Climbing the mountain to our first win.
This might be a very brief writeup. After all, I play on attending the Sky-Dream game tonight. If I stop typing, or if this seems strangely incomplete, well I just ran out of time...just like the Dream did in the game against Houston.
1) With Chioma Nnamaka and Kasha Terry, we now have two Georgia Tech players on our roster. Go Ramblin' Wreck.
2) There were a few Houston fans in the audience. Two guys were whooping it up whenever Houston did something noteworthy on the floor. They were carrying the Lone Star flag and waving it about. I saw one guy with a Sheryl Swoopes jersey. I didn't have the heart to tell him that Swoopes wasn't on the team....
3) An horrible first quarter. I think we went 1 for 17 from the floor, and it wasn't until 2:20 to go into the quarter until Kristin Haynie scored a free throw that finally put the third point on the scoreboard for Atlanta.
3a) I believe the real reason Kristen Mann was traded is because Coach Meadors kept confusing her with Kristin Haynie.
4) An odd sight -- Kasha Terry trying to "back it in" from the front of the basket.
5) What the hell happened to Betty Lennox and Ivory Latta? They had three turnovers each and no points at the end of the first quarter. Coach Meadors suspected that something was stinking up the joint and put their asses back down on the bench.
6) Ann Strother appears in a game! Amazing! I didn't know she was still alive! I thought her face was on a milk carton somewhere!
7) Coach Meadors threw the reserves out on the floor. "You've probably been @#$#ing all year about not getting a chance to play. Well do something!" And they did! They started to haul our asses out of the pit! Betty Lennox's only significant contribution to the second quarter was finding out on the Jumbotron that her favorite food was crab legs.
8) The Dream bring it to 22-16. Houston calls a full timeout. The fans collectively smile.
9) At one point, Katie "Fencepost" Feenstra was leading with 6 points. The guy who writes for SPMSportspage.com said that Feenstra and Meadors had been working together over the season, and it looks like it finally paid off.
10) During halftime, we learned that someone had climbed Mt. Kilomanjaro and unfurled a banner of the Atlanta Dream. My guess is that he must have displeased the mountain gods. Find this man's name and burn him.
11) Then they put the starters back in. The score was 35-25 going into the third quarter. By the time that Coach Meadors swapped out the starters and put the reserves back in, it was 44-28 Houston.
12) Haynie. Izi. Kit. Lacy. Strother. This is a lineup that exists only in people's nightmares, but it was a nightmare for Houston. We brought it back to 51-45 by the end of the third quarter.
12a) Feenstra actually got a rebound, and declined to let one of the Houston players rip it out of her hands. Simply amazing.
13) During the beginning of the fourth quarter, there were all sorts of bogus calls. There was some bizarro backcourt violation call at the end of the third. Coach Meadors and one of the referees exchanged words at the beginning of the fourth and she got a technical foul.
All year, there have been complaints about the refereeing in the WNBA. I've figured it out. These are young referees wanting to earn a shot in the "bigs", so when a game gets very close, they begin to call every conceivable foul just to show the powers that be that they are on top of things. This screws everything up.
14) Michelle Snow earned a technical foul for throwing a basketball at Kasha Terry's face. It was funny to see the Dream all grab Kasha and drag her in the other direction. "Hold me back, now!"
15) Meadors, probably having no other choice, unleashed Lennox and Latta for a third time. This time, they did the job. Lennox hit a three. Then Latta answered with a three. Then Terry scored a basket. Within an eyeblink, the score went from 62-49 Comets to 62-57 Comets.
16) With only nine players, any fouls were going to hurt Houston more than they'd hurt Atlanta. Michelle Snow got her sixth foul and fouled out. That was when I got to hear this sweet music for the first time....
Na na na na
Na na na na
Hey hey hey
Goodbye!
17) We managed to close the score to 66-62, then 68-65. Houston called a full time out. Unfortunately, there were 18.7 seconds left and the only way we'd get the ball was to foul. Houston made their shots, end of story.
18) The crowd of 7400 enjoyed the hell out of that game. People were dancing, shouting, getting down. It was like a church social. Once again: Dream fans are the best fans in the WNBA.
God help the league if we start winning games. We'll be insufferable.
No comments:
Post a Comment