Game Three: Storm @ Mercury 22 May, 2008

This team doesn't like to make it easy for themselves. For the third game in a row they allowed themselves to slack in the second quarter and fall behind by double digits requiring extra efforts in the second half. One interesting point is that Coach Agler seems to rely heavily on veteran Center Yolanda Griffith in the first half of games and prefers to go small with Jackson at the five spot in the second half.


STORM
MOST EFFECTIVE SHOOTERS

Player	Floor %	Eff FG %
Wright	76%	67%
Jackson	61%	58%
Cash	60%	53%
Gearlds	52%	57%

Tanisha Wright and Lauren Jackson busted out of their early season slumps. Cash continues to play incredibly well for this team as does Katie Gearlds. Ely and Bird were reasonably effective shooting as well.

BEST RATINGS

Player	Offensive Rating	Indiv Rating
Wright	154.20	139.59
Jackson	137.31	121.59
Gearlds	134.23	114.56
Cash	125.52	107.39

Boy, when Tanisha breaks out, she really breaks out. On top of this she has been credited at being the defensive stopper on the unstoppable Cappie Pondexter.

BEST NET PLUS/MINUS
Cash: +24 (+14 on floor)
Bird: +16 (+10 on floor)
Jackson: +8 (+6 on floor)
Wright: +8 (+6 on floor)
Ely: +8 (+6 on floor)

The bench continues to provide a lift as the team is performing well with them in the lineup.

MOST EFFECTIVE LINEUPS
Bird-Gearlds-Cash-Ely-Jackson: +7
Bird-Wright-Cash-Jackson-Griffith: +6
Bird-Wright-Cash-Ely-Jackson: +3

MERCURY
MOST EFFECTIVE SHOOTERS

Player	Floor %	Eff FG %
Miller	57%	83%
Willingham	57%	50%
Smith	52%	58%
Taurasi	44%	48%

BEST RATINGS

Player	Offensive Rating	Indiv Rating
Crockett	150.13	113.64
Miller	138.20	136.39
Willingham	122.25	95.04
Smith	121.84	106.38

When neither of your stars make this list, and the most effective player barely played, you know you are in trouble.

BEST NET PLUS/MINUS
Farris: +40 (+18 on floor)
Mazzante: +32 (+14on floor)
Crockett: +28 (+12 on floor)
Oga: +12 (+4 on floor)

Ouch. The Mercury bench really pounded on the Storm in the first half, but these four barely saw floor time in the second half as the Storm surged back. Agler's frequent rotations allowed the Storm to punish a tired set of Mercury starters to close out the game.

MOST EFFECTIVE LINEUPS
Miller-Mazzante-Taurasi-Crockett-Farris: +5
Miller-Pondexter-Mazzante-Farris-Smith: +4
Miller-Mazzante-Taurasi-Farris-Smith: +4
Miller-Pondexter-Taurasi-Crockett-Farris: +4

Last game Jenny Boucek used 24 different lineups, here rookie coach Corey Gaines only used 12 and didn't use any of the lineups from the winning second quarter in the losing second half. The starters were a horrid -19 for the game.

Final Thoughts

I think that Dick Fein and Adia Barnes were right on the broadcast last night. Coach Agler is definitely taking advantage of these young coaches to start off the season. He is creating matchup problems and truly presenting two different teams in the first half and the second half. He is adjusting the game at half time and forcing his opponents to adjust in the game, a place where they appear to be struggling.

I feel for Coach Gaines and his team. It is very hard to follow up a championship season. Too many people thought the Mercury were going to be better than this, but as I said in my season preview, the Mercury need Penny Taylor. She is the key to creating the mismatches that allow "Paul Ball" to work.

Next up is a more experienced coach and Coach Agler's former boss. There was a nice article by Jayda Evans in the Seattle Times season preview that discussed how San Antonio's Dan Hughes approached former San Antonio Spurs assistant coach, and current Seattle Sonics coach PJ Carlisimo about how Greg Popovich had prepared a "failed" head coach to return to head coaching in the NBA. Hughes apparently took the advice and it provided identical results as Agler also moved from assistant coaching in San Antonio (for the Silver Stars) to head coaching in Seattle. (I know, it is a little bizarre how this happened for both coaches in the same cities, but at least it is working out better for Agler than it did for Carlisimo!) Let's hope Coach Agler doesn't thank Coach Hughes until AFTER the next game.