Submitted by | Norwester

It’s a good thing I’ve had practice at writing these losing game reports.  Not that it’s something I want practice at.  What’s a two-game losing streak, right?  I won’t belabor the fact that it would have been a good game to win, what with Houston and LA losing yesterday, or whatever.  To me, at least, this was a better-looking loss than in Seattle last Tuesday.  Perhaps because I didn’t drag any work-people or anyone with me that I’d have to worry about having a good time.  And the Spokane Hoopfest people around me seemed to have fun, even with the loss.
 
But first, about me.  Not so much, really.  I did get my lovely and stylish Stormfans.org t-shirt, personalized no less, by stalking Mrs. Admin to the snack bar.  I’d like to recommend it to everyone.  You want to be cool don’t you?  If I were telling that to people at work I’d get a hundred responses saying I shouldn’t be guilting people into it, that they give and give and have terrible diseases and don’t appreciate my tone, so I’ll move on now.  Government workers.  Go figure.
 
The Spokane Arena isn’t the Key.  There was one big scoreboard at one end.  They never showed the half-time stats so I won’t be speaking to specifics later.  The seats were plastic, but not all that uncomfortable.  Apparently the floor was fairly new, based on comments made by local fans in front of me.
 
I’m really glad I didn’t buy a seat on one of the ends, like where I sit in the Key, because there was a ton of space between those seats and the floor.  Those people got a little bit screwed.  And others asked to be as close to the Storm bench at possible, but instead got sat on the floor as far as possible from our bench.  Customer service just isn’t what it used to be.  It’s ‘cause I got a government job.
 
There were probably around 3,000 people there, and many of them were quite energetic.  Not the floor side of section 116, though.  A bunch of people there just sat there the whole time.  Hardly reacting.  I couldn’t figure it out.  I sat by some people perfectly willing to yell at the refs and such with me, so it was good.  I talked to a couple of people in line who could tell by my Storm shirt who I was cheering on, but just wanted to watch a good game themselves.  It was kind of fun to be around a bunch of new type fans.  They even got moments of good game.
 
Get to it already?  The anthem was really slow, but had some cool key changes and stuff.  Our girls looked energetic during shoot-around.  The guy in front of me with his family got all but one Storm autograph.  I don’t know whom he missed, but he got Sue and Lauren.  They also caught a Doppler-thrown t-shirt.
 
Betty was sporting a facemask because of her nose.  Did it turn out to be broken actually?  It was at least sore.  She came out at one point and had ice on it.  She looked to be in pain, but I think she also got hit in the face.
 
Also, you could tell who the Key Storm fans were, or those who could catch a clue, because we were the only ones standing until the first Storm score.  It was cool to see how many were local, but please.  The game didn’t start very smoothly, once they finally did the opening tip after the refs got Kamila’s toes situated to their liking and far enough away from the circle, and there was a lot of back and forth and missed shots.  Someone near me yelled that it was just like Tuesday!  I could only pray that it wouldn’t be so, but alas it was a sign of things to come.  However, so was the fact that Kamila made the first shot on an assist from Sheri Sam.
 
The refs were ticky-tacky right away.  Sheri picked up 3 before the half and came out.  Betty got called, and so did Kamila in a quick series of three.  But heaven forbid they call any on Tari Phillips at first for holding everyone she could get her hands on underneath, particularly LJ.  I could go on, and will mention one more play in a bit.  They were bad most of the way, but at least I was happy when they started having to call a bunch on NY to even up the foul discrepancy.  And Tari Phillips did eventually foul out.
 
We seemed to have a bit more energy that last game.  But NY came out with a sort of zone defense that stymied us consistently in the 1st half.  LJ was only getting outside shots, and NY was getting a ton of rolls that I kept begging to go our way.  Adia did get a three-times around the rim roll-in.  But NY always seemed to get an answering three.  Becky Hammond was killing us at the end of the game.  
 
LJ didn’t score until she made 1 of 2 free throws (another sore point with me right now), and you could see the frustration creeping back a bit.  Of course it couldn’t be because she was practically being undressed underneath without getting calls.  Didn’t someone clue anyone in to the fact that she’s reigning MVP?  Just because we’re not floppers (Wauters).
 
Sue was working hard on defense, disrupting passes and such at first, but I would really like to see her scoring a bit more.  Not a ton.  I love assists.  Did I not grow up idolizing John Stockton?  But sometimes we need her hand.  And not on desperations threes as time runs down, but on a few more driving pull-up jumpers.  Especially when Betty’s out.  We have enough offensive tools (in theory) that she doesn’t have to take over the game, but…
 
Only Sam was getting to the line in the beginning.  And we were letting NY pretty much rebound at will.  It was maddening.  If I sound a bit manic, that’s why.  And the fact that on defense they kept getting Betty to rotate around on Baranova, a bit of a mismatch that Elena would score off of every time.
 
Finally, with NY up by like 10 or more, we started to get some position and rebounds.  Best of all, Kamila caught fire.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she had another double-double.  LJ hit some threes, and we were only down 28-29 at the half.
 
The Sonics Dance Team was at the game, dancing at game breaks, etc.  I guess they couldn’t get all those little kids on the road, and the Dance Team was at Hoopfest performing too, at center court I think.  Some guy behind me somewhere joked after seeing the Dancers that now they could go.  The young girls with him weren’t amused.
 
Based on the first half over all, I was happy to be only down one at half time.  And I keep waiting for LJ’s break-out game.  I really wanted her to turn in on in the second half, and it seemed likely early.  She scored first in the 2nd half on a free throw (she hit both!), despite an Ann Wauters flop.  She followed it up quickly with a turn-around jump shot that put her in double figures again.  Things looked good, and we squirted out to a bit of a lead 34-33 on, among other things, a Sue Bird jumper.  Betty began finding her touch and we were up 41-35 (yes, I take some notes, people, because there’s no way I’d remember that on my own).
 
Our bench was more productive than the last game (not that that takes much more).  Burse isn’t getting those nice put ‘em back up and in shots lately, but she had some beautiful blocks.  The lady next to me was quite entertained by how she ran down the court like such a prancing girl, then would reach up for a strong block.
 
Tully came in for some good minutes, and hit some open outside shots.  She was also involved in a very hard foul on a fast break with about 7 minutes remaining that had Anne Donovan boring holes into the refs’ collective heads, and people (and me) yelling for a flagrant foul (not that it takes much to get me yelling, especially coming off a recent loss).  It was a game though:  Tully hit the ground.  
 
Adia also had some nice drives along the baseline and hit some shots.  We could have used some more of that, but for some reason we hit a point where our people stopped putting up shots, and would instead eternally pass the ball around.  They made me sad.  So be it.
 
NY began to creep back.  Time was winding down.  We were clinging to a lead and various ties by the skin of our collective teeth.  Five minutes to go it was 59-55 on a mini-spurt by us, but a minute later it was tied 59-59 when NY got a couple of bounces, and betty committed a silly frustration foul (shot+1).  And our offense disappeared.  If anyone finds it would they please return it?
 
Sam had another ill-advised quick shot, but this one didn’t save her by going in.  I wish her offensive game would return too, but she doesn’t seem one to give up either.  Even worse, NY followed it up by a Becky Hammond 3-pointer putting the Liberty up 65-60 with one minute remaining.
 
The end of the end.  We missed about 100 3s of our own until Sue finally hit a 2 making it 65-62, Liberty, Betty had a couple of dribbling into the tall trees and turning it over, culminating by stepping on the line and turning it over.  And that’s just the type of night it was at the end.  The Liberty win.  Ok, I don’t need  
 
Other notes:
 
Another very funny thing was overhearing conversations around me as people “got” Doppler.  He was a big hit pretty much all around based on the crowd I was in.
 
Other activities were musical chairs with Doppler and a four little girls, and Doppler got booed for stealing the chair from one at one point.  They all got little prized, though.  They also did “Doppler Dodge-Ball” where two teams of kids threw balls at Doppler and had to hit him 20 times (we were counting in my section and it was about 20, but the official count was 29…where’s my calculator?).
 
They did that old classic the 5-second, full court lay-up, but there was no attendant LJ video, so most of the crowd only got it on one level.  Poor them.
 
Half-time was a $10,000 half-court shot, MCed by local radio station, 93 ZOO FM or something.  The crowd was really into it.
 
They had two features with 60-seconds with Sue and LJ.  No real new information was revealed to the die hard fan:
 
Sue’s number is 10 because of October birthdays (Sue and her sister), she’s never had a job apart from the WNBA so didn’t answer about her worst job, and either shops or sleeps on her off days.  
 
LJ also subscribes to the “retail therapy” maxim on her off-days, and with a straight face (eventually followed by a smirk) said that she’d be a brain surgeon if she wasn’t a basketball player.  Also, the accompanying video for LJ was full of blocked shots, and who doesn’t love that.
 
Sue fell a couple of times during the game.  Last year we blamed it on her knee.  This year?  Probably invisible NY pushes.
 
How do you pronounce Baranova?  BARaNOva?  Or BarAnova?
 
Should I be afraid to wear my personalized t-shirt?  Now people can come up and pinch me and say, "Write in shorter paragraphs," or "what was with that sentence fragment?"

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