywhoo, the crowd was big and the atmosphere was fun I was hoping that we'd win this one and hopefully get the non-STHs back again. And even better, it was a close and exciting game that we won. We looked a bit shaky at points, and clearly both of these teams are still adjusting to pretty significant personnel changes, Minnesota was playing some pretty smothering defense at first that bothered us intensely at points, but when AD had a talk with the officials about what she felt they were missing (crowd boos are really too generic to really help them much), things improved. But meanwhile LJ and #45 (sorry, no roster in front of me) had words. Nothing too big, but there was tension in the air. In some ways I think this incarnation of our team has the ability to project a little more attitude. Hmm. Anyway, this was an auspicious beginning to the season.  
 
Tonight was all about LJ. It's sad when I'm looking at her low-teens production in the first half thinking that she just wasn't getting much point production. Are my standards too high? Guess not because we were looking at 30+ by the end of the night. Part of the problem in the first half was it seemed that no one could pass it inside without it getting picked off.  Except LJ, and that sort of defeats the purpose. The stats were fairly even at the end of the half; both teams had something like 18 rebounds (though we should have had more...they were killing me out there), they'd made two more field goals but we attempted the same number, we had more fouls shots attempted, but they'd made more 3s. It looked like it'd be a battle.
 
There was a small ceremony before the game where they presented LJ with an award acknowledging her MVP-hood. Her hand was shook and picture taken, AD gave her a hug. We all cheered ourselved hoarse, and the game hadn't even started.  There were LJ highlight reels, interviews (taped and post-game, though I couldn't hear that one well ), it was all LJ all the time. Ok, can't go far wrong with that, I guess. They did take a minute during the game to show some clips of interviews with the new players so we could get to know them better, notably Lennox, Burse and Sam. Half of what they said was that Seattle is pretty and they're happy to be playing with us (and LJ) rather than against us now. There was also a pretty cool "history of the Storm" type bit that nice.
 
So the game started after lengthy introductions for each player as they entered in spotlights, descending various stairs/aisles to the floor, and I just kept thinking, don't trip, especially with the shaky lighting and all the noise (no mishaps occurred, however; whew). You may think that I go off on Betty Lennox at first, but my perception of her is changing...she had a shaky first have, but a much better second half and she's winning me over. However, big surprise, before even a minute had run off the clock she was whistled for a foul. It was defensive rather than offensive, though, so some positive. She was under much better control (overall) this game.  
 
Big surprise #2: the refs call a foul on Kamila before two minutes have run off the clock. Offensive foul?! They must think her hair is a questionable as some of you (cc7) do.  
 
Kamila had a tough game tonight. She missed some chippies and lay-ins.  At one point on a Lynx turnover/fast-break Sue came down and was hemmed in under the basket, thus threw a quick wrap-around pass to Simone...and off her hands out of bounds, then threw a LOOK to the bench, I don't know if it was to AD or KV, but next dead ball KV came in for Simone. Simone seems to be working on a quick little turn-around jump shot more, or at least I noticed it more tonight. KV wasn't in too much, but she also seemed tired. Hopefully she feels better Saturday (pretty much a sure thing).
 
Sam had a really good night. She was there for rebounds, steals, shots.  She was doing a little of everything, and I'm more willing to jump on AD's bandwagon about her. I didn't have a good perspective on Burse most of the game, but she seemed to contribute solidly as well.
 
I was a bit surprised by how well Tasha Butts and Nicole Ohlde contributed. Ohlde's got some moves and was giving our post players fits. We had some trouble with our defensive rotations or something in the first half. At points Sue would be frantically pointing at an opposing player trying to get Lennox over there, or pointing to an open player in the corner (Simone at one point was wide open down one side and Betty dribbled around to the other oblivious to both her and Bird) that Lennox would miss, but this improved for her through the game. Ohlde was really producing well, and Tasha was killing us from behind the arc. Do you think as the level of play in the college game increases so quickly there will be a lag where incoming rookies adjust faster to WNBA competition, or is it just this year's exceptional crop? Or am I reading too much into early-season games?
 
Amanda Lassiter had a very warm reception.  It was good to see her, and she was giving Sue fits on defense, or at least trying to.  
 
Notable plays (though not necessarily game-changing):
 
Betty Lennox did get so out of control once, all alone at the side of the key, that she tripped over herself, and the ball went out of bounds. Ooops. Everyone just kind of shook their heads. It wasn't the worst thing to be going wrong at that point, and just seemed like another issue to play through.
 
Betty's shot selection did leave a bit to be desired at first, but then she started making them (thank goodness). Here's to less streaky, more consistent scoring.
 
Van Gorp (flopping being a euphemism for how she plays defense) threw herself to the ground dramatically at one point as LJ backed towards the basket with the ball to get better position. Van Gorp flopped, LJ caught the ball and looked at the ref standing there, he just looked back, and it was as if she shrugged her shoulders, then casually turned and scored.   At first everything was going in for her. I also was happy to see her hit of couple of three-point shots. You've got to keep those pesky Lynx defenders honest.
 
Lastly:
 
Refereeing? You get used to it. Katie Smith totally ran over Betty Lennox at one point, in the middle of the court, obviously, and nothing was called. I thought #48 missed more than most, but it could just be me. Apparently all the people sitting on the floor under the baskets were livid about all the jersey holding.
 
As I've said Betty was much better in the 2nd half, and was a key contributer down the stretch. She and LJ started hooking up on some plays, and for being so small she sure can sky for rebounds. I worry for nights when her shooting is off all night, but perhaps she's learning more control under AD.
 
Winning the close games is what it takes to be a champion. Cliched a bit, I know, but it's definitely a more rigorous test of a team's mettle to come back (from a little bit down) and hold on for a close win. I have high hopes. Bring on LA.

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