“The Bourbons never forgot anything and never learned anything.” - old French saying
I don't know if the Dream forgot anything, but they certainly didn't learn anything from their Game One loss to the Lynx except to start Aneika Henry. Once Minnesota adjusted to that, the game was over because Atlanta's game plan was exactly the same otherwise. I wasn't in Minneapolis, obviously, but what little we saw of Fred Williams on the screen, his emphasis was repeated - do what got you here. Stick with the game plan.
This, apparently, was Atlanta's game plan.
* - Allow McCoughtry to drive to the basket at will against three or four Lynx defenders all stacked up in the lane. Minnesota knows all too well McCoughtry's tendencies, they're beating her to her spots, drawing charges, and challenging her in the paint.
Remember Maya Moore's massive block of McCoughtry? (WNBA.com will not let you forget it for the next five years.) Moore comes off the weakside and reads her like Green Eggs and Ham. She couldn't have blocked McCoughtry's shot any sweeter if she (Angel) had cooperated.
* - Take dumb shots. Take them early in the shot clock and make sure they're as far away from the basket as possible. Atlanta needs to stretch out the Lynx defense - we get that - but they are not a 3-point shooting team and now is not the time to learn how to become one.
* - Don't help out McCoughtry, since you know that she's going to face pretty much every Lynx player defending her at one point, double-teaming her at times. The strategy is simple - keep a fresh body on McCoughtry at all times. Make her play a full thirty minutes; make sure that no one Lynx player guards her more than ten.
* - Don't find Erika de Souza in the paint. However, it might be the Lynx to blame for that - sometimes, you just can't pass the ball. All Erika could do was sail around in the paint like a rudderless boat with no one to get the ball to her. She scored when she got it, but she barely got it.
Okay. That's about it.
Officiating? This wasn't Game Two of the 2011 WNBA Finals, which I feel was flat-out robbed from us and which I'm still mad about. (Minnesota's 2011 win comes with an asterisk.) Yes, the WNBA referees were pretty bad, but a) we've all seen poorly officiated games before, and b) even if they were in the tank for the Lynx trust me, the Lynx didn't need any help in that respect.
It's a sad comparison between this series and the 2011. In 2011, the better team won. Both teams were good, but Minnesota was better than us (at least two out of three times, anyway). This year, the Dream have stunk up the joint.
* Two 25 points losses in a row.
* Their eighth straight WNBA Finals loss. They are now 0-8 in the Finals. Someone said that the Dream are the Buffalo Bills of the WNBA; the New York Liberty are the Minnesota Vikings. They were previously the worst team in the WNBA Finals at 1-7; now they've lost that title at last.
These losses are so bad that someone on RebKell proposed that the current Finals format be scrapped. (Can't have the Dream going oh-for-the-Finals again. It's bad for business, is the argument.)
Minnesota shot a Finals record 56.9 percent. we shot 35.8 percent. Game over.
Armintie Herrington went 1-for-5, Tiffany Hayes 3-for-9, Alex Bentley was 3-10. McCoughtry? 5-for-18, fouled out. Both McCoughtry and de Souza had three fouls on them early on; no Dream player broke 30 minutes. In the fourth, Riley and Clements were back on the court, and we had struck the tent.
Of course, after the game, Angel McCoughtry became her own worst enemy again. Some choice quotes:
"I feel like I played football, not basketball," McCoughtry said. "I mean, the game should be respected better than that. We are two teams and we are going to fight until the end, we are all going to play hard. But there's a difference, you know?"
...
"The whole pulling me down on the fast break, all that crap, it's not needed," McCoughtry said. "I really hurt my elbow when Maya pulled me down on that play. I feel like it wasn't needed. We don't play that way. We are going to play hard and we are going to play scrappy, but we aren't going to pull you down and hurt you. I just felt like I deserve a little more respect than that."
It doesn't matter if it's true or if it's not true. It makes you look bad complaining about the other team's tough play when you got blown out for 25 points in the second game in a row. It seems like whining rather than an honest complaint.
As for respect, well, respect is earned. I think it comes with winning a title.
There was an image last night of Armintie Herrington - clearly the team's leader - with her head buried in a towel, possibly to hide her tears. The three of them - Herrington, McCoughtry, de Souza - have showed up to the Finals eight games, and have been turned away each time. If Herrington is shaken up, does the rest of the team follow?
No time to think about it. Tomorrow, we have Game Three in Gwinnett, although I wonder if anyone will show up given the Game Two rout. One of my basketball friends has declined to come. He said he would show up if the Dream had a chance of clinching a win at Gwinnett, but they would have needed to win one game in Minneapolis. So no dice.
I'll be there. Hopefully, the Dream I saw at the beginning of the season will be there too, not the Dream of Games One and Two. Hey, the Lynx lost three games in a row in August this year. It could happen.
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