Storm @ Liberty Preview

Why are all eyes in the media on tomorrow's game against Detroit when our team still needs to get past a gutsy New York Liberty this afternoon.

The Liberty marketing team has posted an ad saying "It's time to quiet the Storm" on their website to sell tickets to the game today. Good for them. Their website is pretty darn cool by the way, and they have their preview up. They are an innovative group, in fact, they will host the first professional OUTDOOR WNBA game on July 19th vs. the Indiana Fever. Arthur Ashe Stadium is a pretty huge (23,157) I hope it doesn't look to silly with only 10,000 fans there. Here is a description of the venue from Slate...

It's not a gem. Arthur Ashe Stadium is a disaster, possibly the worst sports
venue in America. Some stadiums are unfriendly to fans. Some are disliked by
players. And some come across poorly on television. Arthur Ashe Stadium
accomplishes all three at once.

I hope it works out better for the Libs than it does for tennis fans. One of my favorite fan blogs, The Libertine has their preview of the game up as well.

The Liberty have only won a single game this year, despite the fact that I had them climbing the food chain in the East in my season preview. That win did come against the Mystics who were at the bottom of the East in that same preview. Their losses were against the top two eastern teams, losing twice to Connecticut and once to Detroit.

Keys to the Game
Offense

• Lauren Jackson. We need to see play start with LJ and have the perimeter players play off of her. It has always worked against New York, and is the primary reason why Izi had such great games there.
• Out rebound New York and the game is yours.
• Sue Bird has struggled in her home town at times, it would be good for her to start aggressive like she did against Houston. That should help free LJ up a bit as well.
• We need to see continued strong bench play from Tanisha, and Katie Gearlds needs to get that outside shot going. Izi got a lot of open looks in New York, Katie needs to take those when she is on the floor.
• New York has a tendancy to foul...get their starters in early foul trouble and it will make the second half much easier.

Defense

• It starts in the post. The Mystics let the posts from New York go to work and it cost them the game. Shut down McCarville and Kraayeveld and make the guards face the stifling perimeter defense we have seen of late.
• Don't let Kraayeveld and Christon have open looks at the three. They have been shooting and hitting quite a few.
• Rebound. In their only win, they out rebounded Washington.

The game is on MSG (channel 651 on DirecTV) tonight, but for some unknown reason the station has frequently been blacked out for Storm games in our area despite the fact that there was no local broadcast.