Round 1, Game 3: 2008 WNBA Playoffs Storm vs. Sparks

I am stunned at how bad the 2008 WNBA.com playoff play by plays have been this post season. Randomly in the data will come a time that is from earlier in the game, which of course throws my numbers off if I am not careful. Ah, well.


Storm
Most Effective Shooters

Player	True Shooting Percentage	Effective FG%	Floor Percentage	Points
Yolanda Griffith	77%	67%	65%	6
Tanisha Wright	58%	53%	49%	20
Camille Little	54%	42%	50%	17
Sue Bird	50%	50%	48%	16

These numbers don't look too bad until you realize that only two other players took shots and neither broke 20%.


Top Ratings

Player	Offensive Rating	Individual Rating
Yolanda Griffith	140.97	122.65
Camille Little	113.97	93.31
Sue Bird	108.42	94.34
Tanisha Wright	100.09	88.52

Without Lauren Jackson, the Storm needed something from someone, and both Swin Cash and Sheryl Swoopes came up seriously short. Cash herself didn't offer any offense, though defensively she must have brought some value based on her plus/minus rating. I wonder why we didn't see more Katie Gearlds since offense was clearly needed. Despite her value in the regular season she was barely used in the playoffs playing 9, 8 and 5 minutes respectively.

Raw Plus Minus
Swin Cash: +11
Yolanda Griffith: +8
Sheryl Swoopes: +15
Camille Little: -4
Tanisha Wright: -6
Katie Gearlds: -8
Sue Bird: -8
Ashley Robinson: -10
Sheryl Swoopes: -18


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

Sparks

Most Effective Shooters

Player	True Shooting Percentage	Effective FG%	Floor Percentage	Points
Candace Parker	64%	62%	54%	20
Temecka Johnson	59%	40%	45%	8
Marie Ferdinand-Harris	56%	44%	46%	12
Shannon Bobbitt	52%	58%	57%	8

The Storm were unable to slow Parker, but more importantly, the guards played their best game in Key Arena, which of course is what was required to win.

Top Ratings

Player	Offensive Rating	Individual Rating
Shannon Bobbitt	119.47	103.57
Candace Parker	106.76	100.15

Essentially, the Storm were beaten by Tennessee.

Raw Plus Minus
Delisha Milton-Jones: +11
Lisa Leslie: +10
Shannon Bobbitt: +8
Kiesha Brown: +7
Jessica Moore: +4
Candace Parker: +3
Temecka Johnson: +1
Muriel Page: 0

Sidney Spencer: -4

Marie Ferdinand-Harris: -5

Most Effective Lineups
Bobbitt-Brown-Milton-Parker-Leslie: +7
Johnson-Spencer-Milton-Parker-Leslie: +5

Where the game was won...

1st Quarter 2:37-0:00 the Sparks were +5

2nd Quarter 1:04-0:00 the Sparks were +4

3rd Quarter 10:00-5:42 the Sparks were +8

While that 3rd quarter was a tough one, had the Storm merely managed to close quarters better in the first half they could have won the game. Post depth was the serious issue at those points, because those end of quarter runs came once Yolanda Griffith was forced to sit on the bench.

I am going to finish running the rest of the playoff data to share top performers and lineups based on plus minus performance. Unfortunately, I am still in round one.