Dream-Fever Gallery

There's a new gallery at SportsPageMagazine.com of the Fever-Dream game that took place last week. Go over and take a look at Susan J. Wilden's work.

I hate pink games, since we keep losing them.

Dream Win Only One of Three Over Last Week: Split Series With Fever, Lose to Mystics at Home

Let's give a brief summary of how the week went:

August 1st: The Dream got on top of the Fever 90-74 which was a big win for Atlanta. That win split the series 2-2 and set up the final regular season game to take place on Friday. Winning team takes the tie-breaker in the Eastern Conference. Four Atlanta Dream players scored in double-digits. Atlanta's win continued the pattern of each team winning its games at home. With the win, Atlanta took over first place again in the East.

The box score is here.

A blurb from Sports Network can be found here.

The Associated Press blurb is here.

August 3rd: The Dream lose to the Mystics at home, 86-78, becoming only the second team this year to beat Atlanta at home. The Dream hit a dead zone in the fourth quarter after leading by six points at one time, and the last minute of the game was an exchange of free throws after exchange of free throws after exchange of free throws. It was one of those games you joke about where the last minute takes fifteen minutes, but the result was no joke for our beloved Dream.

The loss ended Atlanta's four-game win streak. The win gave the Mystics posession of second place, albeit briefly.

The box score is here.

Here's the Associated Press writeup.

Lauren Harper of The Examiner tells her side of the story from the Dream perspective with some quick hits. Andrew Tomlinson from the Washington branch of the Examiner tells the story another way.

Jshuane Melton of the DC Sports Box tells the whole story from the Mystics perspective.

August 6th. The Dream lost a heartbreaker in Indiana last night, 95-93. This loss gives the Indiana Fever the season tie-breaker, beating Atlanta in the season series three games to two. The Atlanta loss threw the Eastern Conference into turmoil, with four teams separated from each other by just a single game. The Dream and Fever are tied for first place, but if the season ended today Indiana would finish first and the Dream second due to the tiebreaker.

With less than a minute left, Alison Bales hit a free throw to put the Dream up 93-92. Ebony Hoffman of the Fever would hit one of two free throws to tie the game 93-93 with 30.1 seconds left. The Dream got the ball back but Katie Douglas stole the ball from Sancho Lyttle with six seconds left. The Fever put the ball in the hands of Tamika Catchings - who would score 30 points that night - and Atlanta was forced to foul.

Catchings hit both shots. 95-93 Fever. With 1.1 seconds left, Alison Bales managed to get off a shot and get the foul from Loree Moore. Bales needed to hit both shots to give the game a chance of going overtime.

She missed the first one...and the second one. Game over. I'm glad I wasn't there, I probably would have broken down in tears.

The box score is here.

David Woods of the Indianapolis Star writes it up.

Pat Lovell of the Examiner gives his impressions.

Hopefully, more blogging later. Next home game is this Tuesday, against the Seattle Storm. We don't need a "statement win". We just need a win.

Dream Lose 89-70 in Indiana; Third Loss in Four Games

The Fever shove us aside.

No one said road trips would be easy. They sure ain't easy for the Dream, who are currently 0-2 on a four-game road trip, losing 89-70 in Indiana last night. The loss was the worst Dream loss of the season - Sam James (in charge of Fever Week) posted on a message board that Marynell Meadors didn't come out to meet players after the game...well, not immediately, anyway. They'd better shake it off fast, because they play in Connecticut today.

Oddly enough, the Dream are still #1 in the Eastern Conference. At least, other teams seem to be having problems too. Furthermore, Sancho Lyttle is back. Hurray!!

What happened? The Dream got blown out in the fourth quarter, scoring only 10 fourth-quarter points. Angel McCoughtry coughed up the ball seven times. Iziane shot 2-for-11 and disappeared. Marynell Meadors was charged with a technical with 4:34 left in the fourth quarter.

Kent Sterling tells the story here.

The Associated Press reveals everything here.

Gallery from SportsPageMagazine.com. Every gallery they do is worth a visit, so go there.

Here's hoping we turn it around tonight. Go Dream!

Dream Lose 94-91 on Road in Indianapolis

Now we know what the "#20" on her jersey stands for.

Actually, it could have been worse. We only lost by three points, and the home field advantage in the WNBA is around 3.5 points, so on a neutral court we would have had a shot at winning this.

Sancho Lyttle had 20 points and 20 rebounds. This is only the eighth time in WNBA history that someone had 20 points and 20 rebounds, and the first time it's been done in almost four years. The complete list from P. D. Swanson:

20+ Points & 20+ Rebounds, Game
22 / 20 -- Natalie Williams, Utah at Sacramento, June 22, 2002
29 / 21 -- Chamique Holdsclaw, Washington at Sacramento, June 25, 2002 (2OT)
24 / 21 -- Lisa Leslie, Los Angeles vs. Orlando, July 22, 2002
22 / 24 -- Chamique Holdsclaw, Washington at Charlotte, May 23, 2003
23 / 20 -- Lauren Jackson, Seattle vs. Charlotte, July 31, 2003
21 / 22 -- Cheryl Ford, Detroit at San Antonio, May 22, 2004
21 / 23 -- Michelle Snow, Houston at Minnesota, August 4, 2006 (OT)
20 / 20 -- Sancho Lyttle, Atlanta at Indiana, June 19, 2010

You can find the box score here at the WNBA.com site.

Justin Albers reports for the Examiner.com.

Ted Schultz of the Indianapolis Star has his writeup.

The Associated Press reports here. They also have a gallery of photos.

So did I watch this one? No. I've officially given up on WNBA Live Access this year, so I went instead to the Atlanta Beat game, the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) game here in Atlanta. The Beat got their first franchise victory, beating the Chicago Red Stars 1-0. I'm one of the few people who was physically present during the Dream's first win and the Beat's first win.

Game thread from Swish Appeal is here.

I'll write more about this game later, very busy weekend for me.

Interesting: Sam James of Fever Week reported this juicy tidbit of gossip:

Someone on press row heard Dream coach yell Angel McCoughtry on the bench

Apparently, Angel did or has given up on the game. The coach was yelling at her:

“Get this through your head, we are never out of a game! We never quit!”

Ah, the placid calmness of the Atlanta Dream. Particularly, Atlanta Dream fandom where such issues are handled with a spirit of patience and tranquility.

Atlanta vs. Indiana, Saturday June 19

Who: The Atlanta Dream (9-3) take on the Indiana Fever (7-4) in an Eastern Conference Game.

The Dream are led by Angel McCoughtry, who is scoring 19.9 points per game. Sancho Lyttle (15.3 ppg/10.1 rpg) is an All-Star post, and Iziane Castro Marques (16.2 ppg) will be playing on the Brazilian national team at the end of the season with Erika de Souza (12.6 ppg/9.7 rpg). The defending Eastern Conference champions are back on track with Tamika Catchings (16.5 ppg/6.7 rpg) leading the team and with Shavonte Zellous (6.8 ppg) on the team after being acquired from Tulsa.

What: The second of five regular season games against the Indiana Fever. The Dream won the first of these games - their home opener - against the Fever on May 15th by a score of 66-62.

Where: Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana.

When: Tip-off is at 7 pm Eastern time, Saturday June 19th. The game will be available on Live Access.

Why: As in the year before, the Indiana Fever started 0-2, including the loss to Atlanta mentioned above. They've been 7-2 since then and have reasserted their dominance in the Eastern Conference. In order for the Dream to show that it's the best of the East, it will have to beat the Fever on their home court...where they play three times this year. A win moves the Fever to just 1/2 game behind the Dream in the tough Eastern Conference.

The 66 points to which the Dream were held were the lowest the Dream were held to since a meaningless regular-season ending loss against Washington last year. Before that, you have to go to July 2008 to a 79-66 loss against the Sacramento Monarchs - a team that no longer exists. Indiana is all about killer defense, with Catchings one of the all-time great defenders and the Fever holding their competitors to just 69.4 points per game. The Fever has come off home wins against what are proving to be two of the toughest teams in the WNBA - Connecticut and Seattle - and you know the Fever would like three in a row.

One interesting bit of trivia is that Tamika Catchings has hit 33 consecutive free throws, a franchise record. The Fever are favored by 5 points by covers.com, but I don't think the Dram will be intimidated. They have a 6-2 road record and are used to putting it together on the road, so if you see the Dream behind at halftime don't panic - the team have only led at halftime three times this season. Indiana is great at blocking shots, but Atlanta has great post players of its own and Indiana is a poor shooting team (42.2 percent), so it might require some defensive intensity for the Fever to win again.

2/2010 – Dream 66, Fever 62: A Tall Glass of Water

Okay, time to look back on that second game and start thinking about Friday.

Quarter-by-quarter box score: The by-quarter totals tell the whole story: tight first half, mini-surge by the Fever in the third quarter, complete and total collapse in the fourth.

Effective field goal percentage: Fever 42.8 percent, Dream 35.3 percent. In most cases, that would give the game to the Fever right there. Our shooting was horrible.

Turnovers: Dream 16, Fever 19. The Dream creep a little closer, but it isn't much of an advantage.

Offensive rebound percentage: Dream 41.8 percent, Fever 32.1 percent. You know it's a bad night when Armintie Price has more offensive rebounds (3) than any other single member of the Fever (2).

Free throw visits: Dream 20, Fever 13. The Dream only made 65 percent of those shots. The Fever made 61 percent. These last two games have showcased some horrible free throw shooting.

Now, let's look at the members of the Indiana Fever:

Ebony Hoffman: 17 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals. Great game for Hoffman.
Tamika Catchings: 18 points, 4 assits, 3 steals. The only other member of the Fever to score in double-digits.
Tammy Sutton-Brown: 8 points and 9 rebounds.
Katie Douglas: 6 assists.
Bench Players: Contributed only 10 of Indiana's 62 points.


Alison Bales: I'll bet you're surprised to see Alison Bales up this high - and I'm not writing about her height, either. Bales actually played 25 minutes. So did McCoughtry. Only de Souza and Lyttle played more minutes, with 26 and 28 respectively.

Bales scored eight points going 2-for-2 from the 3-point line. But she was impressive across the board. Her raw plus/minus of +13 led all players. She had four rebounds and three steals, and an amazing six blocked shots. If Bales keeps playing like this, she'll play herself into a rotation. Bales, in my opinion, was the Dreamer of the Game.

Erika de Souza: This was a game ruled by height. De Souza used that height to her advantage to pick up a second-straight double-double: 14 points and 11 rebounds. If it weren't for her four personal fouls and six turnovers, she'd be the Dreamer of the Game instead of Bales. De Souza is just simply fantastic.

Kelly Miller: It looks like Kelly Miller woke up after the Still Snoozin' designation from the previous game. She had six assists, a +11 raw plus/minus and had four steals. Her 1-for-6 field goal shooting puts her performance in the category of good, but not great.

Armintie Price: Price is the player that got the most attention, appearing back in double-digits for the first time in a long time with 14 points, and could have had 20 if the clock/the referees had looked the other way. 5-for-14 shooting, however, isn't that great. A rarity: Price hit 4 out of 5 free throws (her lifetime completion is 53 percent.)

Brittainey Raven: We now drop back into mediocrity, which is to be expected for a game where the team shooting percentage was 33 percent. Raven was part of that, going 0-for-4 for the night, but she had five rebounds and really hustled.

Angel McCoughtry: 11 points and 7 rebounds, but it was a mighty ugly way of getting them. 4-for-13 shooting, four personal fouls, three turnovers. However, like Raven above, it certainly can't be attributed to a lack of effort - McCoughtry was playing with a busted lip for part of the game.

Sancho Lyttle: Lyttle's five points was an atypical outing for the Spanish League MVP. She went 2-for-9 from the line and missed two free throws.

Shalee Lehning: Before Lehning fans string me up, there wasn't much difference between Lehning's game and the games of McCoughtry and Lyttle, save in baskets. With two points and 1-for-3 shooting, Lehning is now averaging 1.0 ppg in the regular season. She had two assists and only played 15 minutes.

Iziane Castro Marques: What a difference a day makes! Castro Marques went from Dream to Dud in just 24 hours. She shot 2-for-9, including 0-for-5 from the 3-point line. Her -9 in raw plus/minus was the worst of the game, and Iziane only played 18 minutes.

I'm sorry, Iziane - but you're Still Snoozin'. Maybe the game the night before wore you out. Get your beauty rest.

2/2010 – Dream 66, Fever 62

Preach it! Atlanta is 2-0!

(Once again, great pictures from SportsPageMagazine.com!)

Ah, for opening day in Philips Arena. There’s nothing like sitting with a bunch of fans to remind you that basketball season is here. One can watch games on television, but no matter how loud I scream at my TV my chances of catching a thrown T-shirt are zero.

1) Something different in the air…starting out with the choice of music. The warm-up music has gotten a little more “poppy”. In the last two years, the warm-up music was by a lot of obscure (to me) rap artists. (The good thing was that the music was so catchy that I wanted to look up who the performers were. How else would have I have discovered Soulja Boy?)

The first song pounding out of the speakers was the inescapably catchy but auto-tuned “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus of all people. Funny, when I think of Miley Cyrus I don’t think of WNBA warm-up music. “Telephone” by Lady Gaga also made an appearance, which begs the question: do the players pick their warm-up music or is it someone else?

2) Jordan showed up from the “Armed With a Dream” program. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the Dream has teamed up with the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (through Aaron’s Inc.) to wear the name of a patient at Children’s Hospital as a stick-on tattoo. Jordan, the honoree for this game, was rocking a mini-Dream jersey and was walking the court and surveying the 2010 Atlanta Dream.

3) The staff seems to be a lot more polite than usual. Maybe it’s just because of the first home game, but DAMN they were on the ball.

4) There were a few fans sitting in the upper bowl. I thought that the goal for the 2010 Dream was to have everyone sit in the lower bowl of Philips Arena to increase the intimate feeling. I guess season ticket-holders just like their seats.

5) The Aaron’s Inc. name is on the court.

6) With ten minutes before tip-off, the crowd is rather thin looking. There were some traffic issues, definitely – I saw more than a few orange cones on my way to parking – but I thought we’d really have a better turnout.

As it turned out, announced attendance was 7,337 – not a sellout, even under the guidelines of WNBA sellouts. My wife thought that with the following day a school night, that really kept a lot of families from attending a 7 pm Sunday night game. I agreed, but now I’m really rethinking that. What other sport would make such an excuse? Just remember, if you don’t show up, the only thing the bean counters will conclude is that no one cares.

7) Nerae Bailey – forgive the spelling – was the National Anthem singer. I was distracted, but she seemed to do an okay job.

8) And now, it’s time to announce the players. We had DJ-E doing…something…and as the players came out onto the court, there were literally fireworks. As in big explosive BOOMS! with a cascade of sparks from the sky!

My God! I thought this game was taking place in Poland, where they know how to celebrate women’s basketball! That got the crowd up on their feet, and fast! More, please! It was going to be a party atmosphere.

9) We got a guest appearance from WNBA President Donna Orender. Supposedly, she was supposed to be at a season-ticket holder function but didn’t show. Apparently, she made it to the game just in time to introduce new Dream owner Kathy Betty.

Betty thanked our new sponsors, Aaron’s Inc. and Coca Cola Enterprises. She then introduced the Dream fans as the “12th Player”. My question is that is the WNBA roster expand again, will the fans lose their “12th Player” status?

10) The starters:

Atlanta: McCoughtry, de Souza, Castro Marques, McCoughtry, Lehning

Indiana: Catchings, Sutton-Brown, Douglas, Hoffman, Bevilaqua

11) The Dream come out of the gate fast, perhaps fearing more fireworks. The first quarter will set the tone for the rest of the game – a very close game, with neither team separated from the other by more than a couple of baskets.

The Dream set an athletic pace, and manage to build a momentary 10-4 lead. I was watching Iziane Castro Marques, who was matched up against Tully Bevilaqua. By this point in the game, Tamika Catchings hadn’t yet scored and if the Dream could keep that from happening we had a good chance of winning. Angel McCoughtry was a real problem for Indiana as they tried to move the ball without her getting her hands on a pass.

12) Halfway through the first quarter, the game shifted back in the direction of Indiana but the Fever could never go up by more than a basket.

Regarding Iziane Castro Marques – if she wants to shoot, she’ll shoot and defense be damned. I watched her go one-against-three, driving to the bucket for a basket. A friend of mine said, “Izi’s going to shoot, and she doesn’t care.”

13) Entering the game around the end of the first quarter – Armintie Price and Brittainey Raven. Raven officially enters the WNBA record books as this is Raven’s first WNBA game.

14) First quarter stats were a pretty even match-up. Both teams shot equally well. Atlanta had more rebounds, but Indiana had eight assists to the Dream’s three.

15) For the entire second quarter of the game, the margin of any team’s lead would be no greater than three points – a single WNBA basket. Alison Bales, in her second game since the end of the 2008 season, got a piece of a block. She blocked the shot, passed the ball to Kelly Miller, who was fouled by Jene Morris. Miller would hit both free throws and tie the game.

16) However, the Dream often found themselves trying to grab a greased pig of a ball. The glittering diamond for the Dream was Armintie Price, who scored back-to-back baskets – she was in top form during this game – and found herself alone again in the back court when the Fever called a quick timeout to keep Price from scoring six straight points on them. Price single-handedly turned a 23-22 deficit into a 26-23 lead.

17) For a few brief moments of the second quarter, both Alison Bales and Erika de Souza were on the court. Big athletic women who can move (well, Bales can move some of the time). The thought of both Bales and de Souza had to be giving Indiana fits.

One of the reasons that Bales is so dangerous is that despite being a 6’7” big woman, Bales can actually hit a three pointer. An equivalent height in the NBA would be 7’1”. Indiana left Bales alone behind the arc, and Bales calmly set up and sank a 3-point shot that restored the lead to Atlanta again, 33-31.

Of course, Tully Belivaqua answered with a three of her own and Atlanta was down again.

17b) During a commercial break or timeout or whatever, the Dream had a celebrity dads three-point contest. One participant was Roi McCoughtry, Angel McCoughtry’s father. The belief was that Angel inherited her athletic prowess from her father, but if I recall correctly Roi McCoughtry was a forward at Coppin State and looked positively awkward trying to sink a 3-pointer. He managed to sink one, but he definitely had both feet on the boundary line, turning it into a long two.

I suspect daughter could beat dad in a 3-point shooting contest.

18) The end of the second quarter marked both sides swapping pairs of free throw attempts, with players usually hitting just one of two and not breaking the logjam. With the Dream up 37-35, Indiana’s last shot of the first half came on a 3-pointer by Katie Douglas – a shot that required a lot of passing by Indiana just to set up as McCoughtry was on the prowl. Douglas’s score puts the Fever up 38-37 at halftime.

19) McCoughtry had been missing for a big stretch of the second quarter. Only at halftime did I learn where McCoughtry had been. Apparently, she had taken an elbow to the face. She lacerated her lip, and the resulting injury required three stitches. (Marynell Meadors would later say five stitches but everyone else says three.)

Of course, athletes suffer injuries like this all the time, but if I had taken an elbow to the lip that required three stitches, I’d be squalling like a 3-year old girl, and you better believe I wouldn’t be back on the court. All together now: WNBA players are tougher than you are, Pet.

20) Halftime stats had both teams shooting evenly: Indiana 46 percent, Atlanta 44 percent. The Dream had 11 turnovers but also 18 overall rebounds to Indiana’s 14. There wasn’t much room in the box score anywhere for one team to gain an advantage.

Ebony Hoffman led the Fever with 11 points and Tamika Catchings had 10. Erika de Souza and Armintie Price had eight points each, and Kelly Miller had four first-half assists.

20b) One thing I noticed a couple of times – Douglas wanted to sneak up behind Lehning a couple of times and strip the ball from her. She almost succeeded. Lehning better learn to watch her back.

21) Halftime entertainment was from some performers named…Craig? I don’t really know how that’s spelled. I don't know what Craig? is all about. It seemed like a whole lot of dancing, but nothing really spectacular. Then again, I wasn't paying attention, trying to get updates on McCoughtry’s injury and answering questions from people who wanted to know the truth about Holdsclaw’s holdout.

22) In the third quarter, for the first time since the first quarter one of the teams managed to pull out in front by four points or more. Unfortunately, that team was Indiana. Ebony Hoffman hit a mid-range jumper, Tammy Sutton-Brown scored from point blank range, Catchings hit a jumper and before you know it, Indiana was up by five, 44-39.

Erika de Souza still looks beat. Didn’t someone at the Painel do Basquete Femenino Blog say that de Souza looked overweight? I don’t think that’s it, but she looked tired. She was fresh enough to score off a backdoor pass from Iziane, but when Izi missed her fourth three-point attempt of the night, Meadors decided she didn’t like what she was seeing and called a time out.

23) One problem was that Angel McCoughtry couldn’t get her shots going.

24) Indiana was charged with a 24-second violation this quarter. Remember that.

25) Both Angel McCoughtry and Sancho Lyttle went to the line for two shots, each hitting just one free throw. If Lyttle had hit both the Dream would have tied the game, but the miss of the second shot left the Dream behind 44-43.

Ebony Hoffman followed up with a long two-pointer just inside the arc. Tamika Catchings would hit a mid-range jumper to put the lead at five.

Shalee Lehning got the ball inside, but instead of taking the shot – which she should have done – she dished the ball back out to Iziane Castro Marques, who never met a shot attempt she didn’t like. Her 3-point attempt was an airball.

Ebony Hoffman would be fouled by Erika de Souza on the next possession. Hoffman sank both of her free throws, and the Fever led 50-43, the biggest lead of the night.

26) With Izi helpless from long range and with McCoughtry adding another 3-point airball, it was up to Alison Bales to hit the Dream’s second three-pointer of the night to bring the Dream back to 50-46.

27) It was about this time that Price really went to work. I was surprised at how aggressive and athletic Price was. When Price was one-on-one, she was…unstoppable. This was the Armintie Price that everyone thought would come out of the 2007 draft. She basically willed it in, picked up a foul from Allie Quigley, and got the free throw to close the score to 50-49.

28) With less than three minutes left, McCoughtry was called for a foul and spent some time jawing with the referee. I was later told that you don’t really feel the pain of stitches in your lip until the next day.

29) The Dream then gave up the next five points. Part of the problem was that the Dream were over the limit in fouls. Indiana got to the foul line for two visits and hit three of four free throws.

The only highlight of the last couple of minutes was Price scoring on a breakaway, all along on Indiana’s side of the court. Price almost closed the gap to one point on a long buzzer-beater that was marked as a 24-second violation. Briann January ended the quarter by making the final shot, and Indiana was up 58-55 going into the last quarter.

The Dream’s shooting had slipped to about 40 percent by this time while Indiana still held strong at 45 percent. The rest of the box score was the same old log jam.

Ebony Hoffman had 17 points for the Fever, with Catch right behind at 16. The Dream’s scoring leader was…Armintie Price with 13. Kelly Miller has six assists at this point in the game.

30) And then, suddenly out of the sky, hundreds of dogs appeared…. It’s Dogmaggedon!

…no, you’re not reading science fiction. It was the Aaron’s Inc Dog Drop! Several miniature Lucky-the-Dogs – the mascot of Aaron’s Inc. – parachute dropped individually from the roof of Philips Arena down into the stands.

The crowd absolutely ate it up. I loved it. It was just a great reward, and it got the crowd in a fantastic mood for the fourth quarter.

31) A side note: my wife and I have Comcast, which uses a DVR system. The box that allows us to change channels also has a hard drive that allows us to record shows for later viewing.

However, there can be…delays between our box at home and the home Comcast server located down in the depths of Mordor. Every hit pause on your DVR and then be unable to play anything for five minutes? That was the Indiana Fever during the entire fourth quarter.

32) To describe the fourth quarter would be like trying to describe the moon landing with the introductory vocabulary list of Let’s Learn English Significantly! used in Japanese grade schools. The only vocabulary that comes to mind is that from Doctor Who, where temporal mechanics are described as “wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff”.

Suffice it to say, the Fever just…stopped. Paralyzed. Immobile. Oh, Atlanta wasn’t doing anything either for long stretches of the fourth quarter. You’d look up at the scoreboard and see a 58-56 Fever lead and then you’d come back two minutes later and it would be 58-56 and there would be a timeout or someone would ask you for the popcorn, and you’d look at the score later and it would be the same one – 58-56. I almost thought I was in the movie Groundhog Day and expected to hear “I Got You Babe” playing over the speakers at Philips.

Even I don’t know what happened! And I was there!

32) During the approximate five minutes of time-lock, the Dream were just all over Indiana defensively. They acted like that little sister with you in the back seat who keeps going, “I’m not touching you!” while violating every other boundary of social distance. Indiana looked completely flat, like the older brother remaining perfectly still, trying not to be provoked into something stupid that would earn a smack on the back of the head.

33) An Armintie Price drive was negated on a foul by Briann January that, in my opinion, would have resulted in a basket.

Price had at least three shots taken away from her. One on a buzzer-beater that didn’t beat the buzzer according to the refs, that Briann January foul and a later shot that rolled around in the rim before being coughed out by the basketball goddesses.

34) During Slow Time, Indiana had not one, not two, but three 24-second violations. Over a minute of that Slow Time was caused by Indiana just not doing anything. If the plan was for Indiana to hang on the ball for long enough for the Dream to make a mistake, that plan wasn’t working.

35) While the Philips Phaithful hoped for someone (preferably the Dream) to score, we got our first Karaoke participant – Armintie Price, jamming to “Proud River”. For those who don’t know, Price is really cool up close and personal.

In the house, undoubtedly listening to karaoke – Steve Smith of the Hawks. We were glad he was there, but I’m sure everyone at Philips was wishing he would have been on the court in an Eastern Conference Finals game. Maybe next year.

36) About the crowd – it wasn’t a big crowd, but it stayed until the end. The crowd was in a better mood that I’ve seen in a long time. Everyone was happy. No one was sitting on their hands. The joint was jumping. I think the crowd’s energy was contagious – a positive for the Dream and a negative for the Fever.

37) At 5:15, the logjam was broken. Erika de Souza took a shot and missed it, but got the tip-in on her own offensive rebound. The game was tied at 58-58.

38) Armintie Price was still performing magic tricks. I’m sure there are better 1-on-1 players in WNBA history – but for this game, at least, Armintie Price is the best 1-on-1 player I’ve ever seen in a game.

Chamique Holdsclaw beats you with her timing. Price beats you with her lateral movement, able to go either direction in a flash and able to twist her limbs in such a way that there’s a free path from her release to the basket. Amazing.

Price picked up the foul on the drive. She hits one of two free throws and the Dream lead 59-58. It is the first Atlanta lead since late in the second quarter.

39) The Fever answers back on a Catchings jumper. Brittany Raven takes the second shot of the night from her that I thought was badly timed – the kind of shot that has no prayer of going in.

Raven might not have figured out how to shoot in the WNBA, but you can’t doubt her work ethic. In my last game writeup I complained about how Lehning would stand around in the back court. Raven, needing to make it to the other side of the court to assist defensively, simply took the long way around, following the path of the three point arc.

40) We have less than three minutes to go. Indiana, the defending Eastern Conference Champions, have been held to two fourth-quarter points.

The Dream does its “Cam Dance” feature to the tune of the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Apache”, a crowd pleaser. An eighty-plus (?) year old woman in a white shirt hiked up to her rib cage does a handkerchief dance that wins the Cam Dance competition in a rout.

41) The Dream manage to force a turnover. McCoughtry hits a long two-pointer to give Atlanta back the lead, 61-60. With less than two minutes remaining, the Fever bring the ball back across the court…slowly….

…too slowly. EIGHT-SECOND VIOLATION. Dream ball. The crowd goes wild.

42) Brittainey Rave attempts another 3-pointer – and once again, misses, but gets her own rebound. Alison Bales manages to sink the jumper for Atlanta and the score is 63-60.

One minute left.

44) Indiana tried in vain to tie the score. They worked the clock as much as possible. Ebony Hoffman tried a 3-pointer and missed, and Atlanta got the ball with
37 seconds left. This time, it was Atlanta's turn to work down the clock.

Unfortunately, Tamika Catchings showed why she's a great defender. She stole the ball from McCoughtry and attempted a 3-pointer...and missed. Team rebound to the Dream.

45) The Dream crowd is kicked into frenzy as “Apache” plays once again, with video clips of the Rockin’ Granny of Atlanta.

46) Indiana has to foul. With 8.8 seconds left, Kelly Miller comes to the line for two free throws. She manages to sink both shots giving the Dream a 65-60 lead with a few seconds left.

Katie Douglas sinks the lay-up at the other end three seconds later. 65-62 Atlanta. With just 4.2 seconds left, Indiana has to foul again on the inbounds and hope that Atlanta misses both free throws.

47) The Fever foul McCoughtry. If McCoughtry sinks one free throw, the game is pretty much over….

…McCoughtry…misses the first one. But she hits the second. 66-62 Dream.

In the brief amount of time left, Indiana can’t do anything. The final buzzer sounds, McCoughtry embraces Price and this game is in the record books.


(* * *)

Wow. What a game! I really feel pity for anyone that missed it. I know, maybe a game on Sunday night would be impossible for a lot of out-of-towners. But Tina Charles and Connecticut come to Atlanta on Friday night, so you don’t have any excuse to miss that one.

Dream Wins 66-62 in Home Opener

Pierce W. Huff reports about it here for all of you who weren't there. Frankly, I had a blast.

Okay. Two games need to be written up. Since the next Dream game is on Friday night, that gives me a few days to put something together.

The Dream are 2-0. We held the Fever to four points in the fourth quarter. Everything is good.

Atlanta vs. San Antonio, Saturday May 15th

Who: The Atlanta Dream (1-0) take on the Indiana Fever (0-1) in Atlanta's home opener.

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

Indiana: Tully Bevilaqua, Tamika Catchings, Jessica Davenport, Katie Douglas, Ebony Hoffman, Briann January, Jessica Moore, Jene Morris, Shay Murphy, Allie Quigley, Tammy Sutton-Brown

What: The first of four regular season games against the Indiana Dream, who are the defending Eastern Conference champions. Last year, the Dream played three games against the Fever, going 1-2. The last time the two teams met was an 84-79 loss by Atlanta at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on July 17, 2009.

Where: Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.

When: Tipoff is at at 7 pm Eastern time, today. (May 16, 2010.) The game is supposed to be televised on Sports South, but I don't know if you'll be able to see it in Atlanta. This game should be available on WNBA Live Access.

Why: Last year the Dream started their march to the playoffs with an 87-86 double-overtime thriller in Atlanta in the Dream's opening game, with Chamique Holdsclaw scoring 23 points, Erika de Souza scoring 16 points and 17 rebounds and Angel McCoughtry debuting for 15 points. And hey, if a win against Indiana worked once, it will work again, right?

The previous game against San Antonio implies that the Dream might use Angel McCoughtry and Iziane Castro Marques as a duo to stretch enemy defenses - defenders can either let McCoughtry and Izi roam the perimeter and give up 3-pointers, or they can hunt down the two in vain as either one feeds the ball to Sancho Lyttle or Erika de Souza. But the Dream can't depend on that plan for long - the starting five scored 70 of the Dream's 75 points in the win against San Antonio, and Erika de Souza didn't look too sharp despite Erika hammering the Silver Stars for 11 points and 15 rebounds.

For Indiana, the question is whether or not Indiana's Tamika Catchings can stay healthy. That, and if she can put behind her a 72-65 loss to Washington where she scored 12 points on 5-for-12 shooting and had four personal fouls. Those are good numbers, but they are not Tamika Catching numbers. Everyone is present on the roster - there are no holdouts and Indiana isn't waiting at the airport for anyone - so the Fever will be trying to avoid an 0-2 start to the season.

Chamique Holdsclaw still remains on the Dream's roster. Not suspended, not traded, and not showing up. Sooner or later, the Dream might have to consider suspension or release, but two wins without Holdsclaw will ease the pressure for an immediate resolution to the Holdsclaw drama. Brittainey Raven, who played Holdsclaw's forward role in training camp, is the only member of the Dream (besides Holdsclaw) to get no time in yesterday's game. With Leuchanka still on her way to Atlanta, expect to see more of Alison Bales.

That Other Series:

Phoenix 3, Indiana 2. It was a bang-em-up, rock-em-sock-em WNBA finals that set multiple records. Highest in-person attendance. Most points scored over a WNBA Finals. Most teeth wired in place. Most headbutts. Loudest Southern twang. Indiana managed to tie it up 80-80 in the fourth quarter of last night's exciting Game 5, but Phoenix was just too much for anybody to handle.

"Next year in Atlanta."

Tulsa Could Fall Short By End of Month

From Bob Corwin at Full Court Press:

Tulsa has not yet raised enough funds to buy a WNBA franchise. Word has it that former University of Arkansas men’s coach Nolan Richardson, who has been targeted as the future Tulsa head coach, was offered a piece of the franchise ownership to try to bring him on board. WNBA President Orender is trying to give Tulsa extra time to raise sufficient capital. In her most recent comment about the possibility of a team in Tulsa, Orender implied that the team could be an expansion team or a franchise relocation.

The rest of Corwin's article concerns the health of the three WNBA teams that everyone is paying close attention to:

Atlanta: As far as I can tell, the Dream have not sent out their requests for season ticket renewals. (Then again, it could be that the Dream might change venue.)

Detroit: Karen Davidson didn't exactly offer reassuring words regarding the continuation of women's basketball in Detroit.

Indiana: The article must have been written before the Fever organization sent their season ticket renewal packets out. That's no guarantee that the Fever will be here next year, since Houston did the same thing.

We'll keep ya posted with what we know, which ain't a lot.

Melvin Simon, Co-Owner of Fever, Dies

Melvin Simon, one of the owners of the Indiana Pacers and the Indiana Fever, has died at the age of 82.

I assume that Herbert Simon will become the full owner of the company, with Mel's oldest son David remaining CEO.

Winning Streaks

After starting their season 0-2, the Indiana Fever embarked on an 11 game winning streak that propelled them to the top of the Eastern Conference after just 13 games of a 24-game season. They've been there ever sense, and so far, no one has come close to matching that run.

From what I can tell, here are the longest streaks of the season over the last six years of WNBA play. The lines are in the following format:

year-team-total wins over season-longest win streak

2009 Fever ??? 11
2008 Silver Stars 24 7
2007 Shock 24 7
2006 Sun 26 12
2006 Sparks 25 8
2005 Sun 26 8
2005 Monarchs 25 7
2004 Sparks 25 7

(The Shock had two different seven-game streaks in 2007.)

This leads to an interesting thought exercise:

"Suppose you were told that some time during the 2009 WNBA season, a team would win 11 straight games. You are not told the name of the team. You are not told where in the season this happens. Where do you suppose the team would finish? How many wins would that team have after 34 games?"

Answering this question is not a mathematically straightforward one for several reasons. Conventional probability is good for answering the question, "probability p of winning a game, what is the chance that the team would win x consecutive games from opening day", but it's not good about answering questions about winning streaks where the streak could happen anywhere in the season. That question is more about combinatorics than about probability.

We're also approaching the question from the probability end when it should be approached from the statistics end. I always think of the difference between the two as being that in probability, you start with probability p and ask about a result, where in statistics, you start with a result and ask about probability p.

Furthermore, a team's "true probability" might not have anything to do with the number of games it wins. To claim that probability and wins should be linked up would be like claiming that if you flip a coin 20 times, you will get 10 heads and 10 tails in every trial. For example, a teams "true probability" could be winning 12 games in a 34 game season, but it could finish with say 14 wins or 10 wins as probability is the opposite of deterministic.

I therefore created a spreadsheet that could simulate 10,000 34-game seasons. One could input a "true probability" of the team winning each of those games and the spreadsheet could also count the longest win streak. My approach was to then see how many seasons out of 10,000 had a winning streak of a given number of games.

I looked at probabilities between p = 0.25 (9-win season) and p = 0.75 (26-win season), incrementing by 0.025 with each observation of 10,000 seasons. We count the number of streaks in 10,000 trials and come up with a probability of having a streak of a given size given that the true probability of victory is "p".

(* * *)

For example, suppose the true probability of some team winning a game is 0.25 - that the team we're looking at is a 9-win, bottom of the barrel team on the average. In a simulation of 10,000 seasons, only in 9 of those seasons did the team put together an 11-game (or more) winning streak, or in just 0.09 percent of the trials. If you encounter a team with an 11-game winning streak, it's very unlikely that that team's true win probability is 0.25.

We can probably (there's that word again) start talking confidently about how good a team really is when we get to the 10 percent of all trials level. For example, if the team's true winning probability is 0.55 - where the team averages 19 wins a season - we get a case where in 13.31 percent of all trials (1,331 times out of 10,000) do we get an 11-game winning streak. We can probably say with more confidence that our team should be better than average if can win 11 games in a season.

What probability p is associated with 25 percent of the trials having an 11-game winning streak? When p = 0.625, 27.49 percent of all trials/seasons yield an 11-game winning streak. p=0.625 means that the team should win at least 21 games.

If you want to find the probability where you have a 50 percent chance of a team having an 11-game win streak, look at the case where p = 0.725. In that case, 56.63 percent of all trials/seasons contained an 11-game win streak. p = 0.725 is associated with a 25-win season. The 50 percent mark - where the chances of having an 11-game win streak are 1 in 2 - is a team that should win somewhere between 24 and 25 games in a 34-game season.

As it turns out, the Indiana Fever are 20-8 right now, which is a .714 winning percentage. If the win all of their remaining games at that rate, they would finish 24-10, or right on the money. If someone asked "how many games in a season should a team that has an 11-game winning streak win?" an answer of "24 games or so" is a very good guess.

Here's another way to think about it. Indiana won 11 games. That left 23 games that didn't belong to the win streak. Even if they finished those 23 games at only .500 or so, that would give them about 22 or 23 wins total. Once Indiana went 11-2, and then lost, it seemed that Indiana was pretty much foreordained to finish with a 20+ win season. But you don't need probability or an Excel spreadsheet to tell you that.

Family Meets the Fever

DesignHERMomma writes in her blog about her family's first experience with the WNBA attending an Indiana Fever game.

Last week we went to our first ever WNBA game (the arena is about 3 miles from our house). We watched really tall women shoot hoops into overtime, met the mascot and ate a snow cone as big as Birdie's head.

We had fun as a family, we made a memory on a random Thursday night that is typically devoted to early bedtimes and prime time TV.


As for the girls looking terrified in the picture on the blog, I swear that Freddy Fever likes kids...and not with catsup.

Fever Gets 11th Straight Win With Victory Against Dream

By the time I got home, I only had time to watch the second half of the game against the Fever. We ended up losing it 84-79.

The box score is here.

I will be away from keyboard tomorrow. Gotta see my family, you know. I don't even know if there will be a full writeup for this game. I only have two comments.

1) During the half of the game I watched - the second half - we did good.
2) What the hell was going on in the last seconds of that game? If you watched this game, you know what I'm talking about.

12/2009 - Fever 78, Dream 74

Angel gets some instructions from Carol Ross.

When we came into Indianapolis last night, we faced a problem - the Fever had won seven straight games and had that intangible called "momentum". I don't believe much in momentum, but I believe it can buoy a team's emotions (or, in the case of the 2008 Dream, depress them). On the other hand, we had beaten the Dream at home in our opener - if you beat a team once, you should be able to do it again.

As I wrote in the previous post, the weakness of my ISP kept me from seeing much of this game. I managed to catch a little bit of the Fever's Live Access, but not much - maybe 15 minutes of the game in total.

As for seeing anything outside the game, it was very difficult. I enjoy the glimpses of promotional activities and general goofiness that come with seeing a team on Live Access. For the Fever, all of that was missing. The Fever still have a radio station broadcasting their games (unlike the Dream) and whenever there was a time out the Live Access broadcast showed...commercials. Most for companies/concerns in the Indianapolis area, places that I'd likely never visit unless I go to a Fever game. Apparently, the Fever front office want to make their Live Access look as much like a TV broadcast as possible.

That forced me to focus on the game. We got off to a fairly nice start. Erika de Souza seems to have woken up after the previous game, scoring Atlanta's first four points. De Souza was definitely working hard. However, Indiana went on an 8-0 run and we fell behind 16-10.

Meadors brought Latta into the game in the first quarter. She didn't help. It was more the introduction of Angel McCoughtry that brought some spark back into the Dream. Angel scored 4 points, an assist and a steal in those final four minutes of the first which helped Atlanta close to within two at the end of the first, Indiana leading 20-18.

The Fever came out with another run, this time a 9-0 run after we tied it in the second. Shalee Lehning stepped out on the court, and for once, no one could dispute that this was what the Dream needed. Unforutnately, Chamique Holdsclaw had 3 personal fouls in the first half and zero points to show for it, but Lehning and Lyttle stepped up and helped the Dream fight back. This time, it was the Dream's turn to go on a 9-0 run and close to a 35-35 tie with just over a minute to play. We might have had the lead at halftime, but Tamika Catchings sank a couple of free throws to give Indiana the 39-38 halftime lead.

Both teams wrestled for control early in the third. Ebony Hoffman got the worst of it, picking up her fourth and fifth personals within 10 seconds of each other. Catchings was a real problem for the Dream, having six steals before the third quarter was over. McCoughtry was scoring in double digits and Lehning had gotten her fourth assist. We led 59-55 but a last-second 3-pointer by Briann January closed the Fever to within one, 59-58 after three quarters.

The Dream, however, had an Achilles heel: personal fouls. Iziane Castro Marques racked two personals in the first minute of the fourth quarter. Jennifer Lacy followed with two of her own, and the Fever got to visit the line some more, sparking an 8-0 run ot put the Fever up 66-59. We closed the gap to 66-63 with a jumper by Lyttle with 5:42 to go in the fourth. The problem for the Dream was that they couldn't stop the fouling (or couldn't get the calls, depending on how you wanted to lok at it). The Fever went to the free throw line six straight times and led by nine, 72-63, with just over three minutes left in the game.

With 2:02 to go, Shalee Lehning hit a 3-pointer to close us to within four, 74-70. We were still hanging in there and the thought that the Dream could steal the game wasn't far from my mind. With 19 seconds left, Angel McCoughtry turned the game into a one-possession game with a layup that put the game 76-74 Fever. Lehning committed the foul to get the ball back and Tully Bevilaqua missed the first of her two free throws. 77-74 fever, 14 seconds left, and we had the ball.

We put Latta and Lacy out there in the hopes that we could sink a three-pointer. We've been a horrible 3-point shooting team all year and our chances probably weren't good...but at least we had the opportunity. The ball ended up in Lacy's hands, and her 3-pointer turned out to be an air ball. We were forced to foul Catchings, who only had to hit one of two of her free throws.

She did. Game over. I can't help but feel that we had this in our hands, but lost it. (I feel bad for the bettors: according to Frisco del Rosario, the "line" on this game was 152 points, and the total of both teams' points was exactly that: 152. House wins.)

Looking at Dean Oliver's Four Factors:

Field goal shooting: The Dream shot 45 percent as compared to the Fever's 35 percent. Another game where we outshoot the opponent by 10 percent, and lose any way. The Dream does not have a problem with shooting the ball - except for 3-point shooting - and they can put points on the board.

Offensive rebounds: Indiana 11, Atlanta 9. We were essentially tied with the Fever in rebounding, 32-31 overall in our favor. Offensive rebounds are killers because it gives you a second chance to shoot and ameliorate your mistakes.

Turnovers: The Fever lead this one, 14-21. I would normally point to turnovers as the problem - Tamika Catchings had six steals - but I wouldn't call it our worst problem.

Free throw visits: This is what killed the Dream. The Dream sent the Fever to the charity stripe 35 times, and the Fever hit 30 of those shots. We only went to the line 22 times, and hit 18 shots. Almost two out of every five points scored by the Fever were scored from free throws. We can't fault the Dream for playing aggressive - we want them to play aggressive - but there's a difference between playing agressive and losing control, and the Dream were on the wrong side of the line.

Now, let's look at the individual players:

For the Fever:

Tamika Catchings: 19 points and 9 rebounds. 5 assists, 6 steals. Now you know why the Fever is so damned good. Catch shot 10-for-11 at the free throw line.
Tammy Sutton-Brown: 22 points, 9 rebounds.
Katie Douglas: 10 points, but 5-for-15 shooting.
Ebony Hoffman: 8 points. Fouled out.

And now the Dream.....

Erika de Souza: Erika finally wakes up with a fine showing. 15 points, 8 rebounds. 4-for-4 from the field and 7-for-8 from the free throw line. Erika gets the Dreamer of the Game award.

Angel McCoughtry: Maybe Angel is finally learning to not just save it for the fourth quarter. 15 points for Angel in a fine performance.

Sancho Lyttle: You can't say our posts weren't trying. Lyttle had 18 points and 6 rebounds. She also played 35 minutes this game, so she gets extra gold stars for endurance.

Shalee Lehning: This was Shalee's best game of the year, with 9 points and 4 assists. She's supposed to be able to bring some ambiguous energy to the team; this is one of those times you could clearly see it.

Michelle Snow: 2 points and 4 personal fouls for Snow. She only played seven minutes. You can almost feel the dip in production between Lehning and Snow.

Chamique Holdsclaw: She was essentially a zero for the Dream. She only played 12 minutes and early personal fouls limited her effectiveness.

Jennifer Lacy: She also played only 12 minutes. Four points on 2-for-7 shooting.

Ivory Latta: Now we're getting to the players that hurt the Dream more than helped them. Latta has the best excuse, since this is only her second game this year. In the seven minutes played she didn't score any points - we got her back because we wanted her to score - but the raw plus/minus of +5 is promising.

Coco Miller: Six turnovers for Coco Miller led the team. That's almost bad enough to be named the Bad Dream except for....

Iziane Castro Marques: I swear, I'm going to call this the Iziane Castro Marques Memorial Award. 1-for-9 shooting. Four personal fouls. Her 29 minutes on the court should have been given to other people. I am absolutely puzzled at what Marynell Meadors sees in her. Definitely the Bad Dream of the game. Her two personals in the fourth quarter got us off to the wrong start.

Fever Beat Dream on Sunday Night for Eighth Straight Win

Cardinal fans make Angel feel right at home.

Well, we almost had a win last night in Indiana, but the Dream fell short by four points, 78-74. We almost ended the Fever's winning streak, but instead the Fever win their eighth straight game and Atlanta comes back home with a loss. We play the Connecticut Sun tomorrow night, the last home game before a long road trip.

I tried to watch this game on WNBA's Live Access, but Live Access depends a lot on the weather around my house. Rainy weather = no Live Access. I saw virtually all of the first quarter, some of the second quarter, and virtually none of the final two quarters.

Some news reports:

* the report from the Indianapolis Star.

* the report from the Associated Press.

* Mechelle Voepel's report at ESPN.

SPMSportsPage has a gallery of photographs which can be found here. SPMSportsPage always has good galleries.

My thoughts on the game will be limited to what I saw and the box score. Those will be posted later today.

Kroger to Become Official Sponsor of Indiana Fever

According to the Associated Press.

Kroger and Pacers Sports and Entertainment made a joint announcement on Wednesday. The deal includes advertising on television, radio, print, billboards and the Internet. Kroger also has a deal with the Indiana Pacers.

And nothing was said about the Fever wearing Kroger's brand name on their jersey. It looks like three WNBA franchises - Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Indiana - should be sitting pretty.

2009/1 - Dream 87, Fever 86

Angel vs. Briann...the battle is on!

The Pleasant Dreams Blog can proudly write two sentences without fear of contradiction.

a) The Atlanta Dream is playing better than .500 ball in the regular season.
b) The Dream are tied for first place in the Eastern Conference...with the Mystics.

So there's going to be a whole lot of writing going on. Let's see if I can write my way through to the end.

1. I definitely saw more orange than I've usually seen in Atlanta. I saw two young women wearing Tennessee replica jerseys. A friend told me something yesterday: in college, fans follow the name on the front of the jersey; in the pros, they follow the name on the back. I guess these fans were doing a little of both.

2. The National Anthem was sung by a barbershop quartet called "129 and Counting". This is part of the Dream's program which should be called "You Wanna Sing The National Anthem?" The quartet did a good job, which leads me to conclude that sports franchises would be much better off letting amateurs sing the anthem for free.

3. The new video and song was debuted on the Jumbotron for the very first time. The concept is that there are giant Dream players marauding downtown Atlanta, as building-high versions of Chamique, Michelle, Tamera et. al. are happily passing a rock that must be as large as a city block. (The video does not show the helpless citizens trampled underfoot, some of who are possibly praying for Superman to show up.)

4. Tamika Catchings got huge cheers from the crowd. Yep, as I suspected it, the Invasion of the Vol Snatchers is taking place right under our noses. Soon, I'll be singing the praises of Pat Summitt and wondering what's wrong with those freshmen...although frankly, that's not exactly a fate worse than death. If the Tennessee fans love the Dream, then Go Big Orange. (Sorry, I don't know the proper chant.)

5. Yep, when the Dream were announced for the first time, the organization brought out the blue runway lights and opened up one of their cans of smoke. Coco Miller was announced and she sort of stumbled out of there as if she had been missing in a fog bank in the last three days. The man sitting next to me said, "This is why we miss Ivory. She knows how to handle situations like this."

6. The starters for tonight's game: Castro Marques, Teasley, Snow (huge cheers), de Souza, and Holdsclaw (huge cheers).

7. Greeting the crowd: Chamique Holdsclaw, thanking the crowd for attending. The crowd seemed sparse as the announcements were being made, but trust me, it filled up. I don't know if there were really 8,709 people there but it was a damn good crowd.

8. Atlanta got off to a nice start, with Erika making two buckets to start the game and the Dream taking a 17-11 lead. Little did anyone watching know that this would be the biggest lead of the game. Holdsclaw was substituted for by Angel McCoughtry to the cheers of the multitudes.

9. The Dream that Atlanta would make short work of this game died quickly in the first quarter. Jennifer Lacy picked up two quick personal fouls to the boos of the spectators. Michelle Snow also picked up two personal fouls. Shalee Lehning did not look impressive in the first quarter, and McCoughtry looked like she was hanging on for dear life. Soon, the Fever had retied the game at 21-21 and only a pair of McCoughtry free throws at the end of the first quarter gave the Dream a 23-21 lead.

10. Both teams shot over 53 percent from the field in the first quarter. They wouldn't be able to keep it up.

11. The second quarter was marked by a defensive struggle - or at least a "nobody's hitting anything struggle". Nikki Teasley got her hands on the ball a couple of times and broke up two Indiana Fever plays, even though the ball got knocked out of bounds. We learned from the overhead that Teasley is donating $10 per assist to "Nothing But Nets" which is a charitable organization.

12. Tamera Young's arrival with 7:10 left in the second quarter made it official - every single player on the Atlanta roster would see minutes.

13. In the second quarter, the game teetered between Atlanta trying to get some distance away from the Fever and the Fever closing the gap right back to a tie. Tammy Sutton-Brown already had three personal fouls by the second quarter. We got to see some nice baskets by Holdsclaw. One was where Holdsclaw raised up to shoot, and Indiana got their hand up to block the shot, putting it on the ball hard as Holdsclaw raised the ball. However, Holdsclaw didn't lose control of the ball at all, and simply lowered the ball out of the defender's range, reloaded, and made the bucket. Holdsclaw can do some amazing stuff on the floor.

14. This is the first time I've seen a "double lane violation" We would see all kinds of weird stuff in this game. 3-second violations. 8-second backcourt violations, and at least three different lane violations. Ladies, don't you know that a lane violation is going to mean a jump ball?

15. Both teams scored only nine points each in the second quarter. The Dream actually led at halftime, 32-30. I think we were undefeated whenever we led at halftime last year - if I recall correctly, we led twice at halftime in 2008 and won both of those games. (That gives you an idea of how many games we won.)

16. The halftime act was something called the Sky Riders. The Sky Riders were a man and a woman doing trampoline stunts - from the crowd reaction, the crowd appeared to be very impressed.

Frankly, I couldn't watch. I was afraid that the beautiful young lady springing 35 feet in the air wasn't going to be so beautiful when she missed and did a face plant on the hardwood. However, she never missed the target. I just couldn't watch though, the game was already so close in the second quarter that you had to hold your breath.

17. Both teams had collapsed to sub-40 percent shooting. They would stay there for the rest of the game.

18. Near the concourse where I was sitting I decided that I needed to use the bathroom. The men's bathroom was empty. The women's bathroom appeared to be twenty deep. They just simply need to redesignate some of the men's bathrooms as women's bathrooms for the game. Either that, or the old tried-and-true method must be drawn out of mothballs - the women commandeer an empty men's bathroom while one woman serves as sentry.

19. In the third quarter, the starters returned to their work. At the half, de Sousa had six points and six rebounds and she was working her way up. To eight rebounds. Then eight points and eight rebounds...then ten points and eight rebounds.

20. Ebony Hoffman set a screen on Izi Castro Marques that just crushed her like a boot stepping on a Dixie Cup. Izi lay on the floor for an uncomfortably long time. I suspect that Izi didn't know where she was going. There was a series of quick passes by the Dream - a set play in the second quarter - that was punctuated with a question mark when Izi, her head turned somewhere else, was almost brained with the basketball. McCoughtry would replace Izi.

21. Briann January looked really impressive out there. She certainly looked very good against Shalee Lehning. Lehning couldn't do much to stop January, and January picked off a Lehning pass and almost converted the follow-up basket.

22. Yes, Virginia...they do call the rare beast known as the "Clear Path Foul" in the WNBA. Tully Bevilaqua was the offender. McCoughtry got two free throws (missing one) and the Dream were granted possession of the ball after her free throws.

23. It was about this time that I saw one of the strangest things I had every seen at a Dream game. There was a promotional contest where a Dream fan was asked to guess what song the Dream players on the Jumbotron was singing.

The song was sung...and I use the world loosely...by Tamera Young and Jennifer Lacy, half tuneless and half giggling. It was a rap song, and the poor middle-aged white woman might have as well been asked to name Euclid's five postulates.

The crowd, however, was able to help her and give her the answer. The song - which I would have been helpless to identify - was Soulja Boy Tell'em's "Turn My Swag On". (You can hear it here.) I don't know anything about hip-hop, but I liked that song. I also now know why Holdsclaw and Young talk endlessly about "swag" on Twitter. From now on, I'm telling you I ain't done nothing to 'em but count this money. (Yeah, I'm getting money, oh.)

24. With the Dream up 44-40, the Fever went on a 6-0 run. Dream shooting went cold and I thought the Dream were going to fold the same way they had done numerous times before. Belivaqua sank a 3, then got another bucket a few moments later. With the Fever up 46-44, Holdsclaw made another amazing shot to tie it up and with 3.6 seconds left, Teasley sank a 3-pointer to put the DReam up 52-48 going into the fourth.

25. McCoughtry hit a couple of free throws to start the fourth - and the Fever went on another 6-0 run to tie the game at 54-54. Jennifer Lacy came back into the game...and picked up another couple of personal fouls.

The Dream scored four more points, including a nice "under hook" by Holdsclaw. Erika finally picked up her 10th point in this quarter, to give de Souza a double-double. Then Indiana went on a 5-0 run to take a 59-58 lead.

26. Something I've noticed: last year, the Dream had a lot of crowd shots, interviews, and the like. I suppose that when you're promoting a team you have to do that when the on-court product stinks up the joint. There were not as many "look at the weirdos in the crowd" cam shots on the Jumbotron - everyone was busy watching the game. That was a real change.

27. Atlanta can really hurt a team on the boards. De Souza is a beast.

28. Fitz Johnson -the newest owner for Women's Professional Soccer - was shown to be in attendance. The new Atlanta women's soccer franchise takes the pitch in 2010. (Pitch is the right word, right?)

Getting a bigger reaction: Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks was also present.

29. We left Tamika Catchings and Katie Douglas out in the open for back-to-back 3-pointers. We went from a 60-59 lead to a 66-62 deficit. I thought we were doomed. There was only 3:33 left in the game. This is another place where the Dream of old would have folded.

30. The Dream don't seem to be using the T-shirt gun. Lots of T-shirts were given out, but no gun. Can we not afford propellant? Can we not see Star wielding the T-shirt gun like a proud mascot.

(Side note: when he was announced for the first time - that is, when time was specifically devoted to pay attention to Star - he was located in a limousine parked at the bottom of Philips Arena that was a mockup of the presidential limousine. I almost expected Star to take off his head and reveal himself to be Barack Obama in disguise.)

31. This time, the Dream answered the Fever with a 6-0 run of their own, tying the game with 1:17 left. As the game wound down, with the Fever up 69-68, Holdsclaw lost her handle on the ball, and Katie Douglas converted two free throws for the Fever to go up 71-68 with 52.3 seconds left.

By now, the "Player of the Game" was announced - Chamique Holdsclaw with 17 points as of the announcement.

32. As the crowd began amping up the decibel levels, Nikki Teasley made two free throws to bring the game to 71-70 with 45.8 seconds. With 16 seconds left, and the ball back in Atlanta hands, Tammy Sutton-Brown fouled Angel McCoughtry.

The first shot? Good. The Dream were now tied at 71-71. The second shot? Missed.. The Dream got the ball back with 0.8 seconds left on the rebound, but couldn't do anything even after a time out. We were now in overtime.

Overtime

1. Immediately, the Indiana Fever reminded us why they're an Eastern Conference contender. They went on a 5-0 run to take a 76-71 lead with 3:38 left. Part of this was helped by two fouls from Coco Miller, her second and third.

2. The Dream answered with the next five points - helped by a steal from Erika de Souza - to tie the game at 76-76 with 22.8 minutes left. The Dream got the ball back on what was probably the world's fastest Five Second Inbounds Turnover - if more than three seconds had passed, I would have been surprised. Daryl Humphrey was to blame for that blown call.

3. I have never seen the crowd this into a game. The speakers piped out "Y-M-C-A" and panned to the crowd jamming along. Some poor woman was trying to do the dance, but didn't quite have the moves mastered. I think she belonged to the Y-M-O-H.

With the Dream up 78-76, Humphrey made up for his bad call with a no-contact call on Sancho Lyttle. Tamika Catchings, however, missed the second shot to put the score at 78-77 in favor of the Dream. Teasley was given an opportunity for two free throws with 17.4 seconds and she missed one. The Dream were up 79-77 with 17.4 seconds.

4. The Fever gave the ball to Tammy Sutton-Brown for the last show. Despite being pushed in the back, she made the shot to tie the game 79-79. The Dream had a shot at inbounding for a last second shot, but no dice. Double Overtime.

Second Overtime

1. By now, everyone was gassed. The starting lineup for the Dream was de Souza, Holdsclaw, Miller, Snow, and Teasley.

They looked wiped out. Even the Shooting Stars dancers looked gasses, barely waving their pom-poms. The referees were dragging.

The first time that Holdsclaw got her hands on the ball and began her dribble, she simply lost control of the ball, and the ball rolled out of bounds. Fatigue-induced turnover. Fever ball.

2. With 2;38 in Overtime #2 to go, and the Dream up 85-81, Tamika Catchings hit a 25-footer to bring the score to 85-84. My notes now look like garbage. Holdsclaw is gassed. The crowd is exhausted from cheering.

3. With the score 87-86 in favor of the Dream and 40.2 seconds to go, Catchings commits a foul to give the ball back to the Dream. However, with 23.3 seconds left, McCoughtry commits a double-dribble. This gives the Fever the chance to make the game-winning shot.

Star weakly waved his (or her) little wings while laying prostrate on the floor. "Star is TIRED!" said the announcer. So were we all.

4. The Fever's plan - to get the ball to Tamika Catchings for the final shot. Katie Douglas had control of the ball, but the Dream defense held. Catchings attempted an 18 foot shot off balance as time expired...

...NO GOOD. There had been no score in the last 1:06 of the second overtime - and the Dream held on for their first victory of the year.

(* * *)

I'm gassed now. More on individual statistics later.

Bass-Ackwards About The Fever

Bob Kravitz over at the Indianapolis Star can't even find anything nice to say on opening day. His article is titled "Enjoy what is probably the final Fever season.

Kravitz has his feet planted firmly in Yes-But-Land. After a few caveats - Kravitz provides plausible deniability with a few phrases about how its good for the Fever to exist - he gets to what he really wants to write about.

"If you're a decent businessman, and you're hemorrhaging money while your WNBA franchise is doing nothing to improve your bottom line, where do you cut yourbudget? For all of the franchise's good works on and off the court, the Fever is a Simon mall that can't draw shoppers. In the end, it's going to be about basic business arithmetic."

No point in clicking the link, because Kravitz clearly Didn't Do The Research. The decent businessman - Simon - is probably one of the wealthiest men in America. His screaming about the Fever is part of his extortion racket with Indianapolis - basically, he wants the same sweet deal for himself that the city granted the Colts. Simon is paying a cost of $1 a year to rent out Conseco Fieldhouse; clearly, poverty is not far from the multi-millionaire's door.

It's basically a game of "Give me want I want, or I'll show you how poor I am...I will make the horrible sacrifice of killing the Indiana Fever just to show that I mean business!" Maybe Simon should worry about the franchise that's hemorrhaging money before he worries about the one that's merely leaking it. Getting rid of the Fever to cure the Pacers is like a surgeon looking at a man stabbed in the stomach and shouting, "Nurse, I need a band aid to fix this man's paper cut stat!"

We can tell whose side the Indianapolis press is on. Poor Fever.

P. S.: Kravitz looks at the franchise sponsorships that Phoenix and Los Angeles have found. My prediction: the Fever will not find a franchise sponsor. It's not that they won't be able to find one; rather, it won't be allowed to happen because that way Simon can plead poverty more effectively.

P. P. S.: Kravitz asks with regard to suggesting a franchise sponsor for the Fever. "Can I suggest Victoria's Secret?" (My answer: "Sure, if you want to show the world you're a douchebag.") If you read the comments, the bulk of the commenters make the obvious cost-cutting suggestion - keep the Fever and get rid of Kravitz.