Storm Week 9: Heavy Legs and Hard Lessons

It was a bit of a disappointing week for the Storm. Coming off a week where they went 2-1 against 3 playoffs teams, the Storm dropped both their games to fellow lottery-bound squads. Phoenix might just be a bad matchup for the Storm, but the rivalry game at home against Portland was one they could have, maybe even should have won. The biggest news this week was the season debut of Ezi Magbegor. The team’s highest-paid player came off the bench in both games, easing into her season with 17 and 14 minutes of playing time. Jordan Horston also returned after missing 5 games with a foot injury so the Storm were fully healthy for the first time. However, integrating those two players back into the rotation may have contributed to some of the clunkiness on offense. The defense was better this week, surrendering just 83.5 points on average, but after a week where they scored 104.7 points per game they managed just 69.5.

Thursday – Storm blown out by Mercury

Rebounding has been a problem for the Storm all season, and the Mercury had 10 offensive rebounds by the middle of the second quarter. Not surprisingly, all those second chances added up to a massive lead (43-24 mid-Q2, which turned into 55-36 by halftime). In addition, Kahleah Copper pretty much bossed the game. She used her size and athleticism to take advantage of our guards, especially in the paint where both drives and post-ups fueled her to 23 points by halftime. Her 16 second-quarter points were as many as the entire Storm team.

The Storm did cut the lead a bit in the 3rd quarter, but it never got close. Ezi managed to hit both her 3-point attempts and scored 8 in her season debut. However, she had zero rebounds in 17 minutes. Awa continued to stay hot from the field, going 6 for 8 for a team-high 13 points, but Dom was only 2 for 11 (mostly because Alyssa Thomas is really good, especially at defense). The final score was 90-67 and that seemed fair. The Mercury may only be 8-13 on the season, but they have looked every bit the contender they were last year in their two games against the Storm.

Saturday – Storm fall to 0-2 in renewed Rivalry Series against Portland

There were times in this game where you could see the vision: the Storm had a season-high 14 steals, and they used them to get out and run. The combination of stellar defense and transition offense fueled a 20-10 lead after the first quarter. In addition, you could see Dominique Malonga asserting herself in the 4th quarter to the tune of 15 points. Portland could not prevent her from getting to the rim, and she even threw in a couple of 3-pointers late when things got desperate.

However, the two quarters in between were quite bad and the Storm’s biggest problem all season reared its head once again: rebounding. Portland had a franchise record 47 rebounds while the Storm pulled down just 31. Both teams shot the ball badly, but when one team gets an extra 16 possessions it’s going to be really hard to win the game. All those steals made up for some of that, but not enough. In addition, Dom got into foul trouble and wound up playing just 18 minutes in the game (including just 42 seconds in the 2nd quarter, which the Storm lost 22-10).

Player of the Week

I’m not going to give anyone the nod as player of the week this week. No one looked good. Natisha Hiedeman led the team in points for the week, but she also had 8 turnovers and managed a plus-minus of -29 against Phoenix. Dom looked good in the one quarter she actually got to play against Portland, but was -21 with just 5 total points (on 2 for 11 shooting) against Phoenix. Awa finally started missing shots against Portland – going 4 for 16 on the game. Flau’jae missed all 5 of her shots against Portland and scored just 1 point (though to her credit she did find other ways to contribute with 8 rebounds and 3 assists).

Roster Update

A week that began with excitement about getting Ezi and Jordan back ended much more soberly and I can’t help but wonder what the rotation is going to look like going forward. We saw zero minutes with Dom, Awa, and Ezi all on the floor at the same time, which, fair enough, with Ezi on a minutes restriction for her first games back that seems totally reasonable. However, what should their playing time be once Ezi has ramped up to full strength? There are only 40 minutes of playing time available for each position on the floor. If those 3 players are limited to playing the 4 or the 5, then they are limited to 80 minutes between them. And that assumes Sonia stops giving any minutes at all to Stephanie Dolson (who played 12 minutes and then 8 minutes in the two games this week). If Steph plays 10 minutes a game then arguably our 3 best players can only play, for example, 25 minutes, 25 minutes, and 20 minutes. Even if you drop Steph to zero is 28, 28, and 24 enough? It seems to me like you’d want them to play 28-32+ minutes each. Of course, that’s only possible if you play all 3 together for some number of minutes, or if you trade one to another team.

If I were in charge, I’d be on the phone with Toronto. They tried to sign a center in the off-season, but failed when the Mystics matched their max offer for Shakira Austin. Their coach is Australian National team coach Sandy Brondello, who knows how good Ezi is when she’s healthy. Once Ezi finishes proving that she is healthy, I’d offer her to Toronto for Kiki Rice (the UCLA point guard they drafted #6 overall in the most recent draft). Toronto is trying to make the playoffs right now and Rice has a Grade 3 left ankle sprain (which is the most severe grade and often takes several months to recover from). We’re a guard short, they’re a big short. We can afford to wait for Kiki to get healthy, they would like to win now. I think it’s a legitimately win-win trade. I love Ezi, and I also think she’s very good at basketball, but if we aren’t going to play all 3 bigs at the same time then we’re going to have to trade one of them at some point. The off-season seems like the more likely time, but the fit with Ezi in Toronto might be good enough to swing something sooner rather than later.

Next Week

The Storm kick off a 5-game road trip next week. The first game is in Los Angeles against the Sparks, who have been struggling lately with Kelsey Plum hurt for a month. They then head east to take on Atlanta on Thursday followed by the Mystics on Sunday.