8-4 Storm vs. Mercury

BOY, did we all need this game. Stormfans were having the biggest mass whining forum I have witnessed in the past four years, the players need some momentum heading into the playoffs, and the team needs some more wins to guarantee a playoff spot.

Fast, furious and fantastic action all night long. I could watch these two teams play every night.

LJ and Diana Taurasi are fierce competitors. They are good friends but they play like mortal enemies on the court. At one point Taurasi hit LJ to stop her from getting a layup in transition and threw LJ to the floor. Diana then said something and LJ got up, turned around and was in hysterics. She turned around gave Diana a foul just as hard in the second half. Great to see, good, hard fouls that are taken in context of the game.

The Storm were shooting like every shot was an uncontested layup. Records were being tied or broken every few minutes (or so it felt.) The players looked like they were having a blast.

Coach Donovan FINALLY listened to my advice and played Katie Gearlds at the two but the team went -2 overall with Katie as the two guard. Katie, however was fantastic.

The team could not stop Phoenix from making a push, but the early cushion allowed them to hold on as shots continued to fall and just enough defense was played. This was how the 2004 season went as a whole, solid offense with just enough defense. This year they have had just enough offense and not very much defense.

Let's hope they can pick up some momentum. They have five games left, four of them are against teams the Storm SHOULD beat. They have Minnesota twice, LA, Washington and Detroit ahead of them.

Most Effective Shooters

Player	Floor %	Eff FG%
Katie Gearlds	79%	108%
Lauren Jackson	69%	72%
Tanisha Wright	61%	50%
Betty Lennox	59%	56%
Sue Bird	56%	58%
Shyra Ely	53%	0%

Best Ratings

Player	Off Rating	Indiv. Rating
Katie Gearlds	201.04	212.93
Lauren Jackson	155.32	142.06
Sue Bird	132.61	120.61
Betty Lennox	130.99	120.99
Iziane Castro Marques	119.01	113.68
Shyra Ely	106.02	84.03

Best Plus/Minus
Betty Lennox: +20
Lauren Jackson: +16
Iziane Castro Marques: +15

Most Effective Lineups
Bird-Lennox-Castro-Jackson-Burse: +9
Wright-Lennox-Castro-Jackson-Palmer: +8
Bird-Lennox-Gearlds-Jackson-Robinson: +5