Submitted by | eclair

Now THAT'S the Mercury we all know and love!
 
But it almost didn't look like it was going to be. Anna DeForge popped a few early, and I thought she was going to be hot. This game was all about enduring the first half, and then smothering, smothering D in the second.
 
The refs apparently didn't get the "Poop On #7's Game" memo from the league. Kamila had no fouls! It was a miraculous and long-awaited occurance.
 
Stat of the night: Guess who scored as many points as Simone Edwards? If you guessed the Savior of the WNBA, you'd be absolutely correct. DT and the Hurricane each put down 6. That's a single-figure number, for those of you who are keeping track out there.
 
In all fairness, Diana Taurasi is indeed the second coming of Magic Johnson, a point guard whose size bucks the prototype, and whose passes seem impossible. Taurasi passed on several open looks to make her teammates look better, but even so, she was a non-factor tonight, honest--I don't know how. I just realized about midway through the second half that the action always seemed to be away from her. I have a sense that it was in large part to Betty Lennox, but really, the play was away from her so much, I hardly even noticed what she was up to.
 
DT also looked a little like Karl Malone. Sue Bird's first foul was no such thing. It was Taurasi employing that little elbow hook move that Malone's patented to get defenders into foul trouble. Kinda low, isn't it, Diana? I mean, you kids were teammates on the most important team in the known universe once, weren't you?
 
Final thought on Taurasi: She may be 6'0", but she's got the arms of a seven footer. I swear they dangle down by the top of her socks when she lets 'em hang. She also sropped her towel in the high-five line and left it on the Key floor. *tsk*
 
Sheri Sam was oh-so-close to a T. She got up in the ref's face twice about more of the WNBA as usual abysmal calls, and I thought she was a little too vigorous in her objecting. I loooved to see it, though.
 
Second half, Lauren Jackson in the paint. Heck, yeah. I been waiting all season for that, and oh my is it effective. I'd like some more of that, please.
 
Leighway looked just plain ArenaVision fabulous trying on some Carolina Blue Shox in the video shot at NikeTown last night. Nice socks, girl!
 
Play of the night: Adia, who currently has a vertical leap of approximately a nanometer, maybe slightly less, tied up the ball. Forgive me that I don't know who with. Adia just laughed and laughed before the jump ball, but somehow managed to get a chunk of it and send it to Sue Bird, who cruised down court for the easy two. The best part of this play was that the girls following Sue were smiling big happy faces.
 
Reserve play of the night: Michelle Greco's no-look to Chelle Thompson in the corner. The bench went CRAZY!! It's so fun to see the numbers ones giving mad love to the number twos.
 
Seen in the crowd (actually, Wingardium pointed them out), a very beautiful Gioconda Mendiola with our own WNBAfanforever. She didn't seem too enthusiastic about the game, though.
 
Also, the Big Lo's back. And still big.
 
Big bunch of Seahawks in the house tonight. Isaiah Kaczevinski (sp?), Matt Hasslebeck, and Brock Huard, who did a little QB shtick with Doppler. Isn't Brock's brother, Damon, married to a former UW basketball player? For that matter, isn't Brock? I know Marques Tuiasosopo's married to Megan Franza...
 
Lauren came down all funky on her ankle late in the game, and did the t-shirt throw sporting a big ol' ice bag. Any of you glamourpusses by the bench catch any thing on how she's doing?
 
And speaking of the t-shirt throw, Janell, you throw like a Girl (capital G on purpose).
 
Tonight marks the first time I've seen Sue Bird without her patellar strap in two years. Must be a good sign.
 
I called my son and asked him if he saw me on TV. He said, "No, but Scott looks good." It's the way things should be, after all.

Submitted by | norwester

Tonight's game was brought to you by the letters D (for defense) and S (for scoring, and streak, and Sue Bird, among other things), and by the number 3 (win, that is).
 
This report is probably a bit superfluous since the game was nationally televised...ok, I'm over it.
 
It was another one of those blink and we're up by 20 type of 2nd halves.  Is this the difference between being at home and on the road?  In the second half we take it up a notch in the Key, but just can't bring it on the road?  Betty Lennox was interviewed by Locke as player of the game, and when questioned she said that it was definitely "better to play at home."  Yeah, yeah, no kidding, but I was a wee bit down before the game thinking about those road losses, and looking at the Western Conference standings where we were in the bottom half (I haven't watched it on TV yet, but perhaps for a time certain people were feeling justified in predicting Seattle at the bottom ).
 
I thought the anthem was a little strange; at least, it was sung in a different style than we usually get. I guess variety it good, though.
 
Gio Mendiola was spotted in the house, for those of you who keep track of these things (thanks CC7), as well as a bunch of Seahawks players, and at least one of the Sonics.
 
We started the game a bit rough.  Which brings me to my first burning question, if you're team hasn't scored yet, but calls a time out, do you remain standing through the time out until the score ?  Well, my answer was yes, but I saw a lot of butts hit seats around me.  Thankfully most stood again when game play resumed.
 
Right away Kamila looked much more energetic.  The first three plays must have run through her, and she was down there banging bodies.  Sure, the shots weren't going in like in nostalgic times past, but she was moving around, getting rebounds, trying to put it back up (frustrating people around me by putting it on the floor first).  She had a few assists and boards, and I was happy with her continued improvement.  
 
Not far into the game Betty Lennox was called for a foul.  It was totally bogus, especially since it was called by the ref out of position (#47, I think), rather than the one standing RIGHT THERE at the sideline.  Whatever.  Who knew it was going to be such a sign of things to come?  The fouls were being handed out like candy by the refs tonight, which got me to thinking about how physical the last game in Phoenix sounded.  I didn't see that game so I can't really compare, but even though this was really annoying, I think overall I'm less annoyed than I would be if Sue were getting thrown to the ground and Lauren draped all over by the defense all night.  However, lots of fouls = choppiness.  It's a fine line between too physical/not enough calls, and too many calls/no flow.  At least there were good and bad calls both ways.
 
There wasn't much to cheer about in the first half.  LJ had more fouls than points (yes, that's right, zero points on like 0-1 or 2 shooting ) and had to sit down with 6 min to go having accrued 3 personal fouls.  Hmph.  I'll just bite my tongue.  How much impact do you think the wider lane is having on the post players this year?  It seems to be a big adjustment for those whose bread and butter last year was posting up...at least she who must not be named didn't seem as dominant when we played LA.  Perhaps I'm projecting...
 
Turnovers were plentiful too, probably one of the bigger differences between the 1st and 2nd halves (not to mention, we actually started making field goals in the 2nd).  Simone came in at the end, and completed a sweet play on a pass from Sue with like 10 seconds left in the half.  
 
Storm 22 - Mercury 23 at halftime, but there was happiness in the crowd, because face it, we all like to see Simone do well.
 
So why were we worried?  There was LJ with 0, and her streak (not the most important thing, but it was in the back of my mind)...and our reigning MVP came out and scored 9 quick points.  Yea!  That's what we're talking about.  She finally got the ball in her hands, and began hitting turn-around jumpers, etc.  She was at 9 for a while, though.  Every time she went up for a shot you could feel the anticipation, but instead we made do with threes by Sue and Betty.  Oh, poor Storm fans.  
 
Finally, at just over 7 minutes to play Lauren scored again, putting her to 11 points.  Whew.  She put a few more up on the board.  The Storm were looking good.  KV was hustling.  Our lead kept growing.  And Diana Taurasi, was our defense that smothering, or are you human after all?  It was odd to have these two very dominant players (LJ and DT) be so quiet in the 1st.  We began getting fast breaks and moving much smoother in the 2nd.  I think LJ was the most excited person in the building when Sue had a break-away lay-up ahead of the pack off Adia's jump-ball (I think).
 
Tully played solid minutes.  LJ was called for an offensive foul with about 4:30 left and came up lame.  She was clearly in pain, grimacing and limping to the end of the bench.  She spent the rest of the game with ice on her leg, and it was strapped there when she was throwing shirts as well.    But very soon after this, AD put all the reserves in.  Michelle subbed in, and scored on free throws (of which there were many)!  Thompson scored, and looked pretty good out there too, and scored on a fast break off a MG assist.  Simone took it to the middle and got the shot and one, and that got the bench to their feet.  It's nice to see them cheer so hard for their teammates.  And I just always notice how ecstatic LJ is...I guess it's hard to miss 6'5" of celebration.
 
As time wound down we just kept waiting for Tully to score, which she finally did on the 2nd of two free throws.  Hurray!  
 
This was Phoenix's lowest point total of the season so far.  We outscored them like 50-22 in the second, and it really snuck up on you.  Shots just started falling.  It's so easy to be all confident after another nice home victory.  But though I'm trying to be optimistic, lets see how the Sacramento game goes.  It would be delicious to break our road streak at Arco Arena.
 
Some scoreboard issues.  Would it be a game without them?  I guess it would be if Tully hit the ground.  And she did, so this was a game.  There were a few hard falls though, as Sue and Sheri Sam also took hard falls.  Ouch.
 
There's always mass confusion on my aisle (between sections 106 & 107) during the kids' train dance.  All the kids run down the stairs to the front, and there's no outlet.  Naturally they start vaulting the wall there.  Tonight the guard wasn't as attentive as usual, and all the kids were getting over with us cheering them on, telling them they'd better hurry before he saw them, but then some poor little girl kicked over a drink or purse or something on the wall, and the guard swooped down on them all.  It's always worse going back up, though, because they rarely get back over the wall.  Just one little girl did tonight, and he was yelling at her to stop, but we hurried her along and she made it.  Such drama.

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