I appreciate your fair reporting on Quinn, Jeff. I agree that the in-game substitutions felt better this one. When Erica was getting tired there at the bottom of the third/top of the fourth, I wish we'd sub in Zia Cooke for a bit to get some defensive stops and drives. Her youth and energy has not been utilized when we have a 35+ aged team. But credit where it's due that Gabby and Ezi played in the big defensive moments, and Dom was in when we needed the scoring, as you said.
I find it hard to hear that meeting Vegas would be better than meeting ATL. While I agree in part and hear what you’re saying, LVA vs SEA in the Hammon v Quinn era has not been great for Storm fans…and LVA are on a ridiculous tear right now AND they got Cheyenne back…for me, it’s MINN (slightly) favorable and LVA & ATL pretty much equally bad match ups for us. We haven’t strung more than 3 wins together this season.
I appreciate you pointing out Noey’s positives. I think tho, she is a major reason we don’t get the whistle. Every…other…winning..coach is in the refs ear. Every one of them, the entire game. And will often get a favorable whistle after they are at them. I specifically see Sandy, Becky, Natalie, Cheryl, Karl, Steph & Nate do it. All playoff teams…. Many of them have players talking to the refs too.
Sky, Erika & Sykes are at the refs but I’m not sure they are (consistently) effective. I never see Ezi, Dom or Nneka (she does sometimes)….and I’ve only seen Gabby really do it out of frustration in the Atlanta game.
We need a more active presence on the bench and on the floor with the refs. Is this our only problem, no, but I do see this as a fixable issue that (from my perspective) we never really addressed aside from one press conference where Noey mentioned it.
+1 thank for reporting on the things Quinn did well. I don’t have a lot of basketball knowledge so it’s been hard for me to gauge criticisms of Quinn I see on social media because I’m not sure what the hallmarks of good/bad coaching are.
Seattle's best matchup was against Minnesota, which I wrote about. With the way Seattle has played this year, none of the series looked great. But I just wanted to lay it out with how each team has been against Seattle. It looks like it's probably going to be Seattle versus Las Vegas again for the third playoff in a row. As hot as Las Vegas is, they'll probably sweep. But that's the fun thing about sports. Unexpected upsets happen all the time.
Yeah I'll second that. I usually don't catch those types of things. It's good to have someone that's coached before to provide that perspective.
As for the game, it's unfortunate that it had to come to this. But at least it was certainly an entertaining game to watch. The roar of the crowd as Wheeler ran away killing the clock was something we haven't heard much this season. Really electric and quite a way to finish the season.
My daughter was even lucky enough to get one of Nneka's signed shoes, along with a picture with her, after the game. That was a really cool moment for her. Moments like that are why I've been taking my family to Storm games for almost 20 years.
I'm not sure what will become of the playoffs. My hope is they play the Lynx, less about strategy and more about how awesome it would be to upset them.
That's awesome that your daughter got one of Nneka's signed shoes! It was quite the performance and ending, especially with so much at stake. It's why we love sports! I tend to think the Lynx would be the Storm's best matchup, even though I still would be a bit surprised if they pulled off the upset.
It's nice to know that Coach Quinn made some good decisions in this game. If we had lost, I was getting ready to blame her again for not putting Dom back in for the last 5 minutes of the game. The win would have been easier if she had. I think she should trust Dom more to finish games well. Now we get to face our nemesis the Vegas Aces again in the playoffs and they're the hottest team in the WNBA now with 16 straight wins. I know that we're capable of beating them. I really hope that they don't wipe us out 2-0. If we can somehow take the first game in Vegas, we could actually pull off the biggest playoff upset ever for us, I believe. Wouldn't that be phenomenal!!
I appreciate your fair reporting on Quinn, Jeff. I agree that the in-game substitutions felt better this one. When Erica was getting tired there at the bottom of the third/top of the fourth, I wish we'd sub in Zia Cooke for a bit to get some defensive stops and drives. Her youth and energy has not been utilized when we have a 35+ aged team. But credit where it's due that Gabby and Ezi played in the big defensive moments, and Dom was in when we needed the scoring, as you said.
I find it hard to hear that meeting Vegas would be better than meeting ATL. While I agree in part and hear what you’re saying, LVA vs SEA in the Hammon v Quinn era has not been great for Storm fans…and LVA are on a ridiculous tear right now AND they got Cheyenne back…for me, it’s MINN (slightly) favorable and LVA & ATL pretty much equally bad match ups for us. We haven’t strung more than 3 wins together this season.
I appreciate you pointing out Noey’s positives. I think tho, she is a major reason we don’t get the whistle. Every…other…winning..coach is in the refs ear. Every one of them, the entire game. And will often get a favorable whistle after they are at them. I specifically see Sandy, Becky, Natalie, Cheryl, Karl, Steph & Nate do it. All playoff teams…. Many of them have players talking to the refs too.
Sky, Erika & Sykes are at the refs but I’m not sure they are (consistently) effective. I never see Ezi, Dom or Nneka (she does sometimes)….and I’ve only seen Gabby really do it out of frustration in the Atlanta game.
We need a more active presence on the bench and on the floor with the refs. Is this our only problem, no, but I do see this as a fixable issue that (from my perspective) we never really addressed aside from one press conference where Noey mentioned it.
+1 thank for reporting on the things Quinn did well. I don’t have a lot of basketball knowledge so it’s been hard for me to gauge criticisms of Quinn I see on social media because I’m not sure what the hallmarks of good/bad coaching are.
Really helpful to have this analysis!
Oy, I for one do not like us @ the 7. I feel like our matchups were better @ 8
Seattle's best matchup was against Minnesota, which I wrote about. With the way Seattle has played this year, none of the series looked great. But I just wanted to lay it out with how each team has been against Seattle. It looks like it's probably going to be Seattle versus Las Vegas again for the third playoff in a row. As hot as Las Vegas is, they'll probably sweep. But that's the fun thing about sports. Unexpected upsets happen all the time.
Yeah I'll second that. I usually don't catch those types of things. It's good to have someone that's coached before to provide that perspective.
As for the game, it's unfortunate that it had to come to this. But at least it was certainly an entertaining game to watch. The roar of the crowd as Wheeler ran away killing the clock was something we haven't heard much this season. Really electric and quite a way to finish the season.
My daughter was even lucky enough to get one of Nneka's signed shoes, along with a picture with her, after the game. That was a really cool moment for her. Moments like that are why I've been taking my family to Storm games for almost 20 years.
I'm not sure what will become of the playoffs. My hope is they play the Lynx, less about strategy and more about how awesome it would be to upset them.
That's awesome that your daughter got one of Nneka's signed shoes! It was quite the performance and ending, especially with so much at stake. It's why we love sports! I tend to think the Lynx would be the Storm's best matchup, even though I still would be a bit surprised if they pulled off the upset.
It's nice to know that Coach Quinn made some good decisions in this game. If we had lost, I was getting ready to blame her again for not putting Dom back in for the last 5 minutes of the game. The win would have been easier if she had. I think she should trust Dom more to finish games well. Now we get to face our nemesis the Vegas Aces again in the playoffs and they're the hottest team in the WNBA now with 16 straight wins. I know that we're capable of beating them. I really hope that they don't wipe us out 2-0. If we can somehow take the first game in Vegas, we could actually pull off the biggest playoff upset ever for us, I believe. Wouldn't that be phenomenal!!