During Atlanta's last six games, the Dream are 1-5. The only win out of those six was a home game against hapless Connecticut, the rest are all road losses against Western Conference teams, including last night's 82-76 loss to the Phoenix Mercury.
So why does Atlanta look so bad now? Sancho Lyttle was injured in the July 9th game against the Lynx. She had foot surgery on July 15th and is not expected to be back until early September. Sometime before the Seattle game, Tiffany Hayes injured her knee and is out indefinitely. Given that Ruth Riley averages 3.1 minutes per game, we have an eight player roster. Counting Courtney Clements, it's a seven player roster.
There are McCoughtry and de Souza, superstars and rightfully so. Armintie Herrington is a fine complementary player but cannot generate offense. Alex Bentley is a great rookie but still learning the WNBA game. Jasmine Thomas hasn't impressed me, and both Bentley and Thomas shoot under .400. Le'coe Willingham is here to provide some nebulous "leadership" but no offense. Aneika Henry is now on a milk carton somewhere.
Given all of that, what I can't figure out is how we started 10-1. I don't buy "scheduling" as the answer, we beat Chicago by 14 points so we are capable of beating good teams. But without Lyttle and Hayes, we just don't.
I wonder if the long stretches of time off have made us soft. The schedule gods hate us. The Dream hadn't played for 10 days before last night's game, the longest stretch of off-time for any team in the WNBA. It will be another seven days before we play Indiana at Conseco Fieldhouse.
Including Indiana, then we:
play 4 games in one week
play 8 games in two weeks
play 10 games for the remainder of August
The beginning of September don't look all that great either. Seven games in 15 days in September, finishing with four of the last five on the road. Lyttle will get a lot of chances to work on that foot. The way we're playing now, I have to look and see who we're better than.
Right now, we're not better than either Chicago or Indiana. I think we're better than Connecticut and New York. So that leaves us and Washington to fight it out for #3-#4. Which puts us in the same damned situation we were in 2010 and 2011 - having to fight our way without a home team advantage in the playoffs.
So what about last night? McCoughtry scored 33 points and 8 assists (seven TO though). De Souza picked up 16 points and 11 rebounds. In the battle between De Souza and Griner, I'd call De Souza as the winner. We won the battle of rebounding.
But Diana Taurasi had one of those outstanding games that she's famous for - 28 points and shooting about 50 percent. You can tell just by watching Taurasi that she hates to lose. In a lot of ways, Taurasi and McCoughtry are alike, but Taurasi's snit fits are seen as somehow charming and the sign of a real champion, whereas McCoughtry's are seen as her being an out-of-control, selfish player. There's an entire essay to be had in looking at how various players are perceived in the league even though they fill up the box scores in the same way.
Indeed, McCoughtry seems to be one of the reasons Atlanta is disliked by so many teams in the league. Previously, it was Meadors why so many fans dislike the Dream. They were pretty vocal about it, about how Carol Ross was supposedly the real talent behind Atlanta. And they've always disliked McCoughtry (although, truth be told, McCoughtry has never really helped herself). This year it's a very different McCoughtry but you only get one first impression.
I suspect it's also a matter of circumstance. When the Dream came along, the league lost Houston that same year (and we got Lyttle in the expansion draft), lost Sacramento the next year and ended up shipping Detroit off to Tulsa. They were three franchises with strong fan followings (*), and those fans had to watch Atlanta go to the Finals two years in a row while they were left with memories.
Why did we lose last night? Damned if I no. We just needed more from anyone who wasn't McCoughtry or de Souza, and we didn't get it. Señor Fred has a week to figure things out, and God bless him.
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(*) Houston and Sacramento shouldn't have closed. It wasn't the fans that screwed up, it was management. As for Detroit, they seem to have a hardcore fan base but could never get people to attend games - those crowds in Detroit were virtually empty. When Bill Davidson died, the Shock were going to follow, since Davidson was the only reason the Shock were alive at all. And now it looks like his estate is in some IRS trouble.
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