Game Four: Storm @ Mercury 24 May, 2008

The first loss of the season is realized.

My keys to the game were lost on the team. I was hopeful early when both Swoopes and Cash posted up and scored, and Coach Agler pointed that out in the locker room at halftime, but it made no difference, it was too late. The game was ended by the massive run made by the Silver Stars to end the first quarter (See the end of the post for details.) Sheryl didn't shoot a free throw all evening.

The bench was key, and the benches were close, with the Silver Stars outscoring the Storm by only 3 points off the bench. Sophia Young and Becky Hammon just destroyed the Storm with 43 points between them. The Storm were out rebounded, and allowed the Silver Stars to get to the line more often. I had not counted on the presence of Ann Wauters, who in her first game with San Antonio put up 10 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal and 1 block. Erin Buescher also caused tremendous problems for the Storm which shows in the plus/minus below. The play of Helen Darling was another problem. So far, when Darling plays well the Silver Stars are winning. Katie Gearlds was stifled and that was a problem for Seattle. She took one shot in her almost 14 minutes of action. She is the designated shooter off the bench and never had a look. Tanisha Wright had another great game, as did Shyra Ely, but the team did not fare well with them on the floor.
STORM
MOST EFFECTIVE SHOOTERS

Player	Floor %	Eff FG %
Santos	69%	50%
Wright	64%	88%
Ely	64%	117%
Griffith	57%	33%

Swin Cash had a strong 73% true shooting percentage and 67% effective field goal percentage, but she had only a 49% floor percentage based on the number of possessions in which she was involved. Ashley Robinson had a 100% shooting percentage but a low 20% floor percentage since she rarely scored based on her time on the floor.

BEST RATINGS

Player	Offensive Rating	Indiv Rating
Wright	144.90	146.25
Santos	138.08	92.64
Ely	136.61	155.56
Griffith	116.66	88.70

Wright tops the list for the second consecutive game. Swin Cash was next in line as the fifth player over 100 pts per 100 possessions.

RAW PLUS/MINUS
Griffith: +1
Santos: -1
Beck: -2
Gearlds: -3
Bird: -5
Robinson: -6
Jackson: -8
Cash: -9
Swoopes: -9
Wright: -12
Ely: -21

Ely and Swoopes played well individually as seen above, but the team played poorly when they were on the floor.

MOST EFFECTIVE LINEUPS
Bird-Wright-Gearlds-Cash-Jackson: +4
Bird-Swoopes-Cash-Jackson-Griffith: +3
Bird-Gearlds-Swoopes-Cash-Jackson: +3

Silver Stars
MOST EFFECTIVE SHOOTERS

Player	Floor %	Eff FG %
Irvin	100%	150%
Young	74%	69%
Buescher	63%	60%
Darling	52%	75%

BEST RATINGS

Player	Offensive Rating	Indiv Rating
Irvin	300.00	300.67
Buescher	156.81	127.74
Young	149.52	132.18
Darling	125.32	117.47

Ouch. We knew Young was going to make this list, but Darling and Buescher should have been kept off. Irvin barely played, but showed decent shot selection and that three was pure luck.

RAW PLUS/MINUS
Buescher: +18
Young: +17
Wauters: +14
Darling: +13
Hammon: +6
Atunruse: +3
Irvin: +2
Johnson: 0

The Silver Stars bench did some serious damage, particularly Buescher and Wauters who I hadn't considered in my preview.

MOST EFFECTIVE LINEUPS

Hammon-Darling-Buescher-Young-Wauters: +8
Atunruse-Darling-Buescher-Young-Wauters: +8
Hammon-Atunrase-Johnson-Buescher-Young: +3
Atunruse-Darling-Buescher-Young-Irvin: +3

I said the bench would make the difference and it did. The game was ended by the +8 run made by Atunruse-Darling-Buescher-Young-Irvin against Bird-Wright-Swoopes-Cash-Jackson at the close of the first quarter in 1:37 of game time. That is a sad, sad thing. The Storm were within 5 prior to Hammon having a seat on the bench.