Tanty would have fouled out trying to defend Perkins. Coach rotated everybody she had available - an equally decent perimeter defender in Atkinson had no success. Ticha was busy checking Price, who had it not been for the aforementioned blow up by Perkins, had a decent night of her own. We might have given up he career high last night too. It was another problematic defensive Hobson's choice, you move TP to Perkins and *HOPE* some of the shots Perkins was pulling out of her proverbial.... stopped falling despite wearing a defender in her jersey and create a defensive mismatch on the freakishly athletic Price.
Artest was sideline last night, he might have slowed Perkins down....I mean seriously, Perkins was NOT getting off a lot of uncontested shots. The only thing we could have hoped for was her not touching the ball, but since she was running some if not all of the point, it was hard keeping the ball out of her hands. She had double digit assists, so it wasn't like we were slowing down whomever she was passing the ball to either.
No Haynie? We didn't miss her in the latter portions of that game. Newton I HAVE to believe was hurting and that's why she played less than 20 minutes last night. She barely played in that LA game Weds - she sat with a heating pad draped over her shoulder most of the night it seemed. Williams was all we had on the bench who could play appreciable defense in this system. Frohlich struggled defensively too, she was a foul magnet in her minutes despite doing something offensively. I might have finished the game with Brunson, Penicherio, Lawson, Robinson and Powell and saw where that got me. If Newton was hurt, coach was screwed with her defensive lineups the longer that game went on after Chicago erased the lead the Ms had in the 4th.
WORD! On the unfortunate decision to call a timeout with 7 ticks left. If this team EXECUTED anything good with a short shot clock I might have seen the concept behind THINKING calling a time out would be good then. Actually CALLING one is another story altogether. 6th came over to me afterwards and suggested that either coach saw the Monarchs %$$%ing something up with the play they were running SOOOO badly one HAD to be called to make it right, or coach just screwed up by calling the time out. No other explanation would make sense. Except that the refs got stupid again like the ones in LA did and screwed us out of a decent possession by misinterpreting JB's gesture for a time out call. I was sorta hoping that had happened again - because an intentional time out call didn't make sense. The outcome we got from it? Seeing the shot Ticha had to resort to made me instantly LOVE every other "shot" we try to hoist when we are under 5 seconds on the shot clock, even the ones that never draw iron. That she GOT a shot off should make me appreciate that and the fact that she hit something with it, but if I NEVER see that shot have to happen again, it would be too soon. Coach in still in learning mode..I chalked that up to that.
