Final score: Storm 71 – Comets 68 (W) (15-12)

Attendance | 9470

Anthem Watch | A male singing group from Microsoft. I don't think I'll be able to find Quicktime recordings of their music anywhere.

Fan Psyche | Will the real MVP please stand up?

Game Highlight | Well, there were at least 3 jaw dropping moves from our rookies — Suzy, Fran and Tanisha — but the highlight of the game, nay of the season, was seeing LJ's elbow with a big Tina Thompson lipstick smear all over it.

Halftime | Cheerleaders.

SF.O Keyword of the Game | Defense (or lack thereof)

Game Photos

Well that was fun. Doesn't it seem like every game with Houston comes down to the last couple of plays? In recent seasons, they've been the ones to get the steal, favorable call (I'm thinking back to that so-called Swoopes steal on Sue in which Swoopes mugged Sue, threw her aside and got the ball all right in front of a ref with no call) or game winning lucky basket. Tonight was a similar story although it was the Storm who came out with a win this time.

The big story has to be the MVP battle between LJ and Swoopes. Swoopes was simply amazing and lit up the Storm small forwards for a career high 34 points, half the Comets' total. She was hitting everything from everywhere and was nearly unstoppable. LJ was having her way on the other end and was matching Sheryl point for point up to 27. She didn't get the ball much in the waning minutes of the game and wasn't able to keep up with Swoopes. As a fan of basketball, it was truly exciting to see both of these great players performing as such a high level. I don't envy the people who actually get to vote on the league MVP.

Begin tangent.

One thing that I thought of after the game that I think is important to bring up is that it seemed to me that most everyone in the stands appreciated what Swoopes was doing out there. When the Comets were introduced, all of their starters received applause. I would go so far as to say that the Comets got more and louder applause than any other team we've seen this season, even without any former Storm players on their roster. The Comets have delivered some of the Storms' most stinging losses over our history, but we still have a healthy respect for them and appreciate their abilities and style of play. Where am I going with this? All of this is Exhibit 1 on why our overall disdain, dislike and attitude toward the Sparks is not a reflection of the Sparks being the "top" team (Comets 4 championships, LA 2), or because we as fans are somehow "jealous" of the Sparks or The Diva. We obviously show respect to teams who deserve it. The Comets deserve it and the Sparks don't.

End tangent.

With Betty on the bench, Tanisha got the start and had to go up against Janeth Arcain and also had some time defending Swoopes. Welcome to the WNBA, rook. Tanisha did fairly well. She once again showed that she is a Betty-Jr. in the making. She held onto the ball longer than most of liked, but was also aggressive on offense and wasn't afraid to take shots when she was open or had a seam to the basket. She did pick up some unfortunate fouls — unfortunate because they were obvious or were instances of the Tanisha allowing herself to be put into bad spots defensively which the veterans on the Comets exploited. She had one really cool move in the second half that faked out the Comets defense. She had gotten trapped on the three point line and faked like she was going to hand the ball off to Sue and once the defenders bit she went right towards the basket. It was pretty smooth.

Speaking of smooth, both Suzy and Zara had some damn fine moves of their own. Zara was taking the ball up the court in the first half and Swoopes was all over her. Right about at half court, Fran put a jab step crossover move that nearly had Sheryl out of her shoes. Everyone was like, "Dammmmmn." Then Suzy pulled a move like the one described above. She was out at the three point line with her back to the basket. She faked a pass/handoff to one of our guards and when her defender went for the pick and roll switch, Suzy spun and went straight down the lane with the ball. It was amazing. The whole Storm bench was going crazy. She got a "That was f***ing awesome!" from LJ when Suzy came off the court.

The other big time, and arguably game saving, bench performance came from Simone. She came in and changed the game. There's no other real way to describe it. Just like last season when Tully or Chelle would come in and instantly bring high energy, scrambling for rebounds and hitting baskets, Simone came in to this game and had an impact. She had 5 points, 2 big big rebounds and a steal in 8 minutes of play in the late stages of the second half. Angie said that Simone's Mom must have been feeding her some homemade chicken and rice. Whatever it was, it worked and Simone produced big time.

Izzy had her hands full all night guarding either Arcain or Swoopes. No one was stopping Swoopes, but Izzy was able to slow down Janeth somewhat. What I liked about Izzy's performance tonight was even though she was getting burned on defense, she turned things around and forced the Comets to play hard on defense against her. She was constantly pushing the ball up the court at full Izzy speed and pulling the Comets guards with her. She hit a couple threes and made them respect her out on the perimeter, helping to free up LJ inside. Izzy found other ways to help the team and that is not always something we've gotten from this position. Izzy's fearless.

As is Janell. This season is really night and day compared to last season with Janell. She is absolutely tenacious when she gets the ball within about 5 feet of the basket. Get her the ball or when she gets a rebound and she becomes the Janellinator. She. Will. Not. Be Denied. She also will not get a fair shake from the refs who seem to love to call fouls on her. She actually got a technical for being a potty mouth and ended up fouling out. This is her second DQ of the season. In spite of that, she again almost scored a double double. She could work on her energy level when it comes to being video taped and answering questions about herself. She looked even more like the Janellinator during her video clip, speaking in a monotone (a high pitched monotone naturally) and not changing her expression one little iota. On the other hand, she did express herself rather forcefully to the ref before she got that technical...

Sue had another one of those quietly productive, do whatever I need to in order to get the win kind of nights. She hit the big baskets when she needed to (she also missed the not-so big baskets) and kept Staley, Canty and Hodges under complete control. Sue makes being one of the best point guards in the league look easy. She gets flashy when she needs to but mostly goes out there and gets the job done.

This win felt pretty good. A couple road wins would feel even better...

Other Notes:

Simone's Mom got some birthday love from Doppler.

Jezzie, Pwe and the people in their section had the Sprinkler action going with foam fingers during a timeout in the second half. It was pretty funny.

The Oi, Oi, Oi gangs need to coordinate. We've got the group on the north end who do it before LJ's free throws (and are doing it early enough now that they aren't disrupting her) and then there is the group behind the bench that does it after LJ's made free throws. The Bench Ois have been doing their chant longer, like the last two seasons. The North End Ois have been doing it just a few games, but have greater numbers. Someone needs to make a conciliatory move before we end up with a knife fight in the alley.

After the Baud Boys did the anthem (they can sing but apparently don't have a lot of talent coming up with good names), I turned to Angie and commented that it was amazing that a Microsoft group could sing a song without the built-in DRM kicking-in and garbling the words or producing a repeating 20-second loop.

The Rat City Rollergirls were at the game, but were kind of swallowed up by the near lower-bowl sellout. I didn't see them until after the game when they came down to hopefully meet with a couple players. The ushers wouldn't let them stick around.

Even the Storm bench were a little awed by Swoopes' performance. I won't say who said it, but one of them said, "Damn, she's going to get 40" when she hit for 37.