Finally, something to cheer about. A win, on national television to boot...well, kind of. The Women's CWS softball game on ESPN2 cut into the first half rather significantly, so I missed some of Nicole Ohlde's re-emergence as a post player, and the ample early scoring by the rest of the team. How did the scoring drought end?
1. The ball movement was better, and the team shared the rock. I saw semblances of a real offense, where the ball actually moved from side to side, and from low post back to high post for open looks. For the night the ladies had only 12 assists, but I could see some real effort to properly space the floor and make each other better, which led to...
2. Better shot selection. It seemed as if the shots were more in rhythm, especially Harding's. She would come off a screen, and knock down the 18 foot shot. The Mercury's coach, Paul Westhead, was heard telling the defender to get under the screen. Shades of Terrell Brandon! I guess that's why he's considered an offensive, not defensive, genius. Going under the pick usually gives the shooter all the spacing he/she needs, and last night Harding took advantage of that. As I mentioned Ohlde actually made some shots close to the basket, but by the second half when the game tightened considerably, she was back to getting her shot blocked in the paint. Ripping her ability to finish has been a constant in this blog, but she needs to keep the ball higher above her torso and use her height to better advantage when moving toward the basket. She gets the ball stripped and her shot blocked way too easy down low. She has decent quickness to the hoop, and it's been extremely frustrating to see her make a pretty move only to see the finish rejected, bricked, or stripped. Last night was hopeful.
3. Phoenix's defense. Have to give credit where credit's due, unfortunately. It's pretty clear that the Mercury's defense was horrible, and that they took the Lynx for granted until it was too late. Most of the teams the Lynx have played came out with a lot of energy, and right away began attacking SA with double teams. Having not seen much of the first half, it's hard to say what happened, but until Phoenix made their run, their energy was pretty low. We might have simply snuck up on them.
Still, a great win for the ladies. Kind of throws out the whole "first win pool". Leave it up to the Minnesota teams to ruin another great marketing idea. But now that the first one is taken care of, it will be interesting to see how they follow up. Hope, anyone?
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Tons of hope of course. :D
The boxscore is awesome. All five starters in double figure points and four of them 19+ (19, 19, 20, 22, I believe). The way the assists are spread out a bit more shows that people are moving the ball a lot to find the open person.
Yeah -- Ohlde got 10 points in the first -quarter- but only 9 among the other three. I was glad to see offensive rebounds by the team although I think it definitely helps that Phx's post isn't really a post (Tangela Smith likes to jack up 3s/midrange shots rather than down low, it seems). I think that'll be a fairly large problem when Ohlde faces Taj in LA but maybe Ohlde could draw Taj away from the basket a bit and then use her quickness to get around Taj.
Since Chamique is playing the point in LA, and she's large for a guard, that'll be... an interesting match-up for Harding. Quick and good passing should help spread the load and prevent Harding from having to do one on one with Mique on the offense (which strikes me as a fairly bad idea). I know Harding is a good defender but I don't know how that'll match up with Mique since LA's offensive plan for awhile seemed to be Mique bringing up the ball and then shooting over whatever poor guard is trying to guard her. Hopefully Zierdan will have a good defensive plan for against Mique.
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