Jeff: A general thought - not specific to last night's game, but something that's been a concern. I wonder - if, now in Year 6 in the W, it's reasonable to assume that Ezi just is who she is, in terms of playing with aggressiveness? She recently commented on how she needs to be more aggressive, but even having that self-awareness just hasn't seemed to move the needle. Do I just need to recalibrate my expectations of the player I think she can be?
As for "being wrong" about Minnesota, cut yourself some slack! Two things that made them so great year were: (1) they ambushed teams, as no one really seemed to expect much from them last year; and (2) the chemistry they had. I think it would have been a quite a leap to expect the same degree of chemistry, and they certainly weren't going to surprise anyone this year.
After such an unbelievably horrible start to this game which was hard to fathom after we handled the Aces so well, at least we fought back to get back in this game. I really thought that we'd both be 4-1 after this game but we did come close. Gabby played incredibly and they keyed on Nneka as you say so she was only half as productive as normal which was hard to compensate for. I hope that we will get to see a lineup that has a frontcourt of Nneka, Ezi and Dom along with Skylar and Gabby in the backcourt - not necessarily the starting lineup although that would be great. I just would really like to see that frontcourt get some run. We're not really going to know how good Dom can be until she gets at least 15 minutes P.T. per game consistently.
Thanks for switching to putting speakers’ names at the beginning of quotes rather than the end, as a reader suggested last game. Really helpful!
Jeff: A general thought - not specific to last night's game, but something that's been a concern. I wonder - if, now in Year 6 in the W, it's reasonable to assume that Ezi just is who she is, in terms of playing with aggressiveness? She recently commented on how she needs to be more aggressive, but even having that self-awareness just hasn't seemed to move the needle. Do I just need to recalibrate my expectations of the player I think she can be?
As for "being wrong" about Minnesota, cut yourself some slack! Two things that made them so great year were: (1) they ambushed teams, as no one really seemed to expect much from them last year; and (2) the chemistry they had. I think it would have been a quite a leap to expect the same degree of chemistry, and they certainly weren't going to surprise anyone this year.
After such an unbelievably horrible start to this game which was hard to fathom after we handled the Aces so well, at least we fought back to get back in this game. I really thought that we'd both be 4-1 after this game but we did come close. Gabby played incredibly and they keyed on Nneka as you say so she was only half as productive as normal which was hard to compensate for. I hope that we will get to see a lineup that has a frontcourt of Nneka, Ezi and Dom along with Skylar and Gabby in the backcourt - not necessarily the starting lineup although that would be great. I just would really like to see that frontcourt get some run. We're not really going to know how good Dom can be until she gets at least 15 minutes P.T. per game consistently.