E2/2010 - Mystics 77, Dream 58

Okay. The Dream have lost a lot of games in their history by 19 points or more. Hey, last year we lost games by 19 points or more. The last game that we lost that badly was...no, wait, we didn't lose by 19 points last year. The biggest losses we had were by 18 points. You have to go back to August of 2008 to find a loss of that magnitude, where the Dream lost to Connecticut 98-72 at Philips Arena.

But even that game had high points. Betty "Big Buckets" Lennox scored 19 points. Katie Mattera had 13 points and six rebounds. And we don't even have those players on the Dream anymore. Looking at the box score, high points are few and far between.

* The Dream shot 27.1 percent from the floor. First half shooting was 22.2 percent. Thank goodness this was the preseason. We still didn't have Sancho Lyttle, or Erika de Souza or Chamique Holdsclaw...and where on earth is The Claw? She's becoming harder to find around the Dream training camp than Waldo.
* Atlanta had 12 first quarter turnovers. Alison Bales turned the ball over four times in the first quarter.
* This was a Michael Price officiated game, and he must have purchased a brand new whistle. The Mystics were whistled for 36 personal fouls. The Dream were whistled for 28 personal fouls. The Dream had 37 foul line visits and the Mystics had 27. Price must have needed an oxygen tank after the game.

I've not seen a report on the game. Maybe everyone's trying to pretend that it never happened. I know I am. If there was a high point to this game, it can't be found anywhere in the box score. The "high point" is that it didn't happen during the regular season.

We'll take a look at the game flow a la Dean Oliver.

Pace:

Estimated possessions = [(69-15+23+0.4*27)+(59-10+21+0.4*37)]/2 = ...approximately 86.

The Dream's offensive rating was 58/60 = 67.4 and the Washington's offensive rating was 89.5. The Dream's offensive rating comes from the fact that the Dream couldn't hit the side of a barn offensively.

Game flow: The Dream's cold start put them behind early on in the game and they pretty much stayed behind by double-digits for most of the game. The Dream were never in it. In the second half of the third quarter the Dream closed Washington's lead to single-digits but the closest the Dream were able to come were eight points.

Shooting percentage: Mystics 37.7 percent, Dream 27.1 percent.
Effective shooting percentage: Mystics 39.9 percent, Dream 28.8 percent. Neither team had much of a range. The Mystics went 3-for-16 from 3-point range, the Dream went 2-for-18.

Turnovers: Dream 21, Mystics 23. Not the best game when it came to moving the ball around.
Offensive rebound percentage: Mystics 45.4 percent, Dream 24.3 percent. Having neither Lyttle nor de Souza hurts in these games.
Free throw visits: Dream 37, Mystics 27. However, the Dream's big advantage at the free throw line was negated when they shot 65 percent from the line. Atlanta only hit two more free throws than Washington.

All in all, it was easy for Washington to dominate. The Dream simply didn't show up.

And now, let's look at the Dream's individual performances.

Chanel Mokango: We'll get something straight right off. There were no great individual performances - the best performances were mediocre. Therefore, there was no "Dreamer of the Game"...there were merely survivors.

Mokango was one of the players who actually reached the level of mediocrity. Four points, one rebound. 1-for-4 shooting, and three personal fouls - but she did have a couple of steals and a blocked shot, so there you go.

Iziane Castro Marques: Castro Marques is back! And sure enough, she went 5-for-13 and missed every 3-point shot she made. (She tried six of them.) She went 3-for-6 from the free throw line. 13 points scored, but 19 scoring opportunities. She led in points, but gave the Mystics a lot of opportunities with what she missed. Bleah.

Armintie Price: Price got the start...and scored one point. She returned to her old free-throw shooting ways, going 1-for-4 at the free throw line. However, Price had three assists and a steal so it wasn't all bad.

Brittainey Raven: Raven scored 7 points - five of them at the free throw line. She went 1-for-5, including 0-for-3 at the 3-point line. Four rebounds helped, a -14 raw plus/minus did not.

Alison Bales: She managed to recover from the previous awful game into a mediocre one. She played 25 minutes and had the most time on the floor than any player. She scored 7 points, but had five turnovers to lead the team. Five turnovers to lead the team, with four in the first quarter. Three personal fouls. Not the kind of game you want to add on your resume.

Angel McCoughtry: 11 points and six rebounds. McCoughtry shot 3-for-12 to match the team's fortunes. She had four personal fouls, falling into the same kind of pattern that we saw in 2009. On the other hand, her +1 raw plus/minus led the team.

Shalee Lehning: 18 minutes played. Two points. Three assists. 1-for-3 shooting. Two personal fouls.

Erica White: She had the smallest amount of time on the court - 8 minutes, 52 seconds. She went 4-for-4 from the free throw line for four total points. She was 0-for-2 shooting from the court with one turnover.

Coco Miller: Coco Miller isn't going to help herself in camp with this kind of game. Miller went 0-for-3 and scored both of her 2 points at the free throw line. She had three rebounds and two assists, but scored three personal fouls - an average of one every four minutes.

Kelly Miller: She played 13 minutes and scored only three points. One rebounds, one assist, one personal foul. Her -17 in raw plus/minus was the worst on the team.

Brigitte Ardossi: Less than ten minutes played. Two points on 0-for-2 shooting. One rebounds, two fouls, two turnovers. "There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling."

Shawn Goff: 2 points. Believe it or not, it wasn't the worst offensive output of any of the starters - Price only scored one point. Two rebounds, two personal fouls...but four turnovers. Only Alison Bales had more turnovers than Goff did. Goff would have gotten the Bad Dream of the Game award, but it wouldn't be fair to give that award to her since she was helped by so many people.

(* * *)

Okay, between now and Friday evening, the Dream have to begin cutting players. It looks to me like Marynell Meadors will have some tough decisions to make.

The next game for the Dream will be on Saturday, in San Antonio as they open the 2010 regular season against the Silver Stars on the road. Afterward, they fly right back to Atlanta for the home opener against the defending Eastern Conference champions, the Indiana Fever. The new Dream is about to go on-line - we can only hope that we've finally worked some of the bugs out.