Final score: Storm 82 – Sparks 47 (W) (11-8)

Submitted by NewSocks

I met up with Sic-ko in front of the Fox Sports Grill that wasn’t open. I was worried about meeting up with Lucky but she was being escorted into a side entrance. I figured I would meet up with her inside but I was a little wiggy about screwing up the pre-game ritual. More on Lucky later.

Of course you all know that this was camp day and already there were about a million buses and 400 million kids in the area. Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration, but you would be hard pressed to convince me there were less that that many kids screaming at the top of their lungs. There were a couple of times during the pre-game that they have a noise meter they put on the Jumbotron to show levels. The level thing goes to like 600 but thankfully the person who runs the board would only let it get to like 400 before they shut it off. They would show kids on the big screen during that time and they were literally standing there SCREAMING, bent forward, and using every muscle in their bodies.

Usually they don’t let people in until an hour before the game, but I think they were letting the camps in 90 mins prior to give the whole area a break. God knows how confusing it would be to have 10,000 under 4 footers running around. I don’t know how…innocent look… but I put sic-ko and I right in the mix of a group of kids and counselors and magically walked in with them. I guess they didn’t notice our tickets were no where near theirs. Heh.

The some of the team were already on the court shooting when we got in there. We put our stuff up in our seats which were in the middle section, but we went down to the rail to be able to give support to the road team.

I was also working on getting my STH tee shirt signed by the team. I only got 4 last time, so I had a lot of work to do. Weird thing, the assistant coaches were out there in sweats shooting with the players. A bunch of the players left and it was only LJ out there for a while. She was talking with Coach Shelly. Shona came out and we gave her a welcome to the team speech. I told her she landed on a great team with great players and she said, “Yes, I did. They are great.” I told her, “I hope you stick.” She said, “yeah, me too.” She seemed really nice.
Coach D was giving interviews on the sidelines, doing keys of the game with Alan, etc. LJ was doing an interview also.

Coach D came by and she again recognized us and smiled and walked over. I asked her to sign my tee shirt. I said, “Camp day today, coach. Less than 24 hours and then another camp day game. Who made your schedule, Satan?” She started busting up. She said, “You guys are troopers coming to this game, did you bring your ear plugs?” I told her we were toughing it out. She thanked us for coming and went into the tunnel.

All the players were out there except Izi who I was starting to get worried she wasn’t coming out. Finally, she came out of the tunnel and I said, “There you are Izi. I was getting worried about you.” She smiled and said, “Why were you worried about me?” I told her we just hoped she wasn’t injured and that we thought she might have gone home already. She said, “Nooooo, I’m right here.”

We spoke to Jayda for a while. Always awesome to see her. The camp kids were rolling in and there was no one coming to sit where we were standing and we were hoping we could move to those seats. No guilt on that either considering they were like 20 bucks cheaper than the tickets I bought. Nothing bothers me more than people who buy the 8 dollar tickets and then sneak down to the 50 dollar seats and then brag about how great their seats were.

JB came by and talked for a couple mins. She was already talking about how loud the kids were and I reminded her they had another camp day the next day. She groaned.

LJ came by and signed the shirt and Sic-ko’s visor of honor. I said, “Now, let’s talk about how right I was about your 30 point game last time. She just started laughing and said, oh yeah, you were right. Sic-ko told her she could go nuts today because there really isn’t anyone on that team with the ability to stop her alone. LJ said, “Oh I don’t know about that, they can be tough,” (she may have said rough but she was alluding to the physicality of play). So she got done and I asked her if she was still having fun, and she said, yeah, its fun. I said, “cause you know it’s all about the fun right? “ She was walking away but she raised her thumb in the air. Cool moment.

A man came over and asked me if we bought our Storm fingers here. I told him no, that we brought them with us. He said, aw man. I wanted to get my daughter some Storm stuff. So, I gave him the finger. Good game karma. More on this family later.

Sparky the Dog was messing with the refs while they were warming up. He was imitating them when they were stretching etc. I told sic-ko it would be pretty funny to have him grab one of their legs and do the dog humping motion. She whole heartedly agreed.

I had a pin I wanted to get to Lucky who much to my delight had got a on the court courtside seat. Of course the ushers wouldn’t let me walk it over to her, so I had them take it to her and she seemed so happy to get the pin. It was a Sue Bird bobble head pin. Who wouldn’t be happy? She was blowing me kisses and sic-ko said she seemed floored to get the gift. Cool.

We get to the national anthem and the kids were screaming during the announcements to behave and not throw things on the court or swear (those were directed towards sic-ko I’m certain) and the kids kept right on screaming through the anthem until at least until the bombs were bursting in air. I figured that was about how long it took for the counselors to get around the groups tell them to stop.

Captains met half court and it was Taj and LJ who shared a moment there and were laughing and hugging by the time they were done.

The intro was pretty cool for the Sparks. A combo of old footage and new footage. Old worn out Leslie dunk footage and new player footage. Alot of Taj. Nice to see that they have done some improvements and upgrades there. Credit the new owners. At the end of the intros, Cooper says, “Sparks are gonna fly” and fireworks and pyro stuff go off.

I commented to Sic-ko that it was weird seeing the Sparks starting lineup. Gone are the days of the names you loved to loathe. Baker, Spencer, Moore, Fernandez, McWilliams-Franklin was their starting 5.

No one except the Storm fans from the last game were behind us, so we all stood until Izi made the basket on a lay up.

On a bad entry pass, JB and Jessica Moore fell. It was the weirdest thing though. It was like slow motion when they fell. They both just seemed to float to the ground right to the point where they both slammed to the ground. They were both a little slow to get up and JB always seems to get up very gingerly with her shoulder. She seemed fine. Thankfully.

Izi acquired two very quick fouls. Ely in. I have warmed to Ely’s play. In the grand scheme of things Ely turns out to be a good choice considering BT has been injured like 3 times already, and is still on the bench in street clothes. Ely hustles and is very active.

JB’s block on Baker was huge. That ball flew into the third row of the stands.. Not the courtside ones, either. LJ came over and chest bumped JB ones and for emphasis, gave her another one.

CoachD spent a lot of time working the ref’s this game. It was nice to see. She stood a lot and paced and at one pissed at a call point shed her jacket. We knew she meant business then.

The key on both ends was always bogged up. It seemed that the rebounds, when they came down, were usually going to the defensive team. We looked good early. We looked good for the first quarter. We played team basketball. Betty came out of a time out and nailed a three. That got a fist pump out of two coaches, Wendy, and Betty herself.

We worked for the last shot of the quarter and got it. CoachD was stomping her foot and was pissed that there was no foul called. She caught the ref on the court and bent down to talk to her. It looked pretty cute to see coach hinged at the hip, bent way down in an L shape jawing the ref and the ref still having to look up at her. The ref was just saying ok, ok, ok over and over.
The second quarter was some of the ugliest basketball I have seen in a long time. Luckily, LA sucked worse than we did so it worked out ok for us.

Highlight. LJ stole the ball and passed forward to Shyra who bobbled the ball and was able to recover it and deliver a sweet reverse layup. The bench went crazy for that one as did we.

Last play of the half was LJ trying to make a shot and getting pummeled and the foul not getting called. She was pissed and came off the court calling for someone called Mother Trucker… or something like that.

Up by 10 at the half. 10 points in that building is like being behind by 5. You never take this team or this building for granted.

Celebrity sighting: Kay Yow. She looked great.

The team trickled out of the tunnel about the 5 minute mark. LJ and then Thornburg. She had been in the game for a couple of minutes and did pretty well with only one turnover I think. As she was coming out of the tunnel I leaned over and said, “Good job in there.” She said thanks. I told her, “I think if you just keep passing it to the big blonde in the green, everything will work itself out.” She started laughing and said, “I’ll try to remember that.”

Second half was all us so here are just some highlights and observations.

Seems to me that JB is on a short leash. One screw up, maybe two and out she goes.

At one point there were 3 people checking into the game for us and 4 people came to the bench. Luckily it was on a free throw and they were able to figure out who was supposed to stay, but you could see that one coming.

There was a time when Shona had the ball at the end of a shot clock violation. With about 5 seconds to go, T jumped off the bench and was shouting but to no avail. LJ walked over to Shona and put her in that headlock she does and was talking to her… you would have to imagine it was encouragement and a reminder that she is the big blonde in green.

Taj committed a foul that wasn’t called that was an over the back…and up the neck… and to the top of the head foul. The whole team including CoachD was simulating it for the ref. Pretty damn funny.

LJ had a sleeve on her knee. I didn’t notice that before. Maybe a sympathy knee for Sue?

Izi was cracking up for two sequences during the first part of the second half. It was pretty funny.

The bench seemed to be happy and laughing the whole game. There was a lot of interaction and everyone was talking and laughing with everyone.

End of the 3rd quarter there was a perfect give and go from Katie to LJ that got the team going crazy, me going crazy. LJ gave Kate big props for that one and kept talking to her in the huddle. The team also was going crazy and waiving towels when Katie started hitting her shots. I think they are rooting for her to get out of her funk and find her form as much as we all are.

When it was like 65-35 I told sic-ko it was the quietest camp game ever. It was super quiet. You could totally hear us and the only time it did get loud is when a basket was made by LA or the Jumbotron asked for noise.

I mentioned to Sic-ko that Christy Thomas seemed rather chesty for a basketball player. Sic-ko dubbed her Chesty Thomas from that point on.

Izi had a very nice steal, a basket and one. It was a thing of beauty.

LJ was well on her way to a monster game when she got hot in the second half. Rest was more important than getting the 100 points she probably could have got at the point she came out. She was throwing up a golf ball and hitting the swimming pool…that’s how easy her shots were falling.

Once she hit the bench, she was a big cheerleader. We were way ahead and I started getting antsy for Shona to go back in. I mean, come on. Give her a chance to get used to game time and not just practice or walk throughs. Kid needs a chance. Just as I said, ok, I’m gonna start calling for her to go in, CoachD calls her and sends her in. She did ok, but at that point it was scrap and garbage. We didn’t give up as a team and that was great to see us still pushing along.

At one point Katie was open for a shot but she looked over and saw Shona was coming up and was open at the top of the key. Katie gave up the open look and gave Shona the ball for the shot. It was like inviting the new kid to the table to have lunch with you and your friends on their first day at the new school. I thought it was dead cool.

With about 3 minutes to go that bastard on the Jumbotron controls kept doing the noise level thing and it was deafening. Over and over. Even the players on our bench started plugging their ears. Then they all just started laughing like they were punch drunk. At one point, Betty walked over to Izi who had her ears plugged and had her take her fingers out. Betty then put her open hands on the side of Izi’s head and was doing the clapping motion on Izi’s head so the kids I am sure sounded like wah wah wah wah. Izi and Betty were laughing hysterically. Pretty cute.

At about one minute to go, the man who I gave the finger to came down to the rail where we were sitting so his daughter could see the players up close. This little girl had made her own Sue Bird jersey and it was so cute. She was bummed Sue wasn’t there and we explained where she was. Then we got her and took her over to the railing so that when the players came by they would slap her hand. She was in heaven. Her eyes were so big and she had the hugest smile on her face.

I think that’s everything. I did put the screws to Sic-ko about coming to Seattle. Let’s see if it materializes. I have done my duty this year about Staples Center adventures. It would be nice to see a group of Stormfans make the trek next year. Ahem.

Oh yeah. When it was just Coach Shelly and LJ out there shooting Cooper came out and was messing with LJ. They got into some sort of shooting contest which it appeared that LJ won. It was a three point contest, it looked like between the three of them.

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