Storm Week 10: Flashes of Potential

The Storm spent this week on the road and went 1-2, looking great against the Sparks but getting outclassed by Atlanta and losing a close one to the Mystics. This dropped the Storm’s overall record to 6-19, which would give them the 3rd-best lottery odds if the season ended right now (which is their best realistic scenario since they were a playoff team last year). The Storm continue to show flashes of tremendous potential, but they aren’t consistent and their flaws (especially turnovers) are starting to become more obvious as well. 

Congratulations All Star

The biggest news of the week is that Dominique Malonga was named to the All Star team! I thought the 8 games she missed would delay her first All-Star Game until next season, but her highs this season have been super high, and I think that 37 & 12 game against Dallas on national TV probably helped a ton. Everyone already sees her as the future of the league so it’ll be great to see her playing in that game.

(For whatever it’s worth, I thought Alyssa Thomas was snubbed. She’s leading the league in assists while playing great defense from the center position, and that’s who I thought would make the team instead of Dom. Her recent “altercation” with Caitlin Clark probably didn’t do her any favors in the coach’s vote.)

Dom becomes the 3rd-youngest All Star in the history of the W, trailing Lauren Jackson and Liz Cambage.

Monday at LA: Storm blow out Sparks 82-64

Coming off a disappointing loss at home to Portland, the joys of week 8 when the Storm scored 314 points while going 2-1 against playoff teams were starting to fade. However, an injured LA Sparks team was just what the doctor ordered. They’ve been terrible whenever Kelsey Plum is out, and this game was no exception. With Cameron Brink (their only real rim protector) also out, the Storm were able to feast in the paint and they even won the rebounding battle 44-35.

Flau’jae Johnson was the biggest star of this game. She started red-hot and as of the first TV timeout; she had all 13 of the Storm’s points and they led 13-6. It was the most points Flau’jae had scored in any quarter all year, and she did it in just 5 minutes. By the end of the game, Flau’jae had 23 with 5 rebounds and 3 assists and the game was never close.

USA Network showed an amazing stat during their broadcast of this game: the Storm are +0.1 per 100 possessions in Flau’jae’s 621 minutes this season and -23.3 in the 264 when she sits! That draft-night trade to swoop in and grab her when she slid to #8 just keeps looking better and better. She’s still got some efficiency issues (37.5% shooting and 2.3 turnover per game), but those numbers often improve as a player goes from year 1 to year 2.

Meanwhile, her defense and rebounding have both been very pleasant surprises and the result is that positive plus/minus despite the team being outscored by 5.2 points per game overall. Despite being a guard, she somehow leads the entire team in both rebounds and blocks. Dom has more rebounds per game, but Flau’jae has played 24 games to Dom’s 16, and only Dom has her beat on rebounds per game. The same is true for blocks.

The other big star was the Storm defense. Hat tip to Jeff Brown from Storm Chasers for reporting on the team’s deflections leaderboard. The team is apparently locked in competition with each other and looking forward to seeing it after every game. Sonia wants this team to play great defense, force turnovers, and then get out and run. The team led 11-0 on fast break points at the half, fueling their 48-37 lead just the way the coach drew it up. The Storm then held LA to 8 points in the 3rd quarter (while scoring 20) and by the end of the game the Storm had 14 steals and 25 points off of them. Can we play the Sparks every game?

Other highlights of this game included Katie Lou Samuelson hitting a season-high 3 3-pointers. She hasn’t looked great to me this season on either end of the floor, but it’s still possible she’ll improve as she finishes recovery from her knee injury. Meanwhile Jordan Horston had 3 steals in her 17 minutes and seems to be back to the level she was at before her recent foot injury. She’ll need to improve a bit on offense if she wants to start for this team long-term and turn the current core of 3 young up-and-coming stars into a core 4, but she’s already established a clear role for herself in the rotation as at least a defensive stopper.

Thursday: Too many turnover doom Storm against Atlanta

The two biggest ongoing problems for the Storm this season have been turnovers and rebounding. In this one, they held their own on the glass and even had an early lead when they were ahead on rebounds, but 23 turnovers—including 15 in the first half when the game was still in doubt—dug them a hole they could never climb out of. Some of the credit has to go to Atlanta’s defense, which created 14 steals, but ball security is an issue the Storm are going to have to get much better at before the end of this rebuild.

The most consequential thing to happen in this game came late in the second quarter when Ezi Magbegor was fighting for a rebound and took an elbow to her face from Madina Okot. Her nose looked off-center to me when they showed her on the bench, and she never returned to the game. We learned a few days later that she is out with a facial fracture and will be re-evaluated in “the next couple of weeks.” Ezi had only been back from her off-season foot injury for 4 games, and was still on a minutes limit, so this is all very unfortunate for her.

I still think the Storm need to figure out whether they can play their 3 star bigs at the same time, but I do think it makes sense for them to just let her heal for a few weeks rather than having her try to play sooner while wearing a mask.

Sunday: Storm drop another close one to the Mystics

It was quite the first quarter from Natisha Hiedeman: 11 points, 2 assists, and 2 steals. I remember reporting over a month ago that she set her career record for consecutive games with double digit points with 5. She hasn’t missed that mark in the 10 (now 11) games since then either. Her 18 points were her highest scoring half of her career.

The Mystics are #1 in the W at drawing fouls. Their basic game plan is to force the ball inside, either with drives or passes, rebound well, and draw fouls. By halftime they had drawn 17.

Dom only got about a minute of playing time in the second quarter before she picked up her 3rd. Jordan and Stef Dolson also picked up 3 and as a result. With Ezi hurt, Mackenzie Holmes was called upon for non-blowout minutes for the first time in about a month. She also got whistled twice for fouls as well, but the good news is she had 3 rebounds and great energy, helping the Storm to an 8-1 closing kick to the half that left them leading 45-40 at intermission.

T stayed hot in the 3rd and quickly had her 8th 20-point game of the season. She had 1 in the first 229 games of her career, but is really taking advantage of the increased playing time she knew she would get when she decided to come to the Storm. By the end of the quarter, T had a new career high with 27 and ultimately wound up with 31. The Storm were up 68-64 despite no one else scoring in double figures and Dom picking up her 4th foul.

The Storm have been bad in close games this season. They were 1-7 in clutch games coming in, and this one was ugly. The Storm led basically the whole game, and were up 6 with about 7 minutes left. Seven crunch-time turnovers were the biggest problem. The Mystics scored 24 points off the Storm’s 20 turnovers in the game.

Dom did set a career high with 15 rebounds, but she only got to play 22 minutes due to her foul trouble and never seemed to get comfortable on offense, scoring just 10 points. The Storm simply did not make enough winning plays down the stretch, and wound up losing 84-79.

Player of the week

It’s tempting to give this to Dom for making the All Star Game, and I loved the 33 rebounds she had in this week’s 3 games, but she struggled on the offensive end, putting up just 9 points per game on 34% shooting.

Flau’jae was great in the one game they won, but Natisha Hiedeman is my choice this week. She’s been remarkably consistent all season. With her first-ever 30-point game on Sunday, she actually passed Dom for the team lead in points per game, and she’s been leading the team in assists all season long. This week, she put up 66 points on 52% shooting with 14 rebounds, 10 assists, and 6 steals as well. I still don’t know if she fits into the team’s long-term plans, but she has done a great job taking advantage of the opportunity to audition for some future contender, whether that winds up being us or someone else.

Next week

The Storm wind up their 5-game road trip with a very winnable game at Chicago on Wednesday, followed by a game against the Fever on Friday.