2003/13 - Shock 97, Dream 76

These are the posts I don't like writing about, Y'AAL. (*) It usually takes a few days for me to sort out in my head what I want to write down, much less overcome the depression associated with the actual loss. God knows if any posting will happen at all in the first week of July, where we play three home games.

So as Coach Meadors had no team practice on Monday, I took a day off, too.

1) We got two turnovers off Detroit early in the first quarter. If I'm right, they were in the first couple of minutes.

Result: nothing. After a while, you stop being astonished.

2) Alexis Hornbuckle took a nasty headbump in the first quarter, although some fans complained that she was looking for an Oscar nomination. At least, it gave Atlanta some breathing room.

3) Overall, our shooting was very good. Ivory Latta hit a couple of nasty three-pointers and we were shooting forty percent at the end of the first quarter. Unfortunately, we have no fastbreak game and the Shock scored the last seven points of the quarter, leading 26-14.

And in the second quarter, it all went to hell....

4) I swear to goodness that whenever Katie Feenstra gets a rebound, other teams will just simply yank the ball right out of her hands. I also swear that she made an own goal on the Detroit end of the court trying to grab a rebound. (I suspect that the official scorer had mercy and gave the shot to Cheryl Ford.)

5) Detroit went on another 7-0 run and led by 23 points at one point in the game. By this time, Jennifer Lacy had three fouls on her. Betty Lennox had hurt herself in a collision in the first half and was on her way to a scoring zero points at halftime.

6) Rebounding and the utter lack of a fast break game killed us. We had one friggin' offensive rebound in the first half. Detroit must have been licking its chops thinking about how much punishment they were going to dish out under the boards. I could swear I saw Cheryl Ford doing pushups and kissing her biceps near the bench. Bill Laimbeer was snapping photos. Rick Mahorn was calling his friends on his "five". Even Charles Barkley knew all about our crappy rebounding.

7) At the very least, the Dream had some sign holders. The crowd was in the game from the opening tip off to the final buzzer, something incredible for an 0-13 team. No paper bags over anyone's head. No booing. It's absolutely true, the Dream have the greatest fans in the WNBA.

7b) Tasha Humphrey, she of the 20 points, also had some sign holders. We'll ignore those.

8) Today's player spotlight was on Kristen Mann. I learned absolutely nothing interesting about her. Mann rose to the occasion, scoring one point in six minutes.

9) At one point, the on-screen camera focused on Katie Feenstra's size 16 shoes, a concession to the foot fetishists in the crowd. (Myself, I know that they're size 17, but concessions have to be made to Kit's vanity.)

10) By the end third quarter, B-Money had four personal fouls and zero (0) points. She also only played about a couple of minutes, it seemed.

11) Stacey Lovelace also had zero points after three quarters of play. Wisely, Coach Meadors kept her oh-fer ass on the bench for the entire fourth quarter.

12) Latta was on fire. Her 26 points and 10 rebounds were both career highs, her first double double in the WNBA. Unfortunately, a team is not just one player. We lost by 21 points, 97-76. Not having B-Money out there hurt us.

13) Latta got interviewed at courtside after the game. She talked with the announcer about how she watches Chris Paul and Steve Nash to improve the facets of her game. Paul is about 6'0", Nash is 6'3". (I assume both are actually two inches shorter.) Both are relatively small for NBA players. Maybe Latta can have an MVP season of her own, just like those guys have/will have.


Yes, I tell a few (very few) jokes, but the loss hurts. When, oh when, will Nike (the Greek Goddess, not the shoe) smile on the Dream and grant us a win? Will it be against our arch enemies the Sun? How long must we wander in the WNBA wilderness?


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(*) Y'AAL -- Yet Another Atlanta Loss.