Mercury/Monarch game

NothinButHoops

NothinButHoops

Starter
Well I guess we didn't get our wish. Yo's playing, as well Lawson's logging some minutes...doing quite well with 19 points!
I'm listening on the radio...our comcast station is out! Anyone one else having problems with comcast?
 
I'm listening to the Internet radio feed....I missed the first quarter...but it seems like this game is started out like most of the road losses to playoff caliber teams. Ugh. They at least attempted to get Kara the ball so far in the 2nd half...the last few games she blew up they forgot to keep feeding her the ball.


If they are just intent to run with Phx instead of playing consistent defense, they've gotta score and not have these long droughts.
 
Another observation....it seems like similarly to what happened last year at this point in the season...Buescher is being watched more by the refs. Brunson and Newton were similarly bird-dogged late in the season.
 
Sounds like the announcer wants us to do well...we just can't captalize.
Too many chances for the Mercury. Does anyone get tired of hearing Taurasi's name? Darn what is up with Powelle's shooting??
If she is MIA in Houston...we could be in for a long series.
 
Jason is much more optimistic about this game than I feel right now.

Re: Nicole, I meant to look this up a a while ago, but I was wondering when it was this season that Nicole blew up on someone. Was it opening day?!? Was that the last time? Maybe I'm just guessin because she was the post game interview guest. But I don't remember her leading the team in scoring this season or just going insane for even a short stretch of a game.

A lot worries me about this team, her absence is just one of many.
 
She blew up on Conn, the 2nd half.

It was actually quite impressive. Burt yeah she has been MIA for Some time.

Nicole's absence deserves it's own tread.

It is shameful
 
Yes ...indeed I think if it was Koz he would have been a bit more criticle.
Well we get a few days to practice , regroup and it's off to Houston.
They will be ready in their house. Wonder if Nicole can pull out another miracle shot? Were gonna need everyone in this series.
Well I'm off to bed...MBF have a great trip & lets hope you can send some good vibes our way. See if you can't talk Newton into joining us for the post season, even as a fan! We can use her presence.
 
Actually Let's face it...

Defense is all good and well...

But if Nicole Doesn't show up on Offense I will be heading up to Reno with My Parents cause the Post season is over.

She Better ****ing realize it. And if she doesn't show up... We need to get rid of her and get someone who will actaully shoot the Basketball. Actually I blame the coaching staff of allowing this to continue for as long as it has.

I am fed up with this Crap.

Hey Whiz, when your players are struggling. Better Basketball Videos Dammit.

BTW we did we go away from Kara. Did she even take a shot in the 2nd half???

Too Mad to objectively talk about the gme right now. Be back later.
 
I've got a theory...I'll lay it out after game one to see if it explains their weird attention swings over the entire season, and pretty down the stretch.

I'm not ready to completely shame Nicole. I'm curious about where her shot has gone. She actually shot better when Trudi Lacey was calling her out and bagging on her. I do seriously believe that her attention to the defensive side of the ball has sucked the life out of her offensive game for whatever reason. It's just flat out strange. Thanks for the reminder re: the Conn game, do vaguely remember her going jack nuts.

I continue to be disturbed that offensively, we get a insane first half from Lawson and cannot find her in the 2nd half. It sounded like when she did have open looks in the 2nd, she opted not to shoot. In the games I saw at ARCO, she rarely got touches.

I'm here in Indiana, saw the Fever Sky game earlier this evening and they got spanked at home (even before Winters pulled his starters in the 2nd half) and Conn got ripped, so's it not entirely out of the ordinary today to see playoff teams kinda go through the motions I 'spose. So we'll see what happens come Thurs. This game was heated tho, Tamika Whitmore had some emphatic words and gestures for Candice Dupree and Ebony Hoffman was about to go at Amanda Lassiter who got called for a flagrant foul on a play I actually missed. So the intensity was here. Nice to sit near people in other arenas who work the refs as much as we do...:) Also saw something I don't think I've ever seen...an air ball on a free throw...:eek:

Anywho...back to the Monarchs. I guess I was looking for something different (again) from what I heard tonight from this team. Didn't necessarily need a win per se...that would have done wonders for my psyche...but I needed something better than a very similar blueprint to their previous road losses to playoff caliber teams.
 
Kara took at least one jumper as I recall and missed it obviously. It's hard to tell on radio if she touched (which is really what I cared about since I saw her not touch against Wash) but she I know touched once.

I think Whiz was trying to get Nicole going, I think he definitely stretched her minutes tonight. He kept talking about (since Wash) working on getting the confidence up of some players he felt had lost it. I remember trying to figure out who that might be. Actually had a post here musing about that quote and then my computer did something weird and I lost it in progress. But I think he's trying to get Sho, Haynie probably Powelll going. He needs Buescher to come back too - she had a weird night tonight too from the sound of it.
 
Just for the record, from the CON-DET wire report...

The Sun, with the East's top seed wrapped up, rested All-Star starters Lindsey Whalen and Katie Douglas and limited the playing time of their other regulars.

You know the question...
 

I think Nicole Needs to be called out...

Not because she needs to be shamed. I don't really believe in shaming anyone. I think she responds to being called out quite frankly. She plays better when she is mad.
She stops thinking and just plays the game. It is so damn frustrating because she actually has tremendous Basketball instincts. But she starts thinking and trying to create and she complicates the game for herself. And the rest of us.

Somebody need to get in her *** and tell her.
Shoot the Damn Ball.
Don't think, just shoot.
Catch it, Square up and shoot.

If you don't shoot you will sit. If you continue not to shoot you're gone. Think on that...

So I am re-watching the game right now. Kara looks very good. The Post look good. Could be better. Maiga's line even looks decent. 3 points from Nicole and 5 from last game. That is not gonna work. Considering she has the most minutes on the floor for the team. By several hundred minutes.
Not gonna work.

It sucks that she gets the Poo-Poo Platter. But her absences is so glaring. Hey... Number #3 in the Draft is #3 in the draft. It has some expectations. As Gino A once said, if you don't want the pressure then don't be good.

We need her to shoot the ball with confidence. She doesn't necessarily have to make the shot but she does need to shoot when she is open and not allow the defense to recover.

I am done talking about that girl. She Needs to bring it or move on.
 
I love watching Kara catch the ball, square herself, and shoot almost all in one motion. Someone had better teach Nicole how to do that. If she dribbles into traffic and loses the ball one more time, I think I shall scream...or something. ;)

We played okay in the first half. Kara was on fire. The post players were playing with gusto. However, we were not valuing the ball and turning it over too much.

In the second half, the Monarchs seemed to be going through the motions for the most part. Yo was benched. Brunson got very little time. I was glad to see them rested. I think Whiz was trying to get Erin and DeMya some good minutes. I also think he was trying to get Nicole some time so she could work out of her funk. Problem is, it did not work.

The one thing that bothered me the most was the lack of effort towards the ball. With Yo and Becka on the bench, no one was charging hard toward the ball. Result: an awful lot of o-boards for the Mercury. They were playing like they had something to prove (which I mentioned in another thread was going to be a strong possiblilty). They wanted to kick the defending champs butt and they did.

In the end, I took great pleasure in yelling at Taurasi (through my TV screen), "But, you are still not going to the playoffs." :p
 
Hmmm, as much as I dislike Auriemma, he's got some very good lines. I'm writing that one down.

I loved his line when Taurasi the rookie opened up against the Sun in Conn, and Sales and Taurasi are in the frame together...he said Sales probably told her "I was you before you were you" I *love* that line.

I dunno what it is with Nicole. She was like this last year, I know this because my long time seat neighbor completely gets pissed when she won't take open shots and she did a lot of that last year too. But something's different. She took shot tonight, because she clanked the hell out of the rim. The Maloofs are probably going to have to write a check to replace both. Her shots were horrible on Thurs (hell, the whole team shot like crap - I mean they were hitting parts of the basket structure never meant to be hit purposely) and the last stat I heard Jason call out for her was 1-11. I just couldn't tell if they actually were good shots and she wasn't on tonight. Other times this season its been the same, she's either cold as ice (and quite frankly should stop shooting), she's over thinking and passing up open shots or players she can manuever to get shots off over or around, or she's taking and forcing very very ugly shots. There's not been many bright spots to her offensive game this season. Which, at the risk of over using a word, is very strange to me, because she was blowing the hell up in Turkey this offseason. That's why I find it so odd that it stayed in Turkey.
 
6th said:
I love watching Kara catch the ball, square herself, and shoot almost all in one motion. Someone had better teach Nicole how to do that. If she dribbles into traffic and loses the ball one more time, I think I shall scream...or something. ;)

We played okay in the first half. Kara was on fire. The post players were playing with gusto. However, we were not valuing the ball and turning it over too much.

In the second half, the Monarchs seemed to be going through the motions for the most part. Yo was benched. Brunson got very little time. I was glad to see them rested. I think Whiz was trying to get Erin and DeMya some good minutes. I also think he was trying to get Nicole some time so she could work out of her funk. Problem is, it did not work.

The one thing that bothered me the most was the lack of effort towards the ball. With Yo and Becka on the bench, no one was charging hard toward the ball. Result: an awful lot of o-boards for the Mercury. They were playing like they had something to prove (which I mentioned in another thread was going to be a strong possiblilty). They wanted to kick the defending champs butt and they did.

In the end, I took great pleasure in yelling at Taurasi (through my TV screen), "But, you are still not going to the playoffs." :p
Click to expand...

Man who wasn't yelling at Taurasi? lol. Did u catch her, "F*** that S*** Man" on the tv? lol haha. I only like Taurasi when she's not playing the Monarchs. I mean lets face it, she's a great shooter. But man, tonight, I was not a fan of hers ahha. I can't tell you how frustrated I was getting with our Defense...I mean Cappie went straight to the basket how many times? The helpside defense disappeared! But hats of for K Law's tremendous first half three's.
 
1kingzfan said:
She did.

Tied for most attempts on the team with 11 and she made exactly 1.

If you really have to call someone out, Walker should be called out for giving up 10 possessions all by herself.
Click to expand...


Nicole's shots were tentative...

She stopped taking shots before. Now it is like she doesn't recognize when she is open. So yeah to her credit she took 11 shots. Unfortunately, she only took about 3 shots that were actually in rhythm. The rest seemed to be forced shots. Or bad shots.

MBF I agree with you on your theory. She has put alot of focus on Defense, and I think it is taking away from her offensive game.

I am very serious when I say that the entire team needs to watch the Better Basketball Videos. I think it is small adjustments that will make the difference.

Did we have a Sholanda sighting tonight at all? I think that is of some concern that we didn't get a look at her. She could prove to be very useful in the play-offs.

We do seem to be having a problem with Boxing out on Rebounds also. All of those Second shots were insane. That did not fly against Phoenix. And it definitely won't fly against Houston.
As for DeMya, she got at least 4 turnovers from traveling calls. I re-watched the game and counted 2 on the baseline, 2 at the top of the key. She usually gets those calls in her favor. I am by no means giving DeMya a pass for 10 turnovers cause, that is wrong on so many levels. But it is not an on going occurrence.


I am frustrated about this on going issue with Nicole. And that is why she needs to be called out. But I am willing to even back off the "Calling out" if you will. How about this....

NICOLE... We need you. We have got to have you be a threat. We will not go very far without your contribution.

Is that fair??? Fine... Whatever gets thru to her. We need both Kara and Nicole to extend the opposing defenses. Then we need to have our defense hold.

They have 2 days to get it together. Hopefully time and preparation with have this team ready for Game 1 in Houston.
 
The announcer tonight said that Nicole was being guarded differently this year from last and that has affected her ability to take shots. She definitely is not in the open as much as last year.
 
Since I turned this into the Nicole Sux thread Let me say...

I have another theory about Nicole.

I would like to start by saying I hate to be wrong.
But maybe… Maybe I have been a little critical of Powell.

I had been basing her development on the progress of her Peers from 2004. I couldn’t understand what the issue was until I began to think about their varied situations.

Rookie Season
Diana Taurasi- She went to Phoenix and basically had the Keys to the Kingdom handed to her. She was allowed to shoot til she dropped. She could make whatever pass she wanted. She could turn the ball over as much as she wanted. Why? Because Phoenix Sucked. Whatever she did it was an improvement to what they had.

Alana Beard- Similar situation to DT except she had a better supporting cast. She got off to a slow start but picked up some steam. They even made a play-off appearance. Again Beard and Taurasi had huge margins for error. So they were able to develop and grow.

Whalen- She was a little different. She didn’t start initially, but she was able to take her time and develop and soon she assumed the starting job.

None of this was the case for Nicole. She sat and languished on the bench. No significant minutes.

We all know the story.

What we forget about is how ordinary (at least by their standards) their sophomore campaigns were. DT was good but she wasn’t as impressive as her rookie year. Beard seemed to have taken a step back not getting back to the play-offs. Whalen seemed Snake Bitten. But she seemed to be having a decent year.

Nicole had the type of year her rookie year should have been. Because in essence it was her rookie year.

So enter into this season. DT, Beard, and Whalen seem to be breaking out, while Nicole seems to have completely lost her form. It took awhile to figure it out. Sophomore Slump. Not unusual. In fact we should have expected it. The Learning curve.

But there are a few differences-
DT and Beard were allowed to go thru their Sophomore growing pains. They could basically shoot with without impunity. No matter how bad it got they would be on the floor. They were still their team’s best option. Not the case for Nicole

She is in a Championship hunt. As she was last year. Nicole never got the luxury of shooting us out of a Ball game. We can’t afford that. If she struggled she sat, and We need her on the floor. She leads the team in minutes players and logged 200 more minutes of game time than the nearest Monarch. (Yo). An entire ball game. Which meant she had to do other things if she wasn’t feeling her shot.

So I kind of understand her reluctance to shoot and miss. She is actually doing better in all of her other stats. So since MBF believes that the Turkish Mojo was good Mojo for Nicole, I put a call in to Fed EX and send for an industrial sized jar of it. Let’s hope it gets here in time.
In the meantime, I guess I need to be patient with my expectations. Turns out she is on schedule after all.
 
Wow!!! This Board is Hard on Nicole Powell

As much as I agree that she and her shot is deperately needed to win the WNBA Championship, I think ya'll (Luv 13 fan) are being way too hard on her. I am not here to offer excuses, but Powell has done some very good things this year. She rebounds very well and defensively she has improved beyond measure. The reason why the Monarchs lost was a 20 plus turnovers and peremeter defense. This team defensively is not the same as last year. And even if Powell would have gone 9-11 from the field, we were not going to win. Because instead of Phoenix scoring 81 they would have scored 91 or 101.

Right now the onus of success begins and ends with Powell, Ticha and whoever the "2" guard is going to be (Maiga-Ba I hope) to shut down:

Swoopes and Thompson in Round 1 either....
Mbeka/Holdsclaw or Lennox/Jackson in Round 2 and.....
whoever comes out of the East. plain and simple.

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE DEFENSE BABY!!! If the wings do their job in defending the three point shot and keeping their player out of the lane, Griffith, Brunson, Bueschler and Walker will defend the post players and the Monarchs will win, but it starts and ends with the White line defense with better peremeter containment.
 
But its perimeter containment we have seen in spurts recently. One other observation from the lost message from the other night, we haven't exactly been stellar in our defense of a star shooter. Beard and Augustus were contained until the defense went missing in the 2nd half and allowed those two to get their games on. Beard especially had been relatively shut down. Maiga-Ba looks to be getting that call on Swoopes. Don't remember off hand who is starting at the 2 guard - if it's not Dixon or Canty, Hodges maybe? If they are going that far down the depth chart then I like our chances only if we can generate some semblance of an offense that does not stop scoring for 5-10 minutes a game. I guess the idea is not to give up 40-60 pts to Swoopes and Thompson, and if we do, do we have the firepower to score more than that ourselves as a 11 player unit? We might if we don't let Snow roll to the basket at will like she was doing.

One other thing I meant to mention re: NBHs comment about bringing Chelsea back. Watching her last night I saw what she did that we miss a little bit this year, last I remember looking up at the stat board @ Conseco, she had 9 freakin' rebounds and I think about 5 assists. The thing that made me a little reminiscent was she she first checked in last night, both she an O-Scott walked from their respective benches to the scorers table at the same time. Talk about old times....
 
Turkish Mojo

This In... JUST FOR MBF

A little Turkish Mojo to Get the wings a little confidence going into the Play-offs.




TurkishMojo.jpg



NICOLEPOWELLTurkey.jpg


And A little reminder of How good the Mojo Feels...

121x109_grab_050908.jpg



Turkish Mojo ***CHEW***​
 
Last edited:
See??? See what I'm sayin'?

It's ON baby....it's ON.

I brought the Powell #14 and am ready to don it for my flight home Thurs. If the combo of the Turkish mojo and the me in the Powell colors doesn't work its magic - nothing can resuscitate it in 2005.

Memo to: Nicole,

You can be a rockstar defender AND score too...

Signed,
Yolanda, Sheryl, Tamika & Alana


On another subject....Why the hell don't we have a slogan for the post season? Not that my superstition is getting in the way, but these ladies need to come up with a slogan like RIGHT NOW.

Until they do...I will quote the sage Missy Mis'demenor Elliott on their behalf...Monarchs Playoffs 2006 "We Run This"
 
I like it MBF...it's got a ring to it! Were gonna need to ''Run This'' like this Thursday..I want that road game. Even thou we have 2 at home if needed, I think Houston will come in thing they can steal 1 especially if they take care of their home court. We are the defending champs & we need to start playing like there's no tomorrow!
 
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