Video Clip of Atlanta-San Antonio

The The Painel do Basquete Feminino blog is on top of things today, linking to a video clip review of the Atlanta-San Antonio game posted by WNBA.com on YouTube.

For those who didn't want to read all that text below, the YouTube clip above sums it up.

10/2010 - Dream 90, Silver Stars 83

Past meets present.

(Pictures provided by SportsPageMagazine.com. Go over and check out the gallery!)

After watching the Seattle game and the Chicago game, I finally got what I was looking for - a suspense-filled game that never failed to keep my interest and ended in a Dream victory. So I'll give you my minute-by-minute impressions.

1) Erika, Iziane, and Yelena Leuchanka were shooting around before the game started. It's kind of an odd trio, since as far as I know Leuchanka doesn't speak Portugese. They seemed to get along fine, though....

2) ...or maybe, it's just Leuchanka's personality. Before the game, Edwige Lawson-Wade of the Sparks walked up to Leuchanka and the two chatted a little while. Without going to basketball-reference.com, I don't quite know the Leuchanka-Lawson-Wade connection. Maybe they played together in Turkey, or somewhere in Europe. I dunno.

3) It seems that every coach except for Marynell Meadors was out there working on drills with the Dream before the game start. I definitely saw Carol Ross. I could have sworn I saw both Fred Williams and Sue Panek out there. With eleven players and three coaches, it looked like the Dream were holding a convention on their side ofthe court.

4) Ross was working with the posts again. This drill involved long passes to the posts from the perimeter, with the goal of the posts to bank it in or otherwise make the bucket. Ross can really heave the ball - I wonder if Ross could hit a 3-pointer if she wanted to?

5) Early on in the crowd, I saw a fan walking to find her seat. She was wearing a Silver Stars T-Shirt - #25, Hammon's jersey.

Reading RebKell, I've discovered that there is an unwritten kind of jersey protocol. As far as I can tell, this is how jerseys are "supposed" to be worn by fans. In descending order of preference:

a) Atlanta Dream jerseys with current players
b) Atlanta Dream jerseys with previous players (Lennox, Latta, Holdsclaw....)
c) Retired Hall-of-Famer jerseys (Cooper, Griffith)
d) Jerseys of the corresponding NBA team, if it exists - for Atlanta, this would be Atlanta Hawks jerseys
e) Jerseys of the enemy team (Hammon, in this case) - the person wearing the jersey can be teased, but abuse is classless unless the wearer of the enemy jersey is provoking abuse
f) A "personalized" Dream jersey with your nickname instead of the player name and a number not in use
g) A "personalized" Dream jersey with your real name and a number not in use
h) A "personalized" Dream jersey adorned with the number of an existing player, but not that player's name - say, wearing Shalee Lehning's number (#5) with your last name instead of "Lehning" (the crime is that you've obliterated the player)
i) Any overly "femmy" jersey in pastel colors - if your jersey is pink because it was worn by a Dream player during their Breast Cancer Awareness game, you get an exception

This protocol isn't listed anywhere, it's just what I happened to have picked up following various threads. Supposedly, a male wearing any WNBA jersey is at the bottom of the list, because it's supposedly the gHey. On the other hand, most of the writers who came up with that rule seem to be douches, so if you're a guy and you want to wear a WNBA jersey, let your freak flag fly, baby!

6) And then, I saw them - Chamique Holdsclaw and later Michelle Snow wearing black and silver. Enemy colors. At Philips Arena. I don't know how to think about that. On the one hand, good for you that you've found another team where you can practice your considerable basketball skillz. On the other hand...black and silver. Enemy colors. Holdsclaw and Snow, you're violating the jersey code!

7) The National Anthem was sung by R&B singer Crystal Renee'. I thought it was okay. It could have been great for all I know; I'm no Simon Cowell.

8) Twice during the game, three superfans were honored by the Dream. The name of one was (I think) Arthur Fisk, and I never caught the name of the other two.

Why are they superfans? They climbed Mount Everest, and displayed the banner of the Atlanta Dream at basecamp. For these fans, the Dream is clearly on Top of the World.

9) Before the game: very quiet for some reason, the calm before the not-Seattle storm.

10) And then, I saw them again. The Brazilians! I tried to get a snapshot with my camera but my camera failed. They always sit in the same section and bear two big Brazilian flags, and are always wearing gold-colored shirts. This means that they are obviously Kansas State fans here to root for Shalee Lehning.

11) San Antonio's starting lineup: Lawson-Wade, Hammon, Young, Holdsclaw, and Snow. The big question - would the Atlanta faithful boo Holdsclaw? The mix was right down the middle, cheers and boos. Call Dream fandom ambivalent.

Atlanta's starting lineup: the usual - Lehning, Lyttle, Erika, Iziane and McCoughtry

12) Participating at the ceremonial ball exchange: Valdosta High School. No word as to if they brought their own posse.

13) A representative of Kia Motors was on hand on center court - Meadors and the Kia representative presented the Eastern Confererence Player of the Month award to Angel McCoughtry. McCoughtry's going to have to build extra shelf space for all of these.

14) Before the game, the jumbotron showed Lehning and McCoughtry singing "Ticket to Ride". No, that's not true. Rather, they were giving directions to the Dream. The game was about to start.

15) If there was a word to characterize the first quarter, it would be intense. I told myself, "it looks like "first team to crack up loses". The refs were determined to blow their whistle, and that meant that the Dream would be tested at the free throw line early on.

Before the game, the Dream's free throw average was hovering at a dismal 64 percent. With nine minutes to go, Sancho Lyttle would be the first Dream player to be tested at the charity stripe. She hit both of her shots - a good portent - and the Dream were up 4-2.

16) The Dream and the Silver Stars were determined to match shot for shot. Lehning hit a 3-pointer from the right side to put the Dream up 9-8...but Edwige Lawson-Wade matched that with a 3-pointer from the top of the arc to bring the Silver Stars back up 11-9.

Before Lawson-Wade got her hands on the ball, McCoughtry had it, and it seemed that McCoughtry had a little trouble with handling the ball.

17) With about 4 1/2 minutes left to play in the first quater and the game tied at 11-11, Sancho Lyttle was called for her second personal foul. It's like clockwork - expect Lyttle to have two personal fouls, right away. I don't know if it's due to Lyttle's (relative) inexperience or if its due to the fact that post players pick up a lot of personal fouls. But, based on non-scientific observation, it appears that Lyttle always picks up two personal fouls early and sits down.

Alison Bales came in to replace Lyttle, Bales being our first option off the bench. Holdsclaw took a breather. Our first option off the bench immediately made a bad pass that helps you understand why Bales, even with her talents, isn't starting.

18) With the Silver Stars up 14-13, Toby Wyman (the Dream's COO) came out to honor the executive director of an organization called L. E. A. D. L. E. A. D. is an Atlanta organization designed to develop leadership, but I don't know what the initials stand for, and I couldn't find out at the website. I believe the honoree was Kelly Stuart, but I can't be positive about the name speling.

19) Sign watch: I haven't seen many fans carry signs into Philips so far this year, but someone was carrying a sign honoring Ali Bales. Anyone can carry a sign honoring Angel McCoughtry, or bring in a couple of Brazilian flags, but when your sign honors the future 2010 Sixth Woman of the Year, that means that you're a hardcore Dream fan. Either that, or a hardcore fan of very tall women.

20) At the beginning of the game, I looked at the empty seats surrounding me and I thought, "Well, that's just swell - a second game with only 2,000 in attendance." But with the first quarter halfway over, the fans were still coming in. I said, "Hmm...this crowd is starting to fill out a little...."

21) San Antonio extended its lead to 17-13 after a 3-pointer right of the arc from Edwige Lawson-Wade. Clearly, Shalee Lehning wasn't the answer to Lawson-Wade, so Lehning was yanked and Kelly Miller came in.

McCoughtry got a layup, and then Kelly Miller fed Erika de Souza for the basket, and suddenly it was a 17-17 game all over again. That's when San Antonio brought Holdsclaw back in.

22) The Dream are still wearing their tattoos to honor Kyle, this game's honoree of the "Armed With a Dream" program from the Atlanta Children's Hospital.

23) A great play near the end of the first quarter. Chamique Holdsclaw had the ball, and was ready to drive to the basket. Her sole defender was Alison Bales. Holdsclaw tried to post up the ball over Bales, but found that 6 feet 7 inches was simply too great an obstacle. The ball didn't fall, and McCoughtry ended up with the ball and sprinted to the other end to tie it at 20-20. The quarter would have ended at 20-20 if not for a 3-pointer by Roneeka Hodges with one second left to end the quarter with the visitors up 23-20.

24) At the end of the game, both teams were fairly evenly matched statistically. The Dream was shooting 42.9 percent, and the Silver Stars were shooting 41.2 percent. However, the Silver Stars were 4-for-7 from the 3-point line.

25) Yelena Leuchanka came out to start the second quarter. Leuchanka is our second option off the bench in the post and clearly, she's no Alison Bales. First, she threw the ball away with a bad pass. Then, she had a shot blocked by Michelle Snow. But eventually, the Dream found her and she hit a wide-open jumper to bring us back to 23-22.

26) Both teams had a sweet mid-range game going, with jumper after jumper falling in. It was 29-26 in favor of the visitors with 6:31 left in the half.

This is when the Dream had their "Stars at the Sun" promotion, to convince fans to vote for Dream players for the All-Star Game. Angel McCoughtry gave the intro, then Lyttle, Iziane and Erika added "and me!" and Lehning wrapped it up. The way Erika said "and me!" you'd suspect that they were the only words in English she knew...but she said them with enthusiasm.

27) With about 4 minutes to go in the half and the score tied, people were still marching in. The crowd was now looking pretty good. I thought that it was going to be...maybe...announced in the 7,000 range. Crowds this big usually get announced in the 7,000 range.

28) After calling their second full-time out, the Silver Stars seemed to settle down. Hammon scored one of those under the basket "loop-de-loops" at Marynell Meadors calls them to put the Silver Stars up 33-29. Hammon was staring to get warmed up.

The Dream were down 35-33, and Lehning made a diving save to the ground that made me wince, given Lehning's history of shoulder surgery. While the Dream were playing, it made it back to me that Candace Parker had suffered a similar shoulder injury and was headed to the hospital. Maybe Lehning needs to play with one of those giant braces that Parker plays in, just as a protective measure.

29) Just before the half was over, Lyttle made her third personal foul. She left the floor. Sophia Young drove to the basket, and Ruth Riley followed with a layup to give the Silver Stars the 39-35 lead. The last basket by the Dream was off a drive by Erika de Souza, and the Dream entered the halftime break down by two points, 39 to 37.

30) Halftime: as the fans aren't privy to what goes on during a halftime speech, we instead got to look at a Zumba party. (I told my wife that I got to see a Zumba party at the Dream game, and she said, "What, the vacuum cleaner?"

Zumba, for those who don't know what it is, is a new exercise craze that looks a lot like Latin dancing. Now, no one has ever confused me with Michael Jackson but if dancing and exercise are your things, you might want to try the Zumba. It looked kind of cool.

They also had more "person bowling". I think I explained this in a previous post. Seven gigantic plastic pins are set up at one end of a court, and a person sits on a small wheeled platform at the other end. His or her partner pushes the person on the platform down the court into the plastic pins.

I don't think they got more than three pins in either attempt. No strikes or even spares. Clearly, it will be a long time before person bowling becomes a demonstration Olympic sport.

31) With the start of the third quarter de Souza made another layup and we were tied 39-39. The Dream didn't leave the locker room cautious: on the contrary. Erika de Souza tried a lob pass to Iziane Castro Marques under the basket, and it would have been a perfect play except for the fact that Erika threw it just a little too hard. Iziane was forced to lean backwards to catch it, and she had no time to correct her posture before shooting.

32) Both sides went back to trading baskets again. One of those baskets was a semi-"alley oop" to Sancho Lyttle, or it would have been a true alley oop if Lyttle could leap that high. It was a high lob pass to Lyttle's outstreched hand when she was at layup distance from the basket.

33) Becky Hammons hit a 3-pointer with 6:34 left to give San Antonio a 51-47 lead. I say "Hammons" because that's what the announcer said, and the announcer is always right. (Hmm...whatever happened to Art Eckman, by the way?)

34) With about 5:40 left on the clock, Holdsclaw hit a jumper to put San Antonio up 53-48. Sancho Lyttle followed that with a bank shot and Iziane drove to the hoop and before San Antonio knew it, the game was almost tied again at 53-52. Time out, San Antonio.

35) During the time out, the celebrity dads and daughters came out and did some sort of dance contest. Among the participants were Ryan Cameron and his daughter or daughters, and I could swear that they mentioned that the daughter of Ludacris was there.

I found it very hard to pay attention, and didn't know who won the contest. The reason being that I was distracted by the Atlanta Dream mascot, Star. Star was dressed in a blue and red padded suit with red flowing cape - Star had transformed himself into "SuperStar"!!

36) ...and that's pretty much when the Dream transformed itself into SuperDream.

Angel McCoughtry once said that basketball is a game of runs. There was only one real run in this game, though. For almost the entire final six minutes of the third quarter, they just shut down the Silver Stars defensively.

Atlanta went on a 17-0 run. Steals. Free throws by Lehning. Lay ups by Lyttle. A bad 3-second violation call in Atlanta's favor. San Antonio going over the limit in personal fouls. Fate had suddenly tilted in the Dream's favor and San Antonio couldn't untilt no matter how hard they tried.

Down 53-49, the Dream found themselves up by double-digits at the end of the amazing run. They led by 66-55 with 39.4 seconds left in the third. Only a basket by Michelle Snow broke the run, and the Dream took a 66-55 lead into the fourth quarter.

37) All of a sudden, little dots could be seen at the top of the Philips Arena dome. It was time for another Aaron's Parachute Dog Drop! Aaron's Inc. is one of the Dream's sponsors and every now and then, little Aaron's mascot dogs - Lucky the Dog, I believe - parachute into the hands of waiting fans.

Those damned things were everywhere, but the fans didn't mind. I found myself grabbing one of those, but then I caught myself - hey, I don't have any kids - why do I even want one of these things? - after I grabbed it, I slung it in a random direction.

Unfortunately, I had slung it away from the "second place finisher" - the man who almost got it before I threw it away. My friends told me the poor fellow looked crestfallen. He probably had a kid, too, that would have liked that pup. I learned a valuable lesson that day - never get between a man and his dog.

38) The fourth quarter started, and it looked like the Dream wasn't going to keep its double-digit lead for long. The Silver Stars began to claw their way back into the game with the help of "The Claw" - Holdsclaw, who scored three points in the first half, five in the third quarter and was steadily gaining speed. She hit a jumper and then a couple of free throws to bring it back to 68-61.

With the score 70-61 in favor of the Dream, Armintie Price was called for a foul. I could see Shalee Lehning jawing with the referee. Oh, Lehning. Her image is of sweetness and light, and there she is giving the ref a hard time. You keep this up and we'll have to call you Diana Lehning.

39) San Antonio was determined to get the game down into 6-point territory come what may. Price was doing her damnest out there. With the Dream up 72-65, she got a steal but she couldn't hang on to the ball, and ended up doing an impromptu split on the Philips Arena home floor.

With 6:02 left in the game, the Dream called a full timeout.

40) During the full timeout, it was time for Dream Karaoke. The singer this time was Sancho Lyttle, who was singing some completely unrecognizable song which turned out to be "Glamorous" by Fergie. The contestant figured out Sancho's song, and then said to the crowd, "I'm glad Sancho can play ball."
40a) Did you know every Sunday home game they have family free throws at Philips Arena? After the game, the families can come out to the court, stand in line, and take a toss from the free throw line. That's kind of cool.

41) With less than five minutes left, McCoughtry got to the basket on a dubious skip step that put the Dream up by double digits again, 76-65. Holdsclaw got a couple of free throws and then another drive to the basket to close back to single digits, 78-69.

On the boards, it was another story. Atlanta got two second chances due to their offensive rebounding muscle, and Bales got the foul. Two free throws by Bales and it was 80-69.

42) With the Dream up 80-71, I saw something I had never seen...at least, I think I have never seen it. Lehning was moving the ball into the post area and generally, when Lehning gets the ball in that far she flees - she'll try desperately to kick it out rather than take a shot even if it's a wide-open shot.

She had the wide open shot and she hesitated a little - but she managed to calm herself and take the close up shot which she hit. 82-71 Dream. I suppose Lehning figured that she needed to make shots before Kelly Miller snapped up her starting position.

43) The Dream led 86-75. There was 2:01 left in the game. The Dream had entered the RuPaul Zone, where all you needed to do to win is to "don't f**k it up".

With exactly one minute left, Holdsclaw hit a basket to bring it to double digits, 86-77. The Silver Stars, needing points fast, but the ball into the hands of Edwige Lawson-Wade.

With about a minute on the clock, she hit a 3-pointer. 86-80 Dream. The ball ended up in McCoughtry's hands, but Sophia Young got the steal. Becky Hammon put the ball in Edwige Lawson-Wade's hands and she hit another 3-pointer with 28.7 seconds left. The score was now 86-83 Dream, and it looked like the Dream might need to LipSync For (Their) Life.

Needing to invoke the powers of SuperStar, the Dream handed the T-Shirt Shooting Gun back to Star - a sign of desperation, since Star once had it taken away from him after he aimed it at Bill Laimbeer.

44) With the Dream having the ball back with 28.7 seconds left, the Silver Stars would have to foul to get the ball back. Helen Darling and Edwige Lawson-Wade fouled in sucession, and McCoughtry visited the free throw line with 24.5 seconds left.

McCoughtry made the first shot. And the second. 88-83 Dream. San Antonio called for a 20-second time out, and then another one, back-to-back.

45) During the time out, it was odd to see Carol Ross giving instructions to the huddle. Marynell Meadors hung around outside the huddle as if she were Brittainey Raven.

46) Third time's the charm, right? When the Silver Stars got the ball they gave it to Lawson-Wade again, but she missed the 3-pointer with 8.9 seconds left. Snow got the rebound...but she was called for the travel with 7.6 seconds left. The ball was back in the Dream's hands. Iziane would bring in the ball and she was directing traffic on the court with her free hand.

47) 6.2 seconds left. The Silver Stars got Lehning on the foul. Lehning to the free throw line. If she hit both shots, the game was essentially over.

However, Lehning missed the first shot. That's okay. If Lehning hit the second, the Dream would be up by six and San Antonio would need two 3-pointers just to tie.

Then...Lehning missed the second shot. The shot bounced off the front of the rim and there was a mad scramble. Lehning got her own rebound and tried to lay it up but Snow blocked her shot. The ball ended up in Sancho Lyttle's hands and she made a shot with less than a second left.

It went in! 90-83 Dream. San Antonio got the ball back, to no avail! The game was over. A few minutes before the game was over, Lyttle had been named the Player of the Game. She finished with 24 points, 11 rebounds, and the crucial final rebound and basket.

Great game! And more about it later!

Dream Defeats San Antonio 90-83, Regain Eastern Conference Lead

Great game. Suspenseful and/or fun all the way through. There was a big crowd, the biggest this year. The crowd was having a good time, and the air conditioning didn't hurt, either.

Here's the writeup from the Associated Press.

Pierce W. Huff writes about it in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Definitely an enjoyable night. Dream are 8-3 on the season. On Tuesday we travel to Chicago to, as the heroine of Kill Bill put it, to execute our 'roaring rampage of revenge.'

Atlanta vs. San Antonio, Sunday June 13

Who: The Atlanta Dream (7-3) take on the San Antonio Silver Stars (3-5) in an inter-conference game.

The Dream are led by Angel McCoughtry, who is scoring 20.6 points per game. Sancho Lyttle (14.4 ppg/10.05rpg) is an All-Star post, and Iziane Castro Marques (15.1 ppg) will be playing on the Brazilian national team at the end of the season with Erika de Souza (12.7 ppg/9.8 rpg). The Silver Stars are led by Sophia Young (15.4 ppg). New acquisition Chamique Holdsclaw (14.7 ppg/4.8 rpg) has contributed immediately, and fan favorite Becky Hammon (13.7 ppg, 5.2 apg) runs the offense

What: The second of two regular season games against the San Antonio Silver Stars. On May 15th, the Dream traveled to San Antonio and won 75-70.

Where: Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA.

When: Tipoff is at at 3 pm Eastern time, Sunday June 13. The game will be available on Fox Sports South and on NBA TV.

Why: The Dream have lost three of their last four games, but Atlanta fans don't care too much about that. Fans are probably most interested in the return of Chamique Holdsclaw, who failed to show up for training camp a few days before it started. Holdsclaw sited irreconcilable differences with her coach. Now, she and her newest team come to Philips...and depending on Holdsclaw's performance, the loss of Holdsclaw will be marked either as a burden on the Dream or as a bonus.

Another item on the menu - can the Dream recover their free-throw shooting touch? The Dream are at the bottom of the league in free throw shooting, hitting only 64.7 percent. Historically, there has only been one WNBA with worse free throw shooting - the 1998 Washington Mystics, at 64.5 percent. The 3-27 Mystics are not a team with which the 2010 Atlanta Dream wishes to keep company, and everyone will be watching the Dream at the free throw line.

It will almost be a different San Antonio team from the team the Dream faced in May. Sandy Brondello is back as head coach. The Silver Stars have signed Allie Quigley, and Michelle Snow's status is unknown after suffering an injury against the Shock. Even with the changes, Atlanta is a six-point favorite from covers.com.

1/2009 - Dream 75, Silver Stars 70: Effective Izi

Okay. We now remove all the fun from the win by taking a surgeon's scapel to it. Hopefully you didn't forget that game on Saturday. You know, when we went to the Silver Stars home court and beat them?

Dean Oliver's Four Factors gets heavy play:

Field goal shooting. We don't use the normal field goal percentages around here. Us statheads use "effective field goal percentage", where every 3-point shot counts as 1 1/2 ordinary shorts. For those mathetmatically inclined:

Effective field goal percentage = (FG + (1/2)*3P)/FGA

The final numbers:

Dream: 45.5 percent
Silver Stars: 44.3 percent

Shooting really wasn't the key to the Dream winning. The edge is a slight one. Maybe in some other stat.

Turnovers: San Antonio 20, Dream 22. Sort of a wash, really. Neither team held on to the ball well.

Offensive rebounding: The Dream had 13 rebounds and the Silver Stars had seven. But what was the Dream's offensive rebounding percentage?

The formula would be OR/(OR + Opp DR), where OR = "offensive rebounds" and DR = "opponent's defensive rebounds".

Dream Offensive Rebound Percentage = 13/(13 + 23) = 36.1 percent
Silver Stars Offensive Rebound Percentage = 10/(10 + 28) =26.3 percent

The real key to the Dream's win was that we outrebounded San Antonio. San Antonio really struggled on the offensive boards. Put it this way: the entire San Antonio team only had three more offensive rebounds than Erika de Souza.

Free throw visits: Dream 25, San Antonio 16. Both teams shot horribly: the Dream hit 52 percent of their free throws...but the Silver Stars hit just 50 percent. Incidentally, the Dream's +5 margin in free throws was exactly the margin of victory.

(* * *)

We give some props to our noble opponent by looking at the San Antonio Silver Stars:

Becky Hammon: 20 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists. Hammon certainly wasn't tired, but as Erika de Souza can tell you, Hammon certainly didn't wear herself out in Spain.
Sophia Young: 15 points, 2 rebounds. And she was tired. She might have had 25 points if she had some oomph.
Michelle Snow: 11 points, 3 rebounds, 3 steals, 5-for-7 shooting. The ex-Dream player made a good impression in San Antonio.
Megan Frazee: 5 points, 3 rebounds. Her +9 raw plus/minus was the best on the San Antonio team. Why didn't they play her more?

And now, we'll take a look at the Atlanta Dream performance, from toppermost to bottommost:

Iziane Castro Marques: 23 points, 3 assists, 4 steals. 9-for-18 shooting. I've written before about the "Izi Effect" where Iziane's best performances come when the Dream is losing. Not this time. Izi carried the Dream. Maybe Iziane's one of those players that looks perpetually forward to new starts. But you have to give her credit despite her +2 raw plus/minus - Iziane was by far the Dreamer of the Game.

Angel McCoughtry: 20 points, 4 rebounds, 4 steals. Nice numbers, but with some caveats. First, it took 25 shots to make those 20 points - 20 field goal attempts and five free throw attemps. Also: three personal fouls and six turnovers. Maybe McCoughtry was trying a little too hard. Even with those asterisks, it was a pretty good game that lots of WNBA players would have loved to have.

Sancho Lyttle: 16 points, 7 points. She had five personal fouls, however, which kept her on the bench for long stretches of the first half after she picked up two quick personal fouls in the opening minutes. Her 6-for-9 shooting was impressive; imagine what she could have done without the foul trouble.

Erika de Souza: 11 points, 15 rebounds. A double-double looks impressive on any stat line. Her shooting however was just 5-for-14, which is quite low for The Beast from Brazil - she can usually bank them in from point-blank range. Her +10 raw plus/minus was the highest of the team - the Dream just did better on the court when Erika de Souza was on it.

All of this despite the fact that de Souza was obviously tired. A double-double when exhausted. She is clearly The Beast in the best sense of the word.

Shalee Lehning: One of Lehning's goals for 2010 was to be a better shooter. Her goal wasn't in range for this game: she took three shots and missed them and took three free throws and missed them. We take away credits for stuff like that. (That and four personal fouls.) But she had six assists - the most of any player on either team - and she had five rebounds, including the offensive rebound than ended the game.

Armintie Price: Here is where we sink into mediocrity. It's to be expected: of the Dream's 75 points, the five players above scored 70. Price had some good shooting - she was 2-for-3 with 4 points - but she wasn't a firebrand on the court. At least...not this game....

Alison Bales: Bales was actually decent in the sense that she wasn't embarrassing or inept - what you'd expect of a marginal player after a one-year layoff. Bales had one point but had five rebounds and a +9 raw plus/minus. Bales might come along this season if Leuchanka doesn't take her job on Wednesday.

Coco Miller: She's the Miller twin who played with the Dream last year. Frisco del Rosario said that he expected a "double billion" sometime this year from the Miller twins. (A "billion" is a line of nothing but zeroes in the box score.) Coco Miller has one steal and avoided ignominity.

Brittainey Raven: Didn't play. Coach's decision.

Chamique Holdsclaw: Didn't play. Holdsclaw's decision.

Kelly Miller: She played six minutes. No points, and three turnovers, averaging a turnover every 190 seconds. Those aren't pro numbers. So Kelly Miller gets the Still Snoozin' award. That's okay...it looks like we can set the alarm for this Friday, at the latest.

1/2010 - Dream 75, Silver Stars 70

The secret of Izi's success? Blow on your opponent's hair.

(By the way, that picture above came from a cool gallery from SportsPageMagazine.com which you can find here.)

Before I start, I have to say that Fox Sports South rules. They broadcast the Atlanta-San Antonio game from San Antonio, so I didn’t get to miss a moment of high-definition Atlanta Dream goodness. There’s a major difference between watching a game on WNBA Live Access and watching it on a broadcast network. When watching it on WNBA Live Access (at least last year) the graphics were…well, let’s just call them primitive. They usually reminded me of junior high AV graphics…and I went to junior high a lonnnnnnng time ago.

So let’s jump in as if the last seven months never happened…..

1) The announcers for the game were Andrew Monaco and Tai Dillard. I suspect that this was a San Antonio feed of Fox Sports sent directly to Atlanta, unless they have a lot of Aaron’s Inc. commercials in San Antonio.

Yes, it looks like the Dream’s partnership with Aaron’s Inc. is paying dividends, particularly if you like watching the Dream on TV. Aaron’s – in case you didn’t know – leases furniture. Way back when Hector was a pup, I was in Germany and I found out how convenient renting-to-own was – I wasn’t going to be in Germany for the rest of my life and I wanted creature comforts without the hassle of owning furniture. So if you’re going to Aaron’s, tell me how it’s working out for you.

2) The announcers listed that Becky Hammon was fifth in MVP voting. I don’t want to take anything away from Hammon, but fifth-place finishers in MVP voting are usually trailing farrrr behind the leader. So I probably wouldn’t have mentioned that. That’s like saying that Joe Shlabotnik is the American League Leader in Wednesday night triples.

3) The Silver Stars have an interesting coaching situation, with Associate Coach Olaf Lange as the acting coach. Lange looks….well, he looks as if he’d be carded if he tried to buy a beer.

4) Starting lineups:

Silver Stars: Hodges, Hammon, Young, Riley, Lawson-Wade.
Dream: De Souza, McCoughtry, Lehning, Castro Marques, Lyttle.

5) Once again, we’ve been treated with various pronunciations of Erika de Souza name. I thought it was “de-SOZA”, with the “soza” sounding a lot like “sofa”. But Monaco pronounces the name “de-SOWZA”, with the “sow” part sounding like “cow”.

You know what? To hell with it. I give up. I’m going to do what the Brazilians do and just call her “Erika”... all of their athletes seem to go by their first names like “Pele”.

6) And now, the 2010 Atlanta Dream regular season gets off to a start. The Silver Stars take a 4-0 lead, but it’s a momentary blip. The Dream look very strong in the first quarter, and even Erika looks good despite getting off the plane on Thursday.

Sancho Lyttle suffers two quick personal fouls, so she sits down. Alison Bales appears on a WNBA court in the regular season for the first time since 2008. Down 5-2, Iziane Castro Marques makes a jumper and Erika follows with a smooth fade away to put the Dream up 6-5. The score seesaws, with Erika getting her hands on a block.

I’m surprised that Bales is playing relatively well, despite her disappointing pre-season outings.

7) After about four minutes, the Silver Stars bring in Michelle Snow. I’m worried that she’ll try to seek revenge against her former team. But the person I should be worried about is Becky Hammon, one of the greatest players ever.

Falling to the floor, she heaves up the ball and makes an impossible basket. But if you’ve watched Hammon for any period of time, her impossible baskets are routine.

8) Down 13-12, Atlanta responds with an 11-1 run. San Antonio can’t get into the groove, turning the ball over six times. (After the game, Hammon’s excuse was that the team hadn’t jelled enough. In pre-season, McCoughtry swore not to make that an excuse because every team in the league has players coming in late.)

Seven of those points on that run belonged to Angel McCoughtry. McCoughtry is stepping up in a big way.

9) While San Antonio was getting knocked around the court, the camera focused on two matters of interest:

a) A couple of what appeared to be superannuated hippies watching. (Peace out, baby!) and
b) Sandy Brondello in all of her nine-months-going-to-give-birth-any-minute-now glory. So if Lange is the coach, what is Brondello doing on the bench? Why not let Lange do his own coaching? Will the players listen to Brondello or Lange?

10) During this time, the Dream have both Kelly Miller and Coco Miller on the court. They seem to play very well together. You know, some identical twins can’t bear to be separated, so maybe this is what both their careers needed.

(BTW: The play-by-play for the game simply has “Miller” listed as a player. Talk about identical twins being close.)

11) The first quarter ends 25-16 in favor of Atlanta. San Antonio is shooting 43.8 percent, but the Dream are shooting 57.1 percent – 12-for-21. Sometimes, all it takes to win a game is a hot hand…for four quarters.

12) At the game: Tony Parker. I have no idea who Tony Parker is, but I suspect he’s an NBA player. (Helpful Wikipedia helps me. He’s a player for the San Antonio Spurs, and from France. I suppose no one told him that all red-blooded he-men of America are supposed to hate the WNBA.)

13) With Atlanta hanging on to its lead in the second quarter, we see Jayne Appel in street clothes sitting on the bench. Frisco del Rosario commented on a post at Pleasant Dreams about why Appel’s draft stock fell enough for the Silver Stars to pick her – it was because of Appel’s history of injuries. Sure enough, there’s an injured Appel sitting on the bench.

14) Atlanta seems to be falling into a pattern of turnovers. Shalee Lehning isn’t helping. Lehning is matched up against Edwige Lawson-Wade, and Lawson-Wade gets the better of Lehning…twice. An eight-point Dream lead is whittled down to four points on at least one teal by Lawson-Wade against Lehning.

15) Atlanta has scored only two points in the first five minutes of the second quarter. Things are looking tight. At some point, the Dream pulls out Lehning because Edwige Lawson-Wade is taking Lehning to school.

Something I don’t like – Lehning standing around in the backcourt, waiting for a play to finish, NBA style. As someone new to basketball, this might simply be what point guards are asked to do – “stand over there and keep out of everyone’s way”. Compare this to, say, Kelly Miller, whose eyes dart back and forth like a cat after a mouse or to Angel McCoughtry who loves picking off passes from unwary opponents.

16) An illustration of San Antonio’s problems. With just over two minutes left in the half, the Dream attempt a shot and miss it. So they rebound it. And miss it. And rebound….

…Atlanta must have gotten five or six second chance opportunities and San Antonio was only saved by the Dream not able to sink the ball. That, and the fact that the Dream committed at least 13 turnovers in the half. De Souza picked up three of her rebounds for the night on that sequence.

17) The Dream begin to stretch the lead back to what it was. McCoughtry hits a pair of free throws. Bales hits a free throw. McCoughtry scores again – her 13th point of the game – and Iziane beats a double team to extend the lead to 40-29. Only Megan Frazee’s last shot of the half – a 3-pointer – kept the Dream from taking a double-digit lead into halftime.

18) The Dream are leading about 48 percent to 40 percent in this game. That’s enough to explain their 40-32 halftime lead. McCoughtry has 13 points, Iziane Castro Marques has 11 and Erika de Souza has 8 points and 10 rebounds.

19) Both teams’ combined free throw shooting at the half – 8 for 20. Atlanta 5-10, San Antonio 3-10.

20) The same starters come in for the second half, and it looks like Iziane Castro Marques must have thought Paulo Bassul was wearing a Silver Stars uniform. She gets a steal and drive, and follows it up with a steal and drive. The Dream are now leading 44-32.

Three minutes in, the Dream look solid. Mid-range spin shot by Lyttle. McCoughtry spin jumper and foul. McCoughtry hits the free throw, Iziane is fouled and hits one of her two free throws and suddenly the Dream have a 52-36 lead, the biggest lead of the game.

21) Sophia Young is looking just a little tired out there. Sancho Lyttle lays it up over Young who makes a weak effort to stop her. With the Dream up by double-digits, San Antonio’s announcers are talking about Michelle Snow. As they tell it, Snow was busy reporting to her new team about all the things that Atlanta would do and the best ways to stop the Dream. If that’s the case, then Snow needs her coaching pass revoked….

22)…or maybe not. As the third quarter passes its halfway point, the Silver Stars go on a 10-3 run. They manage to close the gap down to 10 points again, and a loose ball 3-pointer by Becky Hammon closes the gap to 57-50. After Erika de Souza hits a free throw, Hammon scores the final points of the quarter to bring the Silver Stars within two baskets again, 58-52.

San Antonio was clearly shooting better in the last part of the third quarter, or we were defending worse.

23) In the fourth quarter, Lyttle picked up her fourth personal foul. We got to see Iziane Castro Marques use some smarts. Ahead 62-54, Iziane thought to call a time out before falling out of bounds, retaining possession of the ball for Atlanta.

24) Michelle Snow has a couple of nice early fourth quarter baskets but a pair of free throws from Iziane gives the Dream a 68-56 lead. The two free throws are Iziane’s 20th and 21st points of the game.

The Dream manage to keep a double digit lead as they go into the final five minutes of the quarter. Lehning has four assists so far in the game and will pick up another two in the final quarter.

25) Down to the final two minutes. The Dream lead 73-63. All the Dream has to do is, in the words of the philosopher RuPaul, to earnestly strive to avoid error. (*) This combined effort has a wrench thrown into it by a R. Hammon who hits a 3 pointer and, after Lehning misses on the other end, picks up a couple of free throws on a foul by McCoughtry. The Dream’s lead is now cut to 73-68 with about a minute left.

26) Sophia Young has some smarts of her own. She throws the ball off Angel McCoughtry’s leg to retain a San Antonio possession, but the follow-up 3 point attempt by Megan Frazee is too strong. Sancho Lyttle rebounds, and the Dream have a 73-68 lead with 37.8 seconds left.

27) …and this is the part of the game were it gets thrilling.

With 37.2 on the clock, Lehning is fouled on the inbounds play. Clearly, San Antonio is willing to give fouls in order to get the ball back. Lehning steps up for two free throws. The first one misses. The second one hits…but Sancho Lyttle steps into the lane. Lane violation, free throw negated, and the ball is back in San Antonio’s hands again.

28) Another three-point play is drawn up by San Antonio’s Lange/Brondello crew. This time, Roneeka Hodges hurls the three but it rolls off the rim. Lyttle picks up the rebound again, and the Dream have the ball with 22.3 seconds left.

29) This time, Lyttle is fouled. She hits the second of her two shots and the score is 74-68 Atlanta. Hammon tries the three pointer but misses, but Snow gets the rebound and the quick put-back and it’s now 74-70 in favor of Atlanta.

Lyttle sees Iziane Castro Marques on her way to San Antonio’s undefended basket. Lyttle…overthrows. There’s no way that Iziane could catch that pass, and San Antonio gets the ball back again.

30) So who will make this attempt at a San Antonio three pointer? Big Shot Becky is given the task…and fails. Sancho Lyttle is there for the rebound yet again, and the Silver Stars have no choice but to foul her.

31) With 12.9 seconds on the clock, Lyttle hits the second of her two free throws. 75-70, Atlanta. Hammon makes a running jump shot, but misses. Shalee Lehning gets the rebounds, and Edwige Lawson-Wade is forced to foul Lehning. There are 1.6 seconds left on the clock, and if Lehning can sink two free throws this game is over.

32) Lehning misses the first free throw…and she misses the second! It’s time to hang a goat horn on Lehning…

32b) …but wait! Lehning gets the offensive rebound on the second missed free throw! (It’s her only offensive rebound of the game.) The game is over, and my heart can start beating again!

(* * *)

That’s it. The inevitable post-mortem follows. Which Atlanta Dream players are “dreams”…and which ones are “duds”, at least for this game? Read on!
___

(*) Or as Ru puts it, “Don’t f**k it up.”

Dream Wins in San Antonio; McCoughtry, Izi Score Big

Last night, the Atlanta Dream got off to a good start with a 75-70

Here is the Associated Press article. Angel McCoughtry scored 20 and Iziane Castro Marques scored 23.

I'll have more to write about this later. It's a busy day, and there's a game tonight at 7 pm at Philips Arena. If you love the Dream as much as I do - and I'm sure you do - be there tonight as we take on the Indiana Fever. Last's years playoff run got off to a good start with a win against the Fever, so let's do it again.

Atlanta vs. San Antonio, Saturday May 15th

Who: The Atlanta Dream (0-0) take on the San Antonio Silver Stars (0-0).

Here are the final rosters of both clubs:

Atlanta: Alison Bales, Iziane Castro Marques, Erika de Souza, Chamique Holdsclaw, Shalee Lehning, Sancho Lyttle, Angel McCoughtry, Coco Miller, Kelly Miller, Armintie Price, Brittainey Raven

San Antonio: Jayne Appel, Helen Darling, Megan Frazee, Becky Hammon, Roneeka Hodges, Crystal Kelly, Edwige Lawson-Wade, Ruth Riley, Belinda Snell, Michelle Snow, Sophia Young

What: The first of two regular season games against the Silver Stars. Every Eastern Conference team (Atlanta) plays a home-and-away during the regular season against each Western Conference team (San Antonio). Last year the Dream swept the season series against San Antonio, winning in San Antonio 92-84 on August 6th and then winning at home in Atlanta 93-87 on August 20th.

Where: The AT&T Center at San Antonio.

When: Tipoff is at at 8 pm Eastern time, today. (May 15, 2010.) This game should be available on WNBA Live Access.

Why: We get our very first, for-real-honest-and-for-true look at the Atlanta Dream, as this game counts. Chamique Holdsclaw will not be suiting up - she never came to Training Camp and she wants a trade - but until the Dream can deal her she takes up roster space. With Alison Bales having not played in the previous year, with rookie Brittainey Raven, and with Erika de Souza literally having got off the plane two days ago, it will be interesting to see how the Dream handles the adversity of playing in San Antonio against a packed house for the Silver Stars home opener. (And the next day, the Dream opens in Atlanta.)

The Angel McCoughtry tour continues as McCoughtry will compete against rookie Jayne Appel out of Stanford. Appel was a highly-touted player for Stanford - some thought she had a chance to being drafted #2 - but a poor national championship game caused Appel's draft stock to fall. The last game McCoughtry played was against Connecticut and Tina Charles in the pre-season; we'll see how well Appel fares against Atlanta.

San Antonio has a few changes. The most important is at the coaching level. Dan Hughes, a great WNBA coach, has moved up to General Manager. His successor, Sandy Brondello, is out on pregnancy leave, so associate coach Olaf Lange will try to steer the Silver Stars to victory.

There's a revenge factor in this game as the Dream face center Michelle Snow for the first time wearing an enemy uniform since Snow played for the Houston Comets in 2008. Snow was a back-up in 2009 for the Dream after many thought she'd be a starter. Snow starts over in San Antonio, who needs a center after Ann "The Belgian Waffle" Wauters decided to sit out the season. Snow has the opportunity to make Meadors look like a fool or a genius depending on how well Snow can do against the All-Star Duo of Sancho Lyttle and Erika de Souza.

25/2009 - Dream 93, Silver Stars 87 - The Fiery Angel

A quick post-mortem of Thursday's Atlanta-San Antonio game because I want to prepare both physically and mentally for today's Atlanta-Los Angeles game.

McCoughtry's 34-point game is at the very least tied for the best game this year played by a Dream player, tied with Erika de Souza's game in that 84-79 loss to Indiana where she had 23 points and 14 rebounds. If McCoughtry's game wasn't the best game by a rookie this year, it was certainly one of the best and has the potential to shake up the Rookie of the Year race against DeWanna Bonner of the Mercury.

Dean Oliver's Four Factors:

1. Field goal shooting: The Silver Stars hit 45.1 percent of their baskets compared to 44.6 percent by the Dream. Comparing effective field goal shooting - where you include 3-pointers - San Antonio still holds the edge, 48.6 percent to 46.0 percent.

Normally, San Antonio and Becky Hammon can shoot the lights out. However, they only went 5-for-22 from 3-point range.

2. Turnovers: It was a great, low-turnover game. The Dream held the edge with 10 total turnovers compared to 13 from the Sparks.

3. Offensive rebounding: The Dream held a decisive edge here, earning 17 offensive rebounds to the Silver Stars's eight. Offensive rebounding percentages were 37.7 percent for the Dream and 23.5 percent for the Silver Stars. Despite having Wauters and Riley, the Dream kept San Antonio away from the Boards.

4. Free throw visits: The Dream went to the line 36 times compared to just 22 times from San Antonio - however, it only figured to be seven more points for Atlanta. The Dream hit only 69.4 percent from the line, compared to 81.8 percent from the Silver Stars. We won the battle in volume, but not in quality.

Let's look at the individual Silver Stars players:

Becky Hammon: 23 points, 5 assists, and the hearts of fans everywhere. Let's not talk about the six turnovers (half the team's TOs!) or four personal fouls or 1-for-8 shooting from 3-point range.
Ann Wauters: 21 points, 7 rebounds. 9-for-14 shooting, and Wauters led the team in raw plus/minus with +7.
Sophia Young: 20 points, 6 rebounds. 8-for-13 shooting.
Vickie Johnson: Played 21 minutes, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists - but only two points, both on free throws.
The San Antonio Bench: 19 total points. 5-for-19 shooting.

And now, a peek at the beloved Dream:

Angel McCoughtry: 34 points on 12-for-18 shooting. She had 7 rebounds and 4 assists. The only detractions were five personal fouls and a 10-for-17 performance at the free throw line - if she had hit just one more free throw, she would have "shot her number" (she wears #35). Her +17 in raw plus/minus led the team. Clearly, Angel McCoughtry is the Dreamer of the Game.

Erika de Souza: Of the two posts who were close to a double-double, de Souza had the better game. 8 points and 11 rebounds, although unimpressive 4-for-11 shooting. De Souza also had a couple of steals.

Sancho Lyttle: 14 points and 8 rebounds. 6-for-14 shooting. She was really working on that midrange jumper on Thursday night.

Shalee Lehning: Lehning might not have been ranked this high after the first three quarters - she shot 0-for-3 during the game. But she went 6-for-8 at the free throw line in the fourth quarter, and she led with 6 assists. We might be winning because of her, or in spite of her, but we're winning nonetheless.

Iziane Castro Marques: Castro Marques's rebounds at the end of the fourth quarter sealed the game. 15 points and 3 assists over 24 minutes of play.

Michelle Snow: She scored 8 points and 6 rebounds in just 13 minutes and she had a raw plus/minus of +13. Not bad at all.

Coco Miller: Now we're dropping to the average-or-below level in player evaluation. She scored 5 points on 2-for-3 shooting in the eight minutes she played.

Armintie Price: 2 assists and 3 rebounds in almost 10 minutes of play. No points though, and she missed both of her free throws.

Ivory Latta: 1-for-4 shooting. But she hit a 3-pointer and had a +4 in plus/minus. Aside from that horrible sequence, was she really that bad?

Jennifer Lacy: One rebound, two personal fouls and a turnover. Zero points. Only played six minutes. She must be providing leadership, I suppose.

Chamique Holdsclaw: The Still Snoozin' award was named aptly in The Claw's case, who started the game 0-for-3 and only had one rebound in the first seven minutes. Marynell Meadors decided to sit The Claw down and let her rest, and when McCoughtry turned on the juice, Holdsclaw simply grabbed her pajamas and a pillow and watched the game from the comfort of the bench. Get your rest, because we're going to need you against Los Angeles.

Derek Jackson's Dream/Silver Stars Pics

They can be found right here on Flickr.

Definitely worth a look.

Dream/Silver Stars Gallery

Photo by SPMSportsPage.com, cropped by me.

SPMSportsPage.com has both the gallery of images from Thursday's Dream/Silver Stars matchup and they have a game writeup as well.

Go visit. Soak it in. More posts today, maybe.

25/2009 - Dream 93, Silver Stars 87

"I'm taller than you! I'm taller than you!"

We've now won 7 out of 8 games, but not everything is happy in Atlanta Dream fandom, with the Lehning/Latta wars still turned up to "11" on a scale from 1-to-10. ("You young whippersnappers! I would have let Marynell Meadors send five kindergarteners out if they could have won five games in a season!")

While the fans were arguing, the Dream was going on about its business. The victory over the Silver Stars marked the first time that the Dream have swept a team during the season - ever. The win put us at 14-11 and still clearly in second place. Furthermore, the Dream still have two games left in our homestand before the brutal part of our schedule where we finish the regular season with 6 out of 7 road games.

Here's what you missed last night:

1) As I was walking to my seat, I actually passed a Silver Stars player walking up the stairs. I didn't greet her, she didn't greet me because I didn't recognize her by sight. She was a white player with a stern-looking look on her face. It wasn't Ruth Riley or Becky Hammon; I would have recognized them.

2) Ross continues to work with players before the game: this time with Lyttle, Erika de Souza, and Lacy. Even Fred Williams was out there. And Sue Panek! This is a big difference from last year, when it seemed that no body really got out there and worked on anything before gametime except for Betty Lennox. Meadors was out there, but she took a seat on the opposite side of the court from practice, drinking everything in.

3) The Dream were wearing orange T-shirts that read "BUZZKILL". I have no idea what "Buzzkill" stood for. Is it a sponsor? Is it a charity? Or did one of the coaches decide to create a motivational T-shirt. If so, I like the idea - the Dream might not be the best WNBA team, but we'll be the "buzzkill" for a lot of teams this year.

4) I saw an older woman wearing a #25 Hammon jersey. She looked old enough to be a season ticket holder; our STH's tend towards gray. A few minutes later, I saw a couple of young women wearing Hammon #25s as well. Clearly, the Hammonite base extends to the ATL.

5) Becky Hammon. Then, Hammon started to warm up. I counted the number of consecutive 3-pointers she hit. She hit 17 straight. I swore, "if we leave Hammon open, we'll pay for it."

6) On the other hand, I saw a fan wearing the pink Shalee Lehning #5 jersey from the previous game. That jersey was signed by Lehning, but it didn't end up in a glass case - the fan that won it was wearing it.

You go, girl.

7) The national anthem singer tonight was Audra Martin. There was a friend from out-of-town who attended the game, and I spent a lot of time chatting with him. Not much random observation. I don't know how well Audra Martin.

He said that he had heard that the Dream had a 5-year contract with Philips Arena. Hopefully, that means that the Dream will be there for five years. However, the Arena at Gwinnett Center had lost the Georgia Force with the folding of the Arena Football League and supposedly, the Arena wanted a tenant to replace the Force. Interesting.

8) The Dream starters: Lehning, Castro Marques, Lyttle, de Souza, Holdsclaw
The Silver Stars starters: Johnson, Young, Wauters, Lawson-Wade, Hammon

9) The Dream brought out what I call the "running lights". I like the running lights; it looks like they're going to be a permanent thing. If we could afford extra smoke, I'd like that too.

10) Noting that Lehning followed Bird around everywhere in the last game, she stayed away from Becky Hammon. Clearly, the Dream were going to start the game in the zone defense, where everyone guards a certain area of the court. Lehning's first shot was what I like to call a "high school miss" - where you shoot and the ball hits the rim from below.

We got off to a 8-4 lead. Then, San Antonio put in what I like to call the "Twin Towers", Ann Wauters and Ruth Riley.

11) This was enough to spark a 10-0 Silver Stars run. Riley was left wide open by the Dream defense and Lehning was forced to foul her. Holdsclaw didn't look all that great, missing her first three shots. Iziane Castro Marques's shot bounced inside the rim and went right back out again.

12) We then put in Angel McCoughtry. Or rather, Meadors did. McCoughtry's first score was a steal from Becky Hammon that led to her scoring all by her lonesome. Less than a minute later, Lehning found McCoughtry and she scored again. We were on a 6-0 run (really an 8-0 run as we scored first in the second). The score was 14-14 at the end of the first, and Meadors must have said, "I think I'll try this Angel McCoughtry person. See if she works out or not."
12a) Minor note. We might have scored again at the end of the first if Iziane Castro Marques didn't hang onto the ball with 2.5 seconds left, and then get the call for traveling.

13) The start of the second was tough. We still led, but could never get more than two possessions in front of the Silver Stars. Snow put a nasty block on an Ann Wauters (!) jump shot, and Snow looked like she was going to roar like a lioness.

However, San Antonio tied it 23-23 and a layup by Lawson-Wade put the Silver Stars in the lead again, 25-23.

14) Now it was a one possession game. Becky Hammon woke up and scored her first basket in the second quarter.

I turned to my friend. "We must be doing something right to keep Becky Hammon from scoring."

"Mark my words," he said, "she'll have 20 points by the time the night is over."

15) Hammon is known as a great shooter, but what makes her so effective is that she's a great ball handler like Chamique Holdsclaw. She can come off either hand, and she has this bizarre reverse spin move layup that my friend called a "cobra". Probably because by the time that you learn that you've just got bitten, you're dead.

16) The Dream brought Armintie Price into the game in the second quarter. Looks like the Dream plan to use her.

17) McCoughtry, meanwhile, was laying into San Antonio like a pinball to bumpers. If there was even a six-inch gap in a lane, McCoughtry said, "I'm going to hit that". She worked her way through San Antonio's defenders time after time after time. In order to stop McCoughtry, they would have needed three extra players, and the refs weren't going to cooperate.

Atlanta took off on a 7-0 run that broke the logjam and put us up 38-31. San Antonio had hit a rough patch. Megan Frazee was left wide open but it didn't matter because Frazee missed the three. Hammon drove to the basket on a fantastic dribble but the ball wouldn't fall in from four feet away.

18) Latta was now in the game. The last 1:22 of the second half pretty much characterize Latta's 2009 season and her relationship with Meadors.

Latta moved up the ball and worked the clock down to its last seconds. We were getting really antsy. The ball ended up in Latta's hands outside the arc and just as time expired, she shot - one of those "shoot or we have a 24-second violation" shots. It went in, out of 1/2 practice and 1/2 luck.

The next time the Dream got the ball, Latta uncorked too early - she had about 7 seconds left on the clock, the ball clanged off the rim and went into the hands of Vickie Johnson. Johnson raced down the court with Atlanta's defense behind her and only Ivory Latta in front of her. Latta was forced to foul. Instead of having an eight point lead at halftime (assuming we set up the shot), Johnson hits two free throws on Latta's foul and we lead 41-37 at the half.

That was when Meadors should have just told Latta, "Just go take a shower, because I won't put you back in for the rest of the game." It would have been a lot nicer than leaving Latta on the bench. Not a good sequence from Latta, but a harsh punishment.

19) The Silver Stars were only shooting 37 percent in the first half. Furthermore, San Antonio only hit 1 out of 10 3-pointers in the first half. The Dream shot 44 percent.

Angel McCoughtry scored 13 points in the second quarter and led all scorers with 17 first-half points. Ann Wauters led San Antonio with 11 points and Hammon had been held to six points. Sancho Lyttle had eight points and six rebonds, and Erika de Souza had 6 points and 9 rebounds. I figured one of the two of them would have a double-double before the game is over.

20) The 2009 Power of Girls Mentoring program was honored. It was a great idea for a program - a program to teach self-image, communication, confidence and community service. I hope that the DFO decides to do it again next year; I think that the Dream's community service efforts this year have been laudable.

21) Guess who was at the game? Katie Feenstra Mattera. Trust me, no one can miss Katie Mattera. She was with her husband, wearing a maroon top, jeans, and a brown leather purse. She looked styling, and very happy.

Supposedly, Art Eckman's play-by-play demeanor perked up considerably. He had learned that his Katie was in the house.

22) At the beginning of the second half, Holdsclaw didn't come out. Some of the fans were puzzled. You notice that.

It was still a two-possession game, but at least we led it. Iziane hit her first basket of the game in the third quarter, but we were still wide open in some cases. Hammon hit a wide open jumper on us.

23) However, McCoughtry was still out there on us. She was getting fouled, hitting free throws, and scoring baskets. As we were mid-third quarter McCoughtry had 22 points.

24) There was some sort of weird free throw shooting contest from a native Brazilian who was found in the audience. He missed every shot but his last one.

The Dream announcer thanked him for playing. He had to get the last word in. "Hi, Erika!" Clearly, he was a very happy man.

25) Something much have happened and Iziane heard there was another Brazilian in the building. THe Dream went on an 8-0 run. Iziane basket. Then Iziane 1-on-3 for a basket. Then another Iziane basket. Then Angel scored her 24th point on a basket. The Dream were now up 59-49.

We really should invite more Brazilians to see the Dream.

26) The attendance was announced at 5,848. My friend and I were so shocked our mouths were hanging open. If there were 5,848 people in that crowd then half of them were at the concession stands, 'cause we didn't see 'em.

27) The Dream kept on roll-roll-rolling along. Angel McCoughtry blocked a Becky Hammon 3-point attempt. Both teams went over the limit in fouls and from there on it was the Great March to the Foul Line which is seen in such situation. The Silver Stars were getting dinged with offensive foul calls and at one point, the Dream led 69-51.

An 18 point lead! No WNBA team has ever lost an 18 point lead this year! Surely, this game was in the bank! We finished the 3rd quarter 71-57 and had every reason to feel confident.

28) Now, it was time for the San Antonio comeback. They had Hammon and Frazee out there, and you know they can shoot threes. Even Ann Wauters, under the right circumstances, can hit a 3-pointer. Michelle Snow got a basket on a roll and a prayer, but Frazee followed with a 3-pointer and cut our lead to 10, 73-63 with over nine minutes to go.

29) The iPod Challenger singer last night was Shalee Lehning. She sang something by Britney Spears that ended, "I'm not that innocent!" Suuuuurrrrrrrre.

30) From then on, it was a fight. Sophia Young, Ann Wauters and Becky Hammon were determined to pour it on. Hammon, in particular, was on fire in the final quarter, scoring 13 points.

Angel McCoughtry was back in though, and the fans were going to get their money's worth.

31) Angel had 32 points and the Dream lead 86-74. My friend asked, "Is she going to get her number?" Her number being #35, or 35 points.

The frustration was showing from the women in the black jerseys. Becky Hammon grappled Armintie Price despite the fact that Atlanta was not over the limit yet. Price shoots about 52 percent from the free throw line; it might have been worth something if Atlanta was over the limit. But we weren't.

32) A loose ball foul by Shalee Lehning put Atlanta over the limit in fouls at 3:18 to go. It was now time for the Dream to hold their breath.

33) We sent Hammon to the line for two: she hit both of them.
We sent Young to the line for two: she hit both of them. It was an 88-78 game with 2:39 to go.

34) Armintie Price finally got a chance to go to the line with 2:22 go.

The first free throw was an airball. The second one hit the backboard, but not the basket. Coming to Atlanta has not improved Price's free throw shooting skill. She needs to be taught how to shoot granny-style, which is a more accurate way of shooting that no one - man or woman - will use because it looks too wimpy.

35) The Brazilian fans started waving the Brazilian flag. I should have started singing: "Ouviram do Ipiranga as margens plácidas/De um povo heróico o brado retumbante...!"

36) With less than two minutes left, McCoughtry was starting to look gassed for the first time in the game. She missed a couple of free throws - either would have given her her "number" and followed it up with her fifth personal foul on a Hammon layup.

Hammon hit the free throw. It was now an 89-84 game with 1:24 remaining.

37) What followed was nothing short of amazing. McCoughtry tried the shot with 1:05 remaining - and she missed it. It was her final shot of the night....

...but Castro Marques got the rebound. (That Brazilian flag working its magic.) She let the clock wind down...slowly...slowly...down to 39.9 seconds before she shoots....

...and she misses. But she gets the rebound! Now, San Antonio has to foul.

38) Lehning hits both free throws. (She's only shooting 77 percent from the field.) It's a three possession game, 91-84, and San Antonio takes a time out.

39) On the next play, they get the ball to Megan Frazee, who tries a 3-pointer. Nada. Lehning gets the rebound this time, and San Antonio fouls her.

Both shots go in with 22.4 seconds in the game. 93-84 Dream. This game is essentially over. Ann Wauters finally finds the 3-point shot, but there's only 11.3 seconds left the game. The ball is dribbled down, time expires...and the Dream win another won.

Coming up soon, tomorrow, whenever - the statistical post-mortem.

Dream Win 93-87; Have Won Seven of Last Eight

Great game on Thursday, even though it was a little thin at Philips. The Dream won 93-87 over San Antonio. Not only did it give us the season sweep, but Angel McCoughtry had 34 points.

Wow. More on this win either tomorrow, or Saturday. Let's keep it up against the Los Angeles Sparks on Sunday!

Atlanta vs. San Antonio, Thursday August 20

Who: The Atlanta Dream (13-11) take on the San Antonio Silver Stars (11-13), a game between two WNBA playoff contenders.

The Dream have Chamique Holdsclaw (14.5 ppg) as well as All-Star Team members Sancho Lyttle (13.3 ppg) and Erika de Souza (11.0 ppg). Becky Hammon (20.1 ppg) and Sophia Young (18.0 ppg) are among the league's scoring leaders, and Ann Wauters (10.4 ppg, 5.0 rpg) is back with the team.

What: The second of two games this year against the Silver Stars. The Atlanta Dream won two weeks ago in San Antonio 92-84. The Dream are 1-2 all time against San Antonio.

Where: Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA

When: Tipoff is 7:30 pm Eastern on Thursday, August 20th. Unlike the last time these two teams met, you'll be able to watch the game on WNBA Live Access.

Why: What a difference two weeks makes! And what a difference a night makes! On Tuesday night, three teams from the Western Conference played three teams from the Eastern Conference and beat them - these losses moved all of Atlanta's challengers another step behind. The Dream remain 1/2 game ahead of the Sun and are in sole possession of second place in the Eastern Conference. It's a prize worth having since it means having home court advantage for the best-of-three first round of the playoffs.

As for the Silver Stars, the addition of Ann Wauters hasn't helped a lot. Whereas the Dream have won six of their last seven games, the Silver Stars can be world beaters one night (beating Phoenix 106-89 in Phoenix) and chumps another night (losing 90-73 at home against Sacramento). San Antonio hangs on to third place, but they are tied with Minnesota and the Los Angeles Sparks are half-game behind. It's not been easy at all for the defending Western Conference champions.

Still, the Silver Stars are a tough team. Beating them, however, would give Atlanta its first ever sweep of an opponent during the year - we would be 2-0 against the Silver Stars. However, San Antonio is coming off a high in beating Phoenix and we'll have to fight for it.

Thursday night will be "College Night" at Philips Arena. I don't know what the DFO (Dream front office) is offering on college night, but if you've ever graduated from college, or seen a college, or just like the smell of ivy, come on out and see the Dream march towards the playoffs. You don't have many more chances - counting this game, there are only four regular season home games left on the calendar.

21/2009 - Dream 92, Silver Stars 84: Four in a Row

Uh...is this over the back? No, because there's no illegal contact.

The Dream have won four games in a row and are a perfect 3-0 after the All-Star break. They are undoubtedly the hottest team in the WNBA right now, and it takes a lot to go to San Antonio's home court and beat a lineup with Becky Hammon, Sophia Young, Ann Wauters and Vickie Johnson. Let's take a look at the Dream's amazing victory.

Field goal percentage: The Dream shot 48.8 percent from the floor, but their effectiveness was diminished by their 2-for-13 shooting from beyond the arc - they still can't hit the three. However, with the two threes the Dream's effective field goal percentage is 50 percent. The Silver Stars shot 40.6 percent with an effective field goal percentage of 43.4 percent. Five points of difference in field goal percentage can mean one or two extra baskets for teams that take the same amount of shots - and the Dream took 80 shots to San Antonio's 69.

Turnovers: The Dream turned the ball over just 12 times, compared to 14 for the Silver Stars. A virtual tie.

Offensive rebounds: In overall offensive boards, the Dream had 17 to the Silver Stars' 12. Their offensive rebounding percentage was 43.6 percent compared to San Antonio's 31.5 percent. The Dream simply dominated San Antonio on the boards despite the presence of San Antonio's big posts.

Free throw visits: San Antonio is the clear winner here, going to the line 33 times compared to 18 times by the Dream. San Antonio hit 72.7 percent of their shots - which isn't much, but it was a lot better than Atlanta's 66.7 percent. Those are European free-throw numbers. The Dream need some more practice at the line.

And now, let's look at the Silver Stars:

Becky Hammon: 26 points, 6 rebounds. However, her 9-for-22 shooting was lousy. She took almost 1/3 of San Antonio's shots. This provided a hidden key - guard Becky Hammon, because she's going to shoot anyway.
Sophia Young: 23 points and 9 rebounds. She was close to a double-double, but she also had 4 turnovers and 4 personal fouls.
Ann Wauters: 12 points, 5 rebounds. Also 4 personal fouls.
The Silver Stars Bench: 14 points. Compare that to 24 points from Atlanta's bench.

So how well did the Dream do? We'll go player by player....

Chamique Holdsclaw: The Claw scored 21 points to lead all Atlanta players, and scored 7 rebounds and 4 assists. She shot 53 percent from the field...but....

Sancho Lyttle: ...Lyttle scored 13 points and 10 rebounds for a double-double, and hit 2 out of every 3 field goals (6-for-9). Who was more important to the Dream? It's a tough call, so for the first time ever, Chamique Holdsclaw AND Sancho Lyttle are the co-Dreamers of the Game.

Iziane Castro Marques: Castro Marques has had some good games recently. Is the "Izi Effect" - the effect where Castro Marques's best games come when the Dream lose - dead? I don't know, but Iziane Castro Marques scored 17 points and 4 assists, with 7-for-15 shooting.

Shalee Lehning: She scored 9 points, tying her career high in points scored, and had 7 assists. Remember when I said after the Atlanta/New York game that that was Lehning's best game of the year? Well, forget that, because this was Lehning's best game of the year. Her +13 in plus/minus was tied with both Iziane Castro Marques and Michelle Snow in raw plus/minus. If Lehning keeps having games like this, the wins will keep coming.

Michelle Snow: There are so many players fighting for playing time who are playing well, and Snow is one of them. 11 points and 7 rebounds in just 17 minutes. If she played longer, she would have had a double-double like Lyttle.

Erika de Souza: The Beast from Brazil hasn't had many good games lately, and this one was at best okay. She picked up a questionable Michael Price technical foul, and had just 8 points and 6 rebounds. That's an off-night for Erika de Souza.

Angel McCoughtry: Nothing to write home about. 11 points, but it was on 4-for-14 shooting and had three turnovers and a shot blocked. Hey, if everyone is having great nights McCoughtry can just fade in the background.

Coco Miller: 2 points in 4 minutes. She took a shot and she hit it.

Jennifer Lacy: 0 points in 7 minutes. She blocked a shot and had a personal foul, which kept her from a "trillion".

Tamera Young: Did not play.

There has been some discussion elsewhere as to why Tamera Young is not playing. Supposedly, as long as Chamique Holdsclaw, Iziane Castro Marques and Angel McCoughtry are all healthy and ready to play, Young has been buried in fourth place on the Atlanta bench. As one commenter somewhere said, "Either play her or send her on her merry way so somebody else can capitalize on her abilities. She can produce in the W. She just needs the right team and I don't think Atlanta is it." (We are nine days away from the WNBA's trade deadline on August 17th.)

Ivory Latta: Missed each of the three shots she took, and one was a 3-pointer. Went to the free throw line twice. Missed both shots. Only played nine minutes. Latta is Still Snoozin' but Atlanta could afford to let her sleep. However, with the playoffs coming up soon we need everyone awake.

21/2009 - Dream 92, Silver Stars 84

Rookie vs. All-Star.

As you might have known if you actually tried to follow the Atlanta/San Antonio game, San Antonio is the only city that will not do WNBA Live Access for some reason. However, also for unknown reasons, they will provide an audio feed - I believe it is the Silver Stars radio feed. So my notes come from listening to the game instead of watching it. (My neck just isn't that long.)

However, an index of game pictures can be found here, thanks to SPMSportsPage.com.

1) Starters for Atlanta: Holdsclaw, Lyttle, De Souza, Castro Marques, Lehning. I believe we should now consider Lehning the permanent starter at point guard, because I don't think Meadors is going to start Ivory Latta, ever. It is Lehning's seventh start as a rookie.

Starters for San Antonio: Riley, S. Young, Wauters, Johnson, Hammon. Ann Wauters is back. An interesting blurb about coach Dan Hughes stuck at 149 wins and needing one more for the sesquicentennial. Only Van Chancellor and Michael Cooper have more wins in the WNBA as coaches.

2). With only eight seconds elapsed on the shot clock, Shalee Lehning decides to start the game with a 3-pointer. The attempt is an airball. It's a preminition of the start of the game, where San Antonio shoots 0-for-3 and Atlanta shoots 0-for-2.

3) We hear words that everyone dreads to hear: "Officials for tonight are...Michael Price...."

4) Vickie Johnson scores the first seven points for San Antonio and San Antonio hangs on for a 7-6 lead. The Dream then score the next six points to take a 12-7 lead. Dan Hughes on the radio is talking about the importance of ball movement - which is odd, because this being the radio no one will ever see any of that ball movement.

5) Shalee Lehning is now playing face to face against Becky Hammon. Hammon manages to get a basket but it isn't a complete mismatch. As Atlanta's starters take the bench - Lacy, Latta and McCoughtry are now all in - the Silver Stars tie the game 14-14 on a pair of free throws by Megan Frazee. Up 17-16, Becky Hammon throws an off-balance 3-point attempt with approximately 0.1 seconds left on the clock.

It goes in. The crowd cheers, and the Silver Stars lead at home 20-16.

San Antonio, however, has been held to 28.6 percent shooting. Only the trips to to free throw line have given the Silver Stars the lead. The Dream didn't go to the free throw line at all in the first quarter.

6) With Michelle Snow and Coco Miller on the floor, the start of the second quarter is characterized by a pair of matching runs - an 8-1 run by the Dream followed immediately by an 8-0 run by the Silver Stars marked by Ivory Latta missing two free throws on a shot attempt and a 3-pointer by Angel McCoughtry from 25 feet that probably had no chance of going in.

7) We learn from Michael Price that the loose ball foul is not dead as Ann Wauters is called for it. However, Hammon steals the ball from Lehning which negates the possession.

8) The Dream, however, fall into some good fortune. Ann Wauters gets four free throw attempts late in the second and misses three of them. San Antonio at this point is 2-for-6 from the free throw line.

9) With exactly two minutes left, Shalee Lehning puts on a show. She scores a jumper to tie the score at 33-33 and then McCoughtry steals the ball from Ruth Riley. Lehning finds the reverse layup that she missed in the New York game and scores a basket to put the Dream back into the lead, 35-33. With the game tied at 37-37, Lehning makes a miracle 3-point attempt that leaves her hands literally as time expires.

Michael Price consults the entrails and determines that he wishes to screw with the Silver Stars for a little while. Lehning's shot is good, and the Dream take a 40-37 lead into halftime.

Lehning would have 7 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists at the half.

10) Halftime: The Dream are still shooting at 45 percent or so, but the Silver Stars have climbed to 36.8 percent. Angel McCoughtry and Vickie Johnson lead their respective teams with 9 points each. Sophia Young has 8 points and Becky Hammon has 7 points for the Silver Stars.

11) The third quarter is proof that this will be a close game - once again, both teams trade run. The Dream continue with four more points to put the Dream up 44-37, their biggest lead of the game. Nine San Antonio turnovers have led to 13 Atlanta points.

But the ground shifts again. The Silver Stars score the next six points and Lyttle picks up her third personal foul. The score is suddenly 44-43 in favor of the Dream and both teams will have to fight. The Dream's lead rises and falls, and Becky Hammon turns an Erin Perperoglou steal into a running layup to give the home team their first lead of the third quarter, 52-51 in favor of the Silver Stars.

12) McCoughtry tries another 3-pointer and misses it. Chamique Holdsclaw is keeping us in the game. By the beginning of the quarter, The Claw had only scored 4 points, but by the end of it she'd have 11. Atlanta takes the lead back on a Holdsclaw layup, and she picks up the foul from Sophia Young and the following free throw. Up 58-57, a 3-pointer from Iziane Castro Marques gives us a 61-57 lead....

...but Edwige Lawson-Wade hits a pair of free throws to close Atlanta's lead to two points, 61-59. The Dream get the last possession. After Ivory Latta misses a jumper, Belinda Snell tries to finish the third quarter the way the previous two quarters ended - with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer. However, she misses the shot and the Dream keep a tenuous 61-59 lead going into the final quarter.

13) At the end of 30 minutes, the Dream have visited the free throw line 9 times. The Silver Stars have visited the line 20 times.

14) San Antonio scores the first three points of the fourth quarter...and ttie score is tied again. The score goes back and fourth, but by about four minutes in Atlanta is starting to establish a lead again.

Part of the reason is Chamique Holdsclaw. Becky Hammon hits a 3-pointer with 5:19 left to bring the Silver Stars within one point, 74-73. But Chamique Holdsclaw answers right back with her eighth fourth-quarter point. Erika de Souza follows with a layup, and Atlanta's lead is five points, 78-73, with 3:41 left in the game

15) Michelle Snow's job will be to fight off Ann Wauters as Atlanta tries to cling to its small lead for the rest of the game. With 1:54 to go, Erika de Souza scores her eighth point to bring Atlanta back up 82-77, and then Chamique Holdscalw comes throw, stealing the ball from Vickie Johnson off a bad pass. Castro Marques feeds it to Michelle Snow, who scores the jumper to put the Dream up 84-77 with just 1:19 left in the game.

16) Ruth Riley is hit with a loose ball foul. What happens next is never made clear, but Michael Price decides to play the joker card and call a technical foul on Erika de Souza. Becky Hammon gets one free throw, and makes it, but the ball goes back to the Dream.

However, Iziane Castro Marques misses the jumper, and Rebecca Lynn Hammon gets the ball back. She gets fouled by Erika de Souza - her fourth foul - and Hammon sinks both free throws to bring the score to 86-81 with 38.7 seconds left.

17) Shalee Lehning - who had not scored in either quarter - gets the ball on the in-bounds by the dream and lays up the shot! However, Sancho Lyttle is seen holding her left knee and the Dream fans fear the worst....

18) Hammon tries the 3-pointer, but misses the shot. Lyttle - who appears to be okay - gets the rebound and after an Ann Wauters personal foul, Chamique Holdsclaw sinks two shots that make the lead 88-81. Michelle Snow committed a shooting foul with 18 seconds left that sent Becky Hammon to the line.

However, Hammon missed the first of her two free throws. With 18 seconds left, and the Dream up 88-82, all that San Antonio could do was foul. They sent us two times, and we made all of our free throws. Ann Wauters made a lay-up as time expired, but it was not enough as the Dream won 92-84 for their fourth straight win and their first win ever on San Antonio's home court.

Okay. Enough of the game. Statistical post-mortem later.

Dream Wins Fourth Straight Game - Wins 92-84 Against Silver Stars

Four straight! Woo hoo! If you didn't read the post title, we got our first win ever against the Silver Stars on their home court, winning 92-84. The Dream are now 11-10 on the year, and are in a 3-way tie for second place in the Eastern Conference....

...and if we resorted to mathematical tiebreakers, we'd be the team standing on top! We're just playing great basketball.

The Dream come back home on Saturday to play the Chicago Sky in the first game of a six-game homestand. It might be a while before I get to write about tonight's game - but let's show some love for the Dream by being there on Saturday night!!

Atlanta vs. San Antonio, Thursday August 6th

Who: The Atlanta Dream (10-10) take on the San Antonio Silver Stars (9-10) as both teams try to hang around .500 and fourth place in their respective divisions.

The Dream have Chamique Holdsclaw (15.0 ppg) as well as All-Star Team members Sancho Lyttle (13.3 ppg) and Erika de Souza (10.9 ppg). Becky Hammon (20.9 ppg) and Sophia Young (17.3 ppg) are among the league's scoring leaders, and Ann Wauters (14.7 ppg last year) is back with the team.

What: The first of two games this year against the Silver Stars - San Antonio comes to Atlanta exactly two weeks later. The Dream are 0-2 all time against the Silver Stars.

Where: The AT&T center in San Antonio, TX.

When: Tipoff is 8:00 pm Eastern on Thursday, August 6th. Here's what sucks - WNBA has Live Access, which is a way one can watch any WNBA game on the internet. The problem is that only San Antonio doesn't buy into Live Access, so...we probably aren't going to see anything but a box score.

Why: First, you have two teams that are "on their way up" for different reasons. For the Dream, it's because the Dream have just gotten better and better as the year has progressed. The Silver Stars have done the same thing, but in a different way - at times, San Antonio was missing some of their pieces. Becky Hammon was playing in Russia. Vickie Johnson had a family member die. Ann Wauters wasn't going to arrive until mid-season. The Silver Stars struggled until they could get their players back together.

There's no history of close games between San Antonio and Atlanta. We lost by 15 at home last year, and by eight on the road. To give you an idea of how long ago that first game was, the lead scorer for the Dream that night was Stacey Lovelace.

If there's an reason to see a Silver Stars game, it's Becky Hammon. She's the leading scorer in the WNBA right now, and she just has one of those sweet shots that's a wonder to see. However, there's the perpetually overlooked Sophia Young as well, and Megan Frazee out of Liberty University is one of the underrated rookies of the 2009 class - it would be interesting to see Angel McCoughtry and Megan Frazee finally butt heads.

With Ann Wauters coming back, the Silver Stars are indeed...stars. Remember, the Silver Stars played in the WNBA Finals in 2008. The Atlanta Dream would like to be in the same place at the end of 2009.

Katie Mattera Released

Katie Mattera was released today by the San Antonio Silver Stars.

We might know her better as Katie Feenstra. Mattera played for the Dream during the 2008 season. We wish her the best of luck at the Atlanta Dream Blog.

In the Big Apple

I'm at tonight's game at Madison Square Garden against the Silver Stars. Section 106, Row A, Seat 11.

More blogging later.