Rough September Pays Off for Storm in Game 1
There is a story that involves the famous artist Pablo Picasso eating at a Parisian café. It takes several forms, but generally goes like this: Picasso is approached by a woman, who asks him to sketch something on her napkin and tells him she'll pay whatever he thinks the drawing is worth. After quickly sketching, Picasso tells her the drawing is worth some number in the thousands.
 Lauren Jackson and Tully Bevilaqua celebrate the Storm's Game 1 win. David Sherman/NBAE/Getty |
"It took me a lifetime to learn how to draw that sketch," replies Picasso.
What does that have to do with the Seattle Storm's 70-58 victory over the Minnesota Lynx Saturday to take a 1-0 lead in the teams' Western Conference Semifinals series? Nothing. And everything.
A casual fan might note that it took the Storm only two hours to take such a commanding lead in the series (each of the next two games, if necessary, will be played at KeyArena; only one of the 18 WNBA teams who has faced that scenario as the lower seed has come back to win the series, and 12 of the 18 have ended up sweeps). On a technical level, that might be accurate. But, like Picasso, the Storm needed to learn how to do what they did on Saturday before being able to do it.
That learning was two-fold. Most obviously, the Storm had to learn how to play in the playoffs. Two years ago, the Storm went into its series with the Los Angeles Sparks feeling confident after having taken the regular-season series 2-1 from the Sparks, including a 79-60 win in Seattle. It wasn't the same Sparks team the Storm faced in the playoffs, as a veteran Los Angeles squad en route to an undefeated 6-0 playoff run turned up its performance to 11 to sweep the Storm.
On Saturday, the Storm was the veteran squad, and it was the team that turned up its level as a Minnesota team that was competitive with the Storm during the regular season struggled to keep up.
"I think we did that, and I don't think Minnesota was prepared for it," said Storm Coach Anne Donovan after Sunday's practice. "The good thing is, in some of our meetings, the players identified that from when they were in the playoffs two years ago. They recognized that, having beaten L.A. in the regular season, it was a totally different team in the postseason. They've experienced that."
In addition to learning how to play in the playoffs, the Storm had to learn how to play without Lauren Jackson. By the game's first full timeout, Jackson was on the bench with three fouls, and she would stay seated there the remainder of the first half. Minnesota initially took advantage of Jackson's absence, reeling off a 13-0 run to take the lead, but the Storm closed the first half with a 16-2 run to go to the locker room leading by eight and full of confidence.
A season where the Storm's secondary options struggled at time to support Jackson, Sue Bird and Betty Lennox paid off Saturday, as did the team's 0-3 performance earlier this season when Jackson was on the injured list and in Australia, paying her last respects to her ailing grandmother. For that matter, so did the team's 3-3 performance the rest of September, which some observers took as a sign the Storm was going into the playoffs on a down note, but turned out to be the opposite.
"I've said it all along - September was rough, we didn't win as many games as we wanted to win, but we learned a ton of lessons that I think prepared us for the playoffs," said Donovan. "That was evident (Saturday)."
It was more than just one or two players stepping up.
"If I was surprised about anything, it was that every one of our players raised their level (Saturday)," Donovan said. "Every one. All the way down to (Michelle) Greco, who had just one minute of time. That's pretty impressive."
The Storm got arguably the best game of the season from forward Sheri Sam, who recorded the first double-double in Storm playoff history (11 points, 10 rebounds), was three assists short of the first playoff triple-double in WNBA history and held Minnesota forward Svetlana Abrosimova to 3-for-10 shooting. Betty Lennox had eights points in the first half and hit a pair of three-pointers before leaving for good with concussion-like symptoms and neck pain (she will play tonight). And you couldn't possibly say enough about the production of the Storm's reserves.
 Teresa Edwards and backcourt-mate Helen Darling will need to play better for the Lynx. David Sherman/NBAE/Getty |
All six members of the Storm's bench saw action and scored. Janell Burse had six points, five rebounds and three blocks. Alicia Thompson picked up for the absent Lennox with six points. Adia Barnes played outstanding defense. Tully Bevilaqua hit a backbreaking three late in the game. Simone Edwards had four key points in 10 minutes replacing Jackson. Greco scored the Storm's last bucket of the first half, putting the team up eight.
With a few exceptions - post and transition defense, notably - everything went according to Donovan's plan. As a result, she wonders what changes Minnesota Coach Suzie McConnell Serio can make before tonight's Game 2 at KeyArena (tickets) besides expecting the Storm to come back down from its high level.
"I think what they had been successful with in the past was really trapping us, and we didn't always handle that very well," Donovan said. But we handled it well yesterday, with very few exceptions. My thought is she'll probably coming at us harder with traps … I just don't know, honestly.
"I would think she thinks we can't play that well again, and we can and we will."
The quick turnaround before Game 2 won't help McConnell Serio's efforts. Both teams flew to Seattle from Minneapolis Saturday night and had time for one practice yesterday afternoon before gameday rolled around.
Donovan speculated that Minnesota could take advantage of having the pressure off, with many experts counting them out of the series. McConnell Serio, who was honored as the WNBA's Coach of the Year before Saturday's game, sounded a similar tune post-game Saturday.
"We're going to go into Seattle with a nothing-to-lose mentality," McConnell Serio said.
In order to stay alive, the Lynx will almost certainly need to get better play from their guards. Helen Darling and Teresa Edwards combined for 16.3 points and 9.0 assists per game against the Storm in the regular season. Saturday, they combined for eight points (on 2-for-11 shooting), two assists and eight turnovers. Given that Darling was bothered by flu-like symptoms and Edwards is one of the league's most experienced players (and, at 40, its oldest), they are sure to up their level of play tonight.
Still, the Storm feels ready.
"We're starting to peak at the right time," said Jackson. "A lot of teams peaked a little early, but we didn’t really get back together until I got back from Australia. It's been a tough couple of weeks for us as a team, but I think we're starting to come together at the right time."
"This was great," said season ticket-holder Diane Nuckle. "People were into it and cheering and yelling, 'Go Storm!' It was just really great. It was nice to share it with all the Storm fans."
Afterwards, the Storm staff invited fans to join them in welcoming the team back from Minneapolis at about midnight, and over 30 fans showed up and shared hugs and high fives with the team when it returned.
