Final score: Storm 70 – Liberty 69 (W) (13-9)

Submitted by LaurenRules

Officials: Clarke “No fouls on NY post players” Stevens, Michael “Which way?” Price, and Shelley “I hate Camille” Nakasone

Anthem: Was there one? I heard a very nice young man with a very pretty voice singing something – but may need to stop reporting on this, just for my own peace of mind.

Attendance: 7,496

Introduction: Nice ovation for Anne Donovan, who, oddly, ignored it. She has lost a little weight since she was last here. I’d forgotten how freakishly tall she is and those 3” heels probably bring her into the 6’ 11” range. She looked a bit lonely on the bench with no assistants.

First Quarter
The play-by-play has an especially funny line to start things off. “Jump ball, Jackson vs. Jackson, Jackson gains possession.” Mmm, okay. Two early fouls whistled on the Liberty. A faint hope that the officials wouldn’t suck as badly as in previous games, immediately quashed a little later. Storm, particularly LJ, were hot, going on a 10-3 run, with a +1 play and a GORGEOUS three.

New York turned the ball over twice. Camille sank a highlight-reel layup, but whistled on two ticky-tack fouls in succession, sending her to the bench. Thank you, Ms. Nakasone. Guess you decided to hate Camille, not Swin, tonight. Nice that you take turns, anyway. McCarville scored on a +1. 12-6 Storm, with 4:22 to go.

Timeout: Cute interval with a “Storm” trooper, giving away free Star Wars concert tickets. Love the Storm 77 jersey over his white armor. I expect those things get hot.

Props to Janell, who hit a nice jumper on the very next play. Lauren actually got to sit down and A-Rob came in. JB picked up a three-second violation, though, negating A-Rob’s nice long shot. Lovely A-Rob block ruled a foul. Back to the bench. Well, at least LJ got to sit for 1:20, resting her enough to hit a monster three. Kia Vaughn scored. JB made a sweet jumper off of a feed from T. Beautiful play – Tanisha waited for the defense to collapse in on Lauren, and fed a wide-open JB. Both teams went on nice little four-point runs to close out the quarter. 24-14 Storm.

Second Quarter
Quarter started with SUBS in the game: the “three guard lineup” was in (please God, don’t let any of them get hurt!) and SUZY and JB in as well. Loud ovation from crowd. Tanisha whistled for a foul. New York had an offensive meltdown. We felt bit sorry for them (not really). Lovely assist from Suzy to JB. JB whistled for a foul and headed for the bench. WTF? Coach, she was HOT tonight – LET HER PLAY! (eye roll) Whatever.

Great to see the “Great Barrier Reef” in the game. Suzy looked to be over her sinus infection, although she seemed a trifle slower tonight.

Lots of missed shots and turnovers. Suzy BB airballed a three. Ouch. Sue picked Loree Moore’s pocket and fed Swin, who fed Suzy BB. SWISH. Last point from Seattle for quite some time, as NY went on a seven-point run of their own, thanks to turnovers on Sue and Swin and two MORE fouls on Camille. The first one maybe, but the second was just stupid. Back to the bench she went and Janelle came back in. Tanisha hit a jumper to get us back into the game. Sue whistled for reaching in. Wow, that was actually a foul. I’m impressed.

Moore missed one of her free throws. Swin and Sue hit threes, bracketing a Kraayeveld jump shot. Swin hit a jumper. Balled knocked out of bounds, looked like it was off of NY, but Nakasone ruled it their ball. Kraayeveld closed out the quarter with a three. Thank you, Shelley. Grrr. 37-30, Storm.
Halftime: Virginia Mason “Be Fit” challenge – some aerobics, followed by a 2 on 2 of fans vs Doppler and Dopplers assistant who was wearing quite the dorky outfit. The fans won. Props to Doppler for scoring in his heavy, hot and unwieldy mascot outfit.

Neither Lauren nor McCarville had any fouls at halftime. That’s odd.

Third Quarter
Slow start, with Lauren turning the ball over and NY unable to score. JB hit two beautiful layups, off of T feeds. They must spend a ton of time on that move. Monster BLOCKS by Janell and Swin. Arena went crazy. Lauren hit her signature turnaround jumper. Janell came out. WHY? She was in double figures!

McCarville scored. Kraayeveld went on a run of her own, sinking threes like the rim was ten feet wide. Shannon scored on a quirky jump shot. She had a wonderful vertical rebound tonight – in fact, all of our guards had good rebounding nights. Christon scored. New York within five. Swin scored, was fouled, but couldn’t convert the +1. Lauren picked Vaughn’s pocket, scored and was fouled. Swish. Storm back up by ten. Carson went on another mini-run (She had a good shooting night). 55-49 Storm.

Fourth Quarter
Starters were all back in, definitely looking tired. Anxiety in my row. Sue and Camille each scored to put us up by nine again. McCarville sunk two free throws and hit a jumper. Kraayeveld hit another three. New York within three! Sue drove to the basket, sunk a layup and hit the +1. Nice work, Birdy! A-Rob in and out very briefly. Good intimidating defense. New York went on a seven-point run – our starters looking tired – and got on top by 1. Noooooo!!!! Swin scored. Storm up by one. Contest between Sue and McCarville, each scoring four. Sue totally kept us in this game fourth quarter.

Defense and offense both went flat. Turnovers, missed shots, and Swin had the ball stolen, with 0.9 seconds to go. STUPID call by ref on inbounded ball almost cost us the game. Massive booing. The only good thing is that New York played worse than we did and was unable to score. 70-69 Storm.

Notes:
Jason appeared in a truly scary warm-up suit to do the “Be Fit Night.”

The “Ride the Train” occurred right after New York pulled ahead. They might want to think about moving it to a different quarter.

From what I could tell, the mistakes in the fourth quarter were due to exhaustion. The starters had very little left in the tank, except for Sue. She had her share of mistakes in the third (in the game!), but completely came back from wherever to ensure this win. Talk about mental toughness.

Great to see Lauren looking like the Lauren of old – beautiful offense, strong defense. When she’s on, it’s like watching poetry.

There’s something about this offense scheme that baffles me. We’re playing “defensive offense.” We don’t come in, blow out the score, then clamp down. Even when we’re ahead, it feels cautious.

Donovan made some great adjustments on Lauren especially during the second half. If her players executed a mite better, they would have had us.

Great to see the benchies in. MORE, please?

Doppler was praying in the corner during all of the final timeouts. Very funny - and it worked!

All for now.