Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Game Twenty-Nine: Storm @ Dream 2 September, 2008

This win was expected, but it took a long time for the Storm to pull away. Atlanta's weaker than expected bench was not able to hold the game together. They game was won for Seattle via a +10 run from the 0:54 mark of the second quarter to the 4:31 mark of the third quarter. The Storm were +5 in the final minute of the second and +5 in the first 5 minutes of the third. A couple of other strong runs put the Dream away.

Questions about Atlanta for me are:

What is up with Feenstra? She looked like a strong prospect and played adequately in Detroit last season, yet is a non-factor now.

What happended to the Strother and Bales forward combo in the second half? There were a couple of successful lineups used in the first half that we never saw again since Strother didn't play and Bales only played at center for about 3.5 minutes.


Storm
Most Effective Shooters


Player

True Shooting Percentage

Effective FG%

Floor Percentage

Points

Sue Bird

71%

68%

56%

21

Yolanda Griffith

70%

43%

59%

16

Swin Cash

65%

60%

41%

11

Camille Little

54%

54%

49%

16

Shyra Ely

50%

50%

61%

4


Swin is playing well considering her injury. She is playing like she did to start the season. The rest has done both she and Yo well. I wish we could say the same for Sheryl.

Top Ratings

PlayerOffensive RatingIndividual Rating
Yolanda Griffith134.15121.11
Sue Bird127.70127.39
Shyra Ely124.7798.06


Raw Plus Minus

Sue Bird: +24
Camille Litle: +21
Yolanda Griffith: +13
Swin Cash: +10
Shyra Ely:+10
Tanisha Wright: +7
Ashley Robinson: +4
Kristin O'Neil: -2
Katie Gearlds: -5
Kelly Santos: -12


Most Effective Lineups
Bird-Wright-Ely-Little-Griffith: +12
Bird-Wright-Cash-Little-Robinson: +7
Bird-Cash-Ely-Little-Griffith: +7


Dream
Most Effective Shooters

Player

True Shooting Percentage

Effective FG%

Floor Percentage

Points

Kasha Terry

82%

75%

65%

8

Betty Lennox

54%

42%

48%

25

Erika DeSouza

50%

50%

33%

8



A big difference appears even more obvious when you look at playing a top vs. a bottom team. People need to get off Betty's case, her percentages are not that bad when you look at the real numbers, not just the FG%. She is their best offensive player and the defense focuses on her. The point is whether she can score which the numbers say she did, and whether she can get open shots for her team, which I can't tell from the numbers. Kerry's big second half play shows why Strother didn't make it back in the lineup.


Top Ratings

PlayerOffensive RatingIndividual Rating
Kasha Terry141.14142.92
Betty Lennox113.8296.64


Raw Plus Minus
Tamera Young: -1
Ann Strother: -2
Ivory Latta: -5
Kasha Terry: -5
Jennifer Lacy: -6
Allison Bales: -7
Kristin Haynie: -9
Betty Lennox: -12
Iziane Castro Marques: -13


Most Effective Lineups
Latta-Lennox-Young-Lacy-DeSouza: +5
Haynie-Lennox-Strother-Bales-DeSouza: +2
Latta-Haynie-Castro-Bales-DeSouza: +2
Latta-Castro-Young-Lacy-DeSouza: +2
Latta-Lennox-Castro-Terry-DeSouza: +2

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regarding your questions:

1) There's no proof, but I suspect that somehow Katie Feenstra was disheartened playing in Detroit and she emerged from the experience a shell of her former self. Atlanta got the post-Laimbeer Feenstra who has been working with Meadors on her game all season, with limited results. Can you believe that Trader Bill actually gave up Ruth Riley for Katie Feenstra?

2) As for why Ann Strother didn't see more playing time, that was the $64,000 question. The use of Meadors's multiple rotations has been...uh...dubious. This is a team that never has time to "gel" because it never has the opportunity to fight through bad situations. When the Dream get behind by 10 in a game, you can guarantee like clockwork that Meadors will be calling a time out.

Dream fans suspect that Meadors pulls names out of a hat.

Patrick said...

The rotations seemed odd on paper. Meadors used 15 different lineups in the game. Only two were repeated, the starters with Latta and the starters with Haynie.

It is a shame to see Feenstra's decline. I thought she showed very strong potential in San Antonio, though the success of Sophia Young made her less key to them. She put up reasonable numbers as a backup in Detroit.