Submitted by | NewSocks

First off right before I was getting ready to leave Mr. Sock called from work and said he couldnt stand it anymore, he was taking the rest of the day off sick for "his girls". I was like... "um..... care to splain?  Anyone I know?" He said, "duh Ann..... my girls. Get me a ticket" *swoon* I love that guy.

We got to the Staples early. We ran into the same ole nice Sparks fans that we normally do. Of course, we ran into Lucky as she was almost going to run us over. This time we stopped her and talked to her for a second. She has a womens sports shop and gave me her card. Ill have to post the link sometime. Her friends said she has a great selection of Storm stuff. It still makes me nervous that she has enough O2 on that chair to blow up a building and sits and smokes... but anyway... Jezzie, Lucky sends her best. Heh!

We went into Fox Sports Grill and set up our Storm shrine. We had plenty of people admiring it. They wanted to touch the monkey, but Mr. Sock told them they couldnt touch his monkey. Bad Karma.

We went inside and there was some players in the tunnel. We saw Tully and she said she was glad we were there. I suggested she take up a collection in the back for us. She looked confused. I said, bail money. She laughed and said, deal. Funny thing was that the end of the bench really kind of kept an eye on us.

We saw Anne D on the bench and got her attention. She waved and smiled and looked relieved to see some friendlys.

Props to SF# and Siko for getting Ann Meyers to admit she doesnt know what she is talking about. No shit Annie, tell us something that would be a scoop.. Not something the whole world knows.

The girl who sang the National Anthem did a wonderful job. What I cant stand is the idiots in the crowd who treat this like a Star Search audition or something. They say stupid crap like sing it girl, or other lame ass remarks. If you dont want to pay your respects, ok. Stand there and keep your stupid yapper shut. Let the rest of us who want to do it in peace. No one cares what you think... Im sure we will have to listen to your genius during the game, nimrod... give me my 2 mins of peace.

Milton-Jones did her one finger up on two different hands thing again during the anthem. Im sure she was pointing to the sky... the moon in particular.. cause you know it IS rumored to be made out of... you guessed it. Cheese.

During the team intro the crowd started booing. They did their circle sway thing in the court and kept going until they were done... which took them right into the intros of the Sparks.

The Sparks intro video was hilarious. Its all Leslie. The other players are shown passing her the ball and she shoots. Ok, occasionally there is a shot of another player taking a shot... but most of it is Leslie.

I think LL got a butt implant.  Just thought you guys would want to know what I thought.

During the Sparks intros, they had drumlines from all over so-cal. It was actually pretty cool to hear them. Because of them, you couldnt hear the team names. Heh. Yeah, Drummers.

Ok... now when I went to camp as a kid I had to have my initials written on everything. How dumb does it look to have the Sparks have their whole names written on the back of their HOME jerseys. Homies... if your fans dont know who you are... shaking head... It just looks lame.

Ok... We won every jump ball by the way.

Dixon and Betty started out in each others grills. It didnt take long before they got tangled and Dixon cocked her hand back after she got her self schooled and acted like she was gonna hit Betty. Sally Bell called the foul.

Speaking of Sally... I got in her head pretty early. A foul, a stupid one of course happened right in front of us. She stood there during the free throws. I yelled out, Hey Sally... HEY SALLY... Good to know you are consistant from last year. YOU STILL SUCK, SALLY.  Sparks supporters from around us were laughing and the bench heard that one. You could see them chuckling.

Sexiest play of the first half was the HUGE blocks by LJ on LL. I must say LL did have a huge block on someone.. I think it was Adia. I actually had to turn to Siko and say wow... nice block.

Betty Lennox. She either pulls her head out now... or this is where she does what she has done on every other team she has been on... goes out of control. I love Betty... but last night she was just an easy bet that when she got the ball she was going to the hole, or she was going to shoot.  Bombs Away Betty is in town.

On one play right in front of us LJ totally roofed LL. A roof, for those who dont know is a shot that gets blocked so hard its like it was thrown hard against a ceiling. It was sweeeet.

Mr. Sock leaned over and said my girl is back, Ann. I just looked at him and he pointed down to his Kamila shirt. Too cool.

Adia looked good. Speeding up everytime I see her play. She was guarding someone, I think it was Christi Thomas and she grabbed her jersey... at least thats what it started out to be. By the time Thomas tried to break free, Adia had a bit more than just the jersey in the chest area. In fact the jersey kind of gave way and Adia was still holding on to some fleshy mounds while the owner was still running away. I looked at Siko and we just nodded. We had to confirm what we both saw... but there were no words to convey.

Adia also had a very sweet under the basket layup.

The foam fingers we took are the best ever. They made so many correct calls as far as which way the ball was supposed to go... they were great for lidding the basket during Sparks free throws... they totally wreaked havoc on Dixon at the line... thats for sure. They really worked well right after the CLANK to symbolize CHOKE loud and clear. Mr Socks uses 2 together to symbolize the big Technical and it works quite nicely.

When the Storm had a run of turnovers I wouldnt have wanted to be on the end of the glares from Anne D. Oh boy, I swear I could hear skin sizzling on our players.

During a Timeout our coaches came out and were doing their powwow like normal. A drumline came out and was basically right behind them. They never saw them coming. Do you know how funny it is to see 6'8" jump out of her skin up to somewhere aroud 7'3"?  Its wicked funny.

Ok... Teasley was basically running down the court for like 3 possessions and was belting, slapping, hitting... call it what you want... Sue. Ole Suz finally got fed up with it and thwack!  She threw a spicy forearm. Teasley went down and then because of proper pre-season Spark training, knew to pop up and act like she was gonna finish Sue off. Classic Sue... she totally Yeah yeah'd Teasley. The bench was rolling. When Sue came out the crowd booed... Lauren came over and gave her a hug and said something and they both started cracking up.

Ok... first half... Hell... the Highlight of the season so far... CLANK!!

The crowd went nuts as she was galloping up on the approach... then it was really quiet... that is probably why the CLANK was so damn loud.

After we high fived and hugged and laughed we high air 5'd all the surrounding Storm fans, I looked at the bench. All of them had their heads down and you couldnt see their faces... Their shoes apparently got really interesting.

We won the tip again.

They played Billy Idols Mony Mony song during a time out. I have a horrible habit of changing words to songs to suit my needs. This one went something like… Here she comes now singing Mony Mony... hey hey what the Sparks, they suck. It caught on pretty quick. Mr Sock picked it up right away followed closely by Siko then the two Storm fans sitting beside us and then the two old ladies who turns out were Storm fans who snuck down from their upper seats to sit behind us. Mr Sock said it was because they wanted to touch his monkey.

Lauren started hitting some 3’s early in the 2nd half. I figured that would get the team motivated. We were never really that far behind… I just kept saying we needed a push.

Scott... you can put Christie Thomas on your fish report… She has some serious flopping skills.

The refs started focusing on Tully. Foul after foul. She was so cute though. She put her hands on her hips and was like WTF? A couple big eye rolls and a nice hairy eye ball.

One thing I want to point out. How can you not think there is some sorta Karma involved in the fact that there were two bald guys making these dickhead calls? Just asking.

Betty got really shot happy in this stretch. Some went in and I thought there may be hope. I kept yelling PASS the ballllllllllllllllllllll.  She stayed aggressive though.

I think at 50-47 Birdy tied the game with a 3 that bounced about 87 times on the rim.

A few mins later, Milton-Jones was at the line… I did my cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese thing and it worked. I thought it was a fluke… it worked everytime after that.

Janell Burse is my new hero. She plays so damn sexy. She is tough, aggressive... she never stopped trying. She doesn’t take any shit. And oh my goodness... my most favorite part is when she gets a good rebound and she gets all crazy and starts dribbling down the court on a fast break. That’s just pure excitement in her eyes. Of course Im screaming, “pass the ball, baby” but its still fun to watch.  She owns Lisa Leslie. Lauren is still my forever favorite player in all of eternity… but ohhh I loves me some JB.

There was a free throw on our end. I cant remember who it was, but between shots the refs held some sort of a mini summit right in the key. It was too funny to see all of our players move over and lean in like it was some sort of E.F. Hutton commercial.

At the 9 min mark we had a serious momentum swing. I thought this is where we would take over the game. It was all back and forth until the end from this point.

The Sparks are starting to commit fouls they learned in the California Penal League.

Whitmore’s only purpose in this game it appears is to beat the crap out of LJ. Mr Sock was yelling ( he normally doesn’t yell at the games, that’s my job) at the ref to watch Whitmore pounding on Lauren. I think there was a comment about an orifice a body part to the ref too.

The crowd was going crazy after some shot by the Sparks and Sheri came down and busted a sweet shot out. The crowd went silent… well except for us who went wild.

66-63.. 3:37 left. I'm getting really nervous now. We need a run.

Ball goes out of bounds. LA ball. No one picks up Milton who is right under the basket. Easy 2.

The refs went on a Kamila foul run. One after the other.  1 was real, the other was such B.S. Even the lady with the big ass that wont sit down in front of me said they got a gift on that one.

68-65 3:04 left. I'm clawing at my foam finger.

We have the momentum again. Here we come. Ugh.. mystery foul against LL. She shoots one, misses and blames the ball. We wait while they find a dry towel and her royal backendness gets a wipe and so does the ball. Oh please… YOU SUCK. Just shoot the other brick and lets get on with it!

70-65 2:42 left. I feel dizzy. I think I have forgotten to breathe.

Janell comes down with a huge rebound and (smile) starts dribbling again.

We get down on our end and call time out… The inbound play starts off ok, but it gets broken up. We recover the ball and it goes into LJ. She shoots and misses. Foul. She gets her rebound, goes up again, misses. Foul. She goes up for the last time and gets so hard MY teeth rattled. Finally they call the foul.

The next time we came down the court LL fouled LJ so hard the slap was almost as loud as the clank. And no call.  I couldn’t believe it. Neither could the bench or the coaches or anyone else who was alive at the time.

In the end, we had 3 open looks for a shot to tie. Betty shot one that rimmed off.. but came right back to her. Second shot.. she missed. It went to LJ and she missed… she was in front of the 3 point line though.

It sucked. All we had to do was to hit some of the free throws we missed or a few more shots.

I still think we completely have LA’s number. They aren’t playing as a team. They never talk, and their chemistry is whacked.
 
We will be ok. Im not worried.

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