I missed most of Atlanta @ Connecticut last night. Here's a tip - don't eat two pork chops and two Pink Lemonade cupcakes after a long day of work before lying down on the coach to watch a game. You'll be in a coma in the middle of the first quarter.
I managed to catch the end moments of Atlanta vs. Connecticut in a real back and forth.
Angel McCoughtry said it best after this game:
“Forget the playoffs right now. If we don’t win a game like this, I’m
not even worried about the playoffs. What is the point of going to the
playoffs if we can’t win on the road?”
...
"We
have to figure it out, we have to be better at something. We turned the
ball over too much. It was all mental errors. We need to focus and try
to figure this out.
We keep talking about being in the playoffs, but we can’t have the
mentality that we are in the playoffs and lose our last three games. We
have to go in the playoffs with a winning mentality and the momentum of
winning because there is no point of going if
we are not going to get past the first round and make it to a
championship.”
I definitely agree. This is going to be a soul-searching type of off-season. I'd like to see us get to another WNBA Finals but I am very pessimistic about that. I'm very pessimistic that we'll even get out of the first round.
A friend of mine keeps posting that "Fred Williams has to go!" Well, this is Year One, give the man a chance before summoning the firing squad. But here are a couple of ugly facts:
* The Dream are 1-4 in games decided by five points or less. The only team worse than Atlanta is Tulsa at 1-8, where Coach Klop is hanging on to his job by his fingernails. He'll probably stay given what he was to work with in Tulsa, but Williams has less of an excuse.
* The Dream are 4-11 on the road. The only teams worse on the road than Atlanta are lottery teams: Connecticut, San Antonio and Tulsa. Even the lowly Liberty are 5-10 on the road.
As Count Floyd would say, "Prettty scarrry, eh kids?" I suspect that Julie Plank is out somewhere buying a new whiteboard and that the DFO is trying to figure out whether they hang with Williams for the purpose of keeping McCoughtry happy or if they promote Plank to HC before some other team grabs her a la Carol Ross.
Given the DFO's past history, Brock or Loeffler (probably Loeffler, I suspect that Brock is the good cop to Loeffler's bad cop) need to call up McCoughtry on the phone and ask her what she thinks of Julie Plank. My theory (no proof) is that the DFO would lie down in front of train tracks before displeasing McCoughtry enough to jump bail on the team.
Gonna be a realllly interesting off season.
(* * *)
Game Two (what I saw of it due to my coma) was Phoenix-Chicago, a real nail biter. The Merc staying in it despite not having either Taurasi or Taylor shows you what a great job Russ Pennell is doing. Men's basketball's loss is women's basketball's gain. I don't know how he feels about coaching women for a career, but given this small sample size of games he should give it some serious thought. (Even though I'm opposed to male HCs. I'll be unopposed to it when female HCs start coaching men's teams.)
But Delle Donne made the buzzer beater and ended the game. Chicago's front office probably creamed their pants when they saw that. Big Syl for MVP, Delle Donne for Rookie of the Year. Give Pokey Chatman Coach of the Year and you have the trifecta.
I had written a Swish Appeal article on Coach of the Year. If you don't believe in that math jazz, one way to tell a good coach is to ask the question: "can they win games even with substandard players"? Brian Agler lost both Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson and he took the Storm to the playoffs. As my friend who is sour on Williams says, "If Brian Agler coached the Dream, we'd be conference champions."
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