Welcome to the Basketball Hangover. We jot down NBA and WNBA stuff mostly from last night that we want to talk about. Check it out.
The Seattle Storm are 9-1 in the Wubble.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Chris O’Meara/AP.)
I had mentioned here that the Las Vegas Aces had been hot. They had won 6 in a row. But there is one team that is hotter than the Aces.
Whaddup, 2018 WNBA champs? The Seattle Storm mean business.
They destroyed the Dallas Wings on Friday. Their lead peaked at 29 in the fourth quarter. It looked so bad that this was happening:
they just want a challenge lmfao pic.twitter.com/9XE9acAodE
— Matt Ellentuck (@mellentuck) August 15, 2020
And in their game before, they destroyed the Atlanta Dream with a league record-tying 18 three-pointers. They led by as many as 43 points in that game and it ended with a 37-point margin. The Storm also handled the very good Chicago Sky and won by 18 points.
As I’ve said before, they properly couldn’t defend the title because Breanna Stewart and Sue Bird sat out last season. Now Breanna seems to be better than ever, which is remarkable in itself because she’s coming off a torn Achilles. Sue hasn’t been as healthy but they have Jordin Canada starting for her when she’s sitting out. And Canada can easily be a starter anywhere else.
They still have their other core members in Alysha Clark, Jewell Loyd, and Mercedes Russell. Sami Whitcomb is actually shooting the lights out this season and is averaging a career-best 9.5 points per off the bench. And their first round pick, Ezi Magbegor, is having a solid rookie season off the bench.
Their biggest worry right now is Natasha Howard, who had a career season last year with Stewie and Sue out. She was the Most Improved Player when the team won the championship in ’18 and was the Defensive Player of the Year in ’19. But this season, her numbers are not great. Her scoring dropped off from 18.1 last year to just 4.7. She’s not playing as many minutes because she hasn’t been as productive. Luckily for them, the Storm are an extremely deep team. And if Natasha gets going, Seattle might be invincible.
Here’s an easier way to see how dominant the Storm have been. Offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) and defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possesions) are tops in the league.
(Data from Basketball Reference.)
We’re about to be halfway through the shortened WNBA campaign. Right now, the Storm are looking like favorites to win it all. But hey, they haven’t played the aforementioned Aces yet. THAT will be the litmus test come next week when they face each other.
Bullet Passes
What a gutsy win by the Connecticut Sun over the Chicago Sky. The Sky were cutting down the deficit before (look below for the play) Alyssa Thomas (that incredibly strong lady with two torn labrums) stole the ball from Courtney Vandersloot in a close game. The Sun have won three straight and four of the last five to get their record to a respectable 4-6. Every win is important!
Bria Hartley continues her magical run with her new team, the Phoenix Mercury, as she poured in 24 points in a runaway win against the Atlanta Dream (who won’t have Chennedy Carter for around two weeks). Hartley leads the star-laden Mercury in scoring at 17.1 points per and she is definitely a candidate for Sixth Woman of the Year.
While this game didn’t mean much in the standings, Stanley Johnson has had a bit of a run. He made a clutch shot against Philadelphia on Wednesday. Then he scored 23 points in a win against Denver on Friday. Just something to keep an eye on.
Not that it matters much in this campaign where there are no home courts but the Pacers win put them as the #4 seed.
It doesn’t matter here, either, but the Rockets get the #4 seed because they won their division. But the Thunder would have home court advantage even as a lower #5 seed because they won the head-to-head match-ups. This is so confusing.
I forgot to put this but the Grizzlies did a first in their franchise on Thursday.
DOUBLE BUBBLE TRIPLE-DOUBLES. Props to Ja Morant and Jonas Valanciunas. That was Ja’s second career trip-dub and Jonas’s first.
It was a bit weird for the starters to EVEN PLAY in that Sixers/Rockets game. Anyway, everyone is healthy so we can all move on.
Rodney McGruder and Amir Coffey of the Clippers played over 50 minutes in that overtime game against the Thunder. Terence Mann missed a triple-double with 25-14-9. On another note, Dennis Schroder has returned after a two-week absence as he went back home to see the birth of his child.
We have the play-in game later on today at 2:30 PM ET/11:30 AM PT between the Portland Trailblazers and the Memphis Grizzlies! The Blazers only have to win one game to advance while the 9th seed Grizz have to win TWICE to move on. Winner gets a chance to be crushed by the Lakers. I’M KIDDING.
NBA Scoreboard
DEN 109 (46-27) v TOR 117 (53-19)
MIA 92 (44-29) v IND 109 (45-28)
OKC 103 (44-28) v LAC 107 (49-23)
PHI 134 (43-30) v HOU 96 (44-28)
Double U Scoreboard
CON 77 (4-6) v CHI 74 (6-4)
SEA 83 (9-1) v DAL 65 (3-7)
ATL 80 (2-8) v PHX 96 (6-4)
Watch This Play
The rough-and-tumble Alyssa Thomas had a clutch steal after being knocked down in the closing minute of this game.
here’s the best way to describe how important alyssa thomas is to winning games in one tweet pic.twitter.com/p2tezn7w84
— Matt Ellentuck (@mellentuck) August 15, 2020
This would lead to a Brionna Jones lay-up that would put the Sun up three. The Sun would eventually win the game as we mentioned earlier.
Everyone in the bubble and wubble, please take care!
Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
TNLP on FaceBook.