Monarchs game comments for 6/14

[VF21]

GOOD effort by the Monarchs so far. Ron Artest is at the desk along with Jim Kozimor and Krista Blunt, doing another good job of commenting about the game, strategies, etc. And, according to Artest, Cisco is also there, tauting RonRon.

38-24 Monarchs with 2:44 left in the second quarter

GO MONARCHS!!!

 

[VF21]

Now we have Chris Webber on the TV side and Ron Artest on the radio side. Gotta love Webb, who wanted to talk about Ticha instead of touting Center Court.

Gamewise, what a puzzle. Talk about two totally different halves. Hopefully the Monarchs can gather themselves and come back from a 10-point deficit.

Oh boy - Chelsea Newton goes down, smacks her head hard on the court, and is still down.

 

[Rockmeister]

Now we have Chris Webber on the TV side and Ron Artest on the radio side. Gotta love Webb, who wanted to talk about Ticha instead of touting Center Court.

Gamewise, what a puzzle. Talk about two totally different halves.

I don't watch the Monarchs, however, when I was channel surfing I saw C. Webb and decided to watch. One the good side it was nice to see C. Webb, but man, the Monarch's in the 2nd half just stunk. They were 0-15 and just couldn't buy a basket. I don't understand why Coach called a timeout when they were down by 10 points. Or why she decided to put N. Powell in the game when there was like 4 minutes left. Why not put N. Powell in sooner. Oh well, don't know when the next time I might be surfing the net and seeing C. Webb on the tv side, but it sure was nice to see him there.

 

[VF21]

I sure hope Chelsea is okay. That looked like a concussion for sure. And Angela Tsai matter-of-factly announcing "she can't walk" was a real jaw-dropper. Somehow, I don't think that's the word the Monarchs front office would want coming out of a courtside reporter's mouth, especially before any conclusive tests, etc. had been run.

 

[Den-Den]

Random rambling thoughts on tonight's game:

1) The first half just might be the BEST Monarch's basketball I have seen since day #1 of the WNBA. They were clearly much better than LA ever expected them to be. It was pure joy to watch.

2) The second half,,,well, they could not even BUY a basket. I don't think that I have EVER seen the Monarchs go an entire quarter and not score even one basket! Maybe that exhausting road trip finally caught up, Ticha with 4 fouls didn't help, and for too long a period of time our distance shooters were on the bench. Sadly, this really limits our options.

3) I REALLY do not like when Kara is at point. Mind you, I am not dissing her, rather that we loose her as a shooter when she runs point. And we REALLY need her as a shooter. I honestly would rather see Aqua run point and have Kara at the two. At least we can still run plays for our shooters, and that seems to mostly disappear when she is at point. Please, please, Jennie Boo, can you fix this???

4) Prior to the game, I really did not expect the Monarchs to win tonight if I am completely honest. The inside presence of Lisa, Parker & Delisha is an unbelievable talent inside. That we did as well as we did for as long as we did tonight was a wonderful surprise. The team really is improving. We gave LA more than they ever thought, more than anyone in the league has thought that we are capable of. After the first half, everyone knows what we are capable of--including the Monarchs. As the roadtrip showed, they DO have the talent and dogged determination to win games. Just wait until we meet again LA!!!

Finally, and perhaps most importantly--MANY fans at Arco were VERY UPSET when Chelsea went down. There was clearly a problem, yet it took what seemed an eternity to get a wheelchair out to assist trainer Jill. This is not only ridiculous, it is DANGEROUS to our players, and totally unacceptable. I have been to junior high games were a player was injured and they had paramedics, stretchers, ASSISTANCE in a much more timely fashion. What if something more serious had happened--God forbid??? Many in the crowd were shouting for them to get her help, and many made comments that if it had been a King's player down like that, there would have been immediate assistance. I do not remember there being such a time lag in the past--i.e. when DeMya went down last year against LA for example. When Chelsea tried to stand up and collapsed, there should have been an immediate stretcher/wheelchair brought out. NOT the time that it took.

Off my high horse now Mostly, I am proud of the scare that the Monarchs gave the Sparks. That alone was worth the price of admission

Be well Chelsea! We're all pulling for you.

 

[Purple Reign]

Post Game Comment

That was rough!!! The Sparks is a darn good basketball team, particularly on the defensive end.

What I saw was a lack of leadership on the floor when Penechiero was not playing. Lawson and Powell combined for 5 of 23. Particularly Lawson, she was not effective at all. When Ticha was on the bench, Lawson was forced to guard Bobbitt and Brown, and they just abused her. At one time in the third, the Monarchs had a line up of Franklin, Harper, Newton, Williams and Robinson. They were up by 9, went 0 for 4 and committed 3 turnovers and that just changed the entire flow of the game. Leslie, Parker and Milton just clogged up the paint and the rest was history.

 

[6th]

Just to add to what Den-Den said. I was very upset that it took so long to get Chelsea some help. She obviously had a head injury. When she collapsed after standing, it was equally as obvious that the head injury could be serious. Not only did it take forever to get a wheelchair to her, but I want to know why it was not a gurney. Paramedics pushing a wheelchair to help a player (who is very tough) who had had an obvious head injury looked really stupid, and incredibly inept.

 

[hoopsfan]

I would like to thank 6th for taking me to the game tonight, even if I had too much Luigi's pizza to eat my usual amount of garlic fries tonight!

That injury was scary. I hope she recovers quickly and that it's not as bad as it looks like it might be. It was inexcusable how long it took to get any help out there. I couldn't believe it.
Prayers go out for Chelsea's healing.

Nice to see you again Proph.

 

[creative one]

ARG!!!!!! We lost twice tonight. Losing to LA is never good, but we'll get over that. The loss that I'm more concerned with is Chelsea Newton. Her injury didn't look good, especially given her history. I hope she'll be okay enough to rejoin us ASAP, but it looks like one "lucky" member of the inactive list will don the uni

We looked better than we've ever looked in the first half. In the second half, we looked dead tired. The shot selection was awful, and there was no real ball movement that I recall.

If our starting shooting guard has to play back-up point guard for an extended period, then that's not good. The whole point of having a back-up point guard is to free up Kara for perimeter jumpers. When she had to run the point, she struggled. Shannon Bobbitt completely locked her down, and she really didn't have an opportunity to get any easy looks because--if she had penetrated the defense--the twin towers were waiting to swat shots. I was not impressed one iota with Aqua Franklin in either half. She was way too out of control. It's one thing to be fast, but pro point guards have to be able to control tempo and change speeds to keep from losing control. She seemed to be too juiced. She did have a bucket, but she was--for the most part--ineffective.

Bobbitt, on the other hand, was able to corral her tremendous energy for the most part. Not only did she do a much better job of running her team's offense than Franklin did hers, she hit a couple of shots to keep the defense honest and played clamp-down defense on Kara. She really energized LA with that three-pointer late in the third quarter, and it was clear that the game was over with that shot.

I was a little disappointed in Nicole's performance tonight, but we have to keep in mind that she was probably a bit tired from carrying us during the last two games on the road trip. At least she was able to get some looks.

Ticha's shooting continues to impress me. She's shooting off the dribble and hitting shots with ease. Jenny and the staff deserve credit for this vast improvement. In the past, Ticha's off-the-dribble shots would hit the backboard on the other side of the rim.

I'm encouraged by the play of Bek and Harper (just wish she'd make a few more FTs). Kelly gets a mulligan because she was awesome on Thursday night.

 

[Rockmeister]

I sure hope Chelsea is okay. That looked like a concussion for sure. And Angela Tsai matter-of-factly announcing "she can't walk" was a real jaw-dropper. Somehow, I don't think that's the word the Monarchs front office would want coming out of a courtside reporter's mouth, especially before any conclusive tests, etc. had been run.

If Angela Tsai did say that, then why didn't they put her on a stretcher? And I agree, why did it take so long to get a wheelchair out there? I sure hope Chelsea is ok.

 

[Monty'sBiggestFan]

Maybe I'm growing cynical in my advancing age, I just never had a good feeling about the second half of the game being remotely the same as the first half or even good enough to hold on. So when Bobbitt hit her shot to tie the game, that was just something I was waiting to have happen rather than seeing it as a big game changing moment.

I suppose the team will eventually put two solid halves together, but the confluence of things that needed to happen for it to have happened last night - I just never felt it, maybe because it felt like the momentum of the game had started shifting in the second quarter since the Sparks front court started actually scoring. Here was my "oooooh booooy, this doesn't bode well" sequence at the end of the first half...Leslie scores 4 pts on two possession, the Sparks block two shots on the Monarchs' final two possessions and the last block turns into a Sparks layup to close the half.

That they came out in the 2nd half and got jumped out the gate and had no answer offensively to it, or even defensively for that matter became a formality. It felt like the Detroit game. Their being close enough in the 4th to maybe turn it around felt like an illusion because their offense never looked like it could make a run, let alone sustain one.

Would be nice to take advantage of the next two home games before they make another crazy road trip. Unless one or two teams in the conference (besides LA) starts to make a stand, the race for spots 2-4 in the West are wide open and it will be a grind to see who sneaks in and how. The Ms stay around .500 that should be good enough for some spot or another.

Not having seen the broadcast and the context in which Tsai made that comment, I have no idea how she could have matter of factly made any assessment of Chelsea's condition unless she was out there on the floor in the huddle. What I *hope* she meant in saying that was that Newton wasn't in any condition to walk off the floor under her own power - which more than overstated the obvious and added little insight - still bad.

I maybe can understand some of what the trainer might have been thinking while she was out there with Chelsea and figured if she had lost consciousness or otherwise wasn't able to communicate the trainer might have handled it differently. It felt like when they stood Chelsea up and tried to get her back over to the bench, the room was still spinning in full 100 rpm mode instead of 33 1/3 and for some unknown reason that wasn't clear to anybody before they stood her up. Having said that however, what WASN'T clear to me was why she was able to stay on the floor that long without the team doctor coming out as well, it always seemed like if they skinned their knees and it took more than 2 seconds to get back up, Eric Heiden would run out onto the floor.

 

[1kingzfan]

Last night was my first Monarchs game in person this season. Nice to see you, 6th, and sorry I was not the good luck charm I was a few years ago.

Although the second half was god-awful to watch live, I really think M's fans should be encouraged by that stellar first half performance. That 20 minutes was reminiscent of the lockdown defense of our championship team. Sad (but expected) that the Sparks attributed their stinky first half mostly to their back-to-back, and it took them a half to get going, because it was way more than that. I thoroughly enjoyed Parker's consistent denial from getting the ball in the first two quarters (props mostly to Nicole and Chelsea, I believe) and when she did, the M's D swarm prevented her from doing anything whatsoever.

I still question Boucek's subbing patterns, and she had a lousy group in there too long in a key part of the LA comeback.

A few other observations:

Williams-Strong has her miniscule moments, but she is definitely a weak link in the current team. She is just not very good any longer.

Whenever Brunson goes to rest, there is a definite decrease in scoring, rebounding, athleticism, etc, etc on the front line. Harper is not good enouigh yet, but you can see she has potential, despite lacking much athleticism.

Ticha looked very, very good on both ends, and her 4th foul exit had plenty to do with the eventual Sparks comeback and outcome.

Aqua has all the makings to be a fine backup point for many years, and she will learn to settle down with more experience.

Robinson hustled on D, but in general looked like she did not belong in the WNBA last night.

In the end, just too many woeful shooting performances (sound familiar?)as the M's could (understandably) not sustain their upper echelon defensive performance of the first half.

Overall, though, that first half was well worth my price of admission. I loved watching the pressure D up close (MR2) and the physicality of what the M's can bring.

 

[GeorgeofSacramento]

Gallery's up.

http://www.spmsportspage.com/images...Sparks-74-WNBA-06-14-2008/GHY_7574_Game5.html

 

[nancgo]

Yeah, what a great first half. I was secretly wondering how long this team would stick around. But it sure was great to see. Brunson showed that her athleticism was absolutely incredible.

They did come out a little slower in the 2nd half, which was a little disheartening, but honestly, not unexpected. One thing I noticed was that Scho kept trying to shoot against the trees in the post. She did that several times, and it was very frustrating to see.

As far as our shooters, they seemed very hesitant in the 2nd half. While this board is aware of my disdain for the 100 passes before a shot is taken, it seemed like they got caught in that more so in that game. I appreciate Nicole's and Kara's time on the court, but why can't they shake things up and do a catch and shoot sometimes???? Kara catches, does her little pump fake, which everyone already knows she does, then tries to pass. This gives the defender(s) the time they need to move in so her opportunity is now gone.

Yes defense is important, but you still need to get it in the basket to score points. Our main scorers just seem like they've been almost beaten down to the point where they can't commit to shoot. I did like a few of the passes into the paint for Brunson from Kara. But then they kept trying it, and LA adjusted and they became several turnovers.

If they could put 2 halves together with that intensity, I would be so very happy. And I'd be happy even if it were on the road!

I do hope Chelsea is ok. My partner is a retired firefighter-paramedic, and she was beside herself with the time it took for the medics to get to Chelsea. And that they used a wheelchair. Any head injury, regardless of how many she's had, is very critical, and time is of the essence. But again, positive energy is directed to her.

Any bets on who will be activated.......I'd like to see what Charel can do, but I bet it's LaTangela.

 

[creative one]

Any bets on who will be activated.......I'd like to see what Charel can do, but I bet it's LaTangela.

My guess is both.