Quick Three: Storm 77 Sky 68
Seattle's veteran core continues to find their stride and resigns Chicago to back-to-back losses for the first time this season.
If the early games of the Sky season have provided plenty of promise and optimism, Tuesday night’s loss to the newly-assembled Seattle superteam provided a cruel does of reality and an important reminder: (which head coach Teresa Weatherspoon has repeatedly emphasized) this Chicago team is still growing. Yet, even in spite of everything that went wrong tonight, the Sky were still in a five-point game with three minutes remaining after trailing by as much as 19 to Seattle earlier in the fourth. It may become a tired refrain by season’s end, but one thing is still true: this Chicago team, based on the context of the front office, coaching staff and roster, is not supposed to be winning yet. If and when they do win games, the Sky deserve a lot of praise, but there’s no reason to wildly overreact to one challenging loss either. Let’s dive into what the Sky can take away from tonight’s defeat as they look forward to Thursday’s game against the Sparks—which will end this opening three-game homestead.
1. Chicago’s Margin for Error is Thin
The WNBA is a really, really good league. We’ve already seen in the early weeks of the season (including the Sky’s win at Barclays Center) that virtually anyone can beat one of the league’s best teams on a night-to-night basis, but that parity also means that someone, like it or not, has to end up with the short end of the stick when it comes to roster construction. Because of everything that happened this offseason, the Sky—in some aspects—are that team. This Chicago roster is young, determined, athletic and plenty of other intangibles, but one thing we’ve seen they are yet to become is an offensive force. They entered tonight’s game ranked 10th in the league in field goal percentage and, while ranking a solid 7th at the start of play tonight, have not been a particularly efficient three-point shooting team in the early stages of the season (32.4%) either. And if you look at the Sky’s roster, that shouldn’t come as a huge surprise; this doesn’t have the make up of an elite shot-making team. The Sky’s brass, in large part, have made no secret of that—repeatedly emphasizing the team’s desire to build upon their roster’s strengths and compete hard at the defensive end while capitalizing on the transition opportunities that defense creates.
And therein lies the problem tonight. While the Sky were much improved on the glass (37-32 edge in rebounding), the turnovers they committed (21) were simply too many to reasonably overcome—especially for a team that was committing the third fewest turnovers per game (12.3) in the league entering tonight’s game. Other turnover averse teams like Las Vegas (9.5) may have the firepower needed to win even when they do exceed their average, but the Sky simply don’t have that luxury. Perhaps, if they could’ve established a gargantuan edge on the glass or if Marina Mabrey had put together a dominant offensive performance, they might have been able to find a way to win, but neither happened tonight. And even then, the Sky still worked back into the game late before a couple of issues from the team’s previous two losses reared their ugly head.
The first of those was defensive rebounding. The Sky—who had held Seattle to just a single offensive rebound through three quarters—gave up five offensive boards in the final quarter. On those five possessions, the Storm scored 4 times and used the fifth to run down the clock in the final minute. The second was Chicago’s late game efficiency suffering again. Entering the game last in the WNBA in clutch field-goal percentage (23.5%), the Sky forced their way into a clutch scenario with that mid-forth quarter surge but went 0/3 with a turnover on their final four possessions. There’s a lot that goes into those late game struggles, but I imagine Weatherspoon will not be satisfied with each of the aforementioned misses being a three-pointer. Given two of the misses were with more than 90 seconds left in the game, she’d likely have wanted to see her team work to find a better shot—especially considering the last 11 points the Sky did score all came from inside the paint (or from a foul inside the paint).
2. Rotational Question Marks
Through four games I’ve given Weatherspoon nothing but praise, and I’m not planning to start criticizing her after tonight’s loss either. That said, some of the rotational patterns tonight—especially in the third quarter—were a little bit head-scratching. In the three minutes after Lindsay Allen entered following Mabrey’s third foul, the Storm added five points to their lead before Weatherspoon elected to go even smaller with Chennedy Carter replacing DeShields at the 3—making it a true three guard line-up. From there, the gap held steady, but there was obvious problems breaking through Seattle’s defense with Noelle Quinn sending heavy blitzes at Allen and Dana Evans on the perimeter. Without Mabrey on the court and lacking size, the Sky were already at a disadvantage before you consider that the bigs on the court at the time were Brianna Turner and Isabelle Harrison—both of whom have little to no on-court experience with any of the Sky’s players. As a result, even when the Sky did break through the pressure at the point of attack, it felt like the others on court struggled to get into positions where they could be available for Allen and Evans to unload the ball to them, and the offense became extremely stagnant as a result. Weatherspoon eventually added Michaela Onyenwere to the equation for the final two minutes of the quarter—but in place of Turner—not one of the guards. Onyenwere, who had played just 3 of the game’s opening 27 minutes to that point, struggled to establish herself in the rhythm of the game and the lead grew even bigger before the end of the third.
To summarize, the third quarter was chaotic. The Sky used a lot of personnel groups that had never seen the floor together, and the result was a haphazard offensive performance which came while Seattle got a lot of easy looks and ran up a 26-15 edge in the quarter. On one hand, this is a necessary evil as this Sky roster is new and, to find combinations, Weatherspoon has to experiment. On the other hand, this quarter probably represented too much experimenting all at once—especially with Mabrey watching for the majority of it. With her on court as a constant threat, the Sky can get away with a lot more. The opposition will throw blitzes her way, and she’s shown the ability to absorb that pressure and make plays both as a scorer and a passer. But without Mabrey, the Sky don’t have a go-to offensive player on the court that will attract the defense’s attention. The hope is certainly for Evans to be one of those players long term, but to not even have either of Angel Reese or Elizabeth Williams on court for the final six-plus minutes made life extremely difficult—especially against the size and pressure the Storm were applying.
Using a ten (or even eleven—when Cardoso returns) player rotation is feasible in the regular season and possibly even necessary during a chaotic stretch of games like the one Chicago is starting, but the way the Sky went about doing so tonight is unlikely to ever produce optimal results. If Mabrey was sitting strictly because of foul trouble, I can understand the move (though she had just three), but there’s no other reason why running with a rotation like this in the future would be a desired outcome. Simply put, the Sky can afford to take a lot of risks with their best player on the floor that, under any other circumstances, will produce results like tonight’s third quarter.
3. Diamond DeShields Shines on Defense
I’ve been, perhaps, a bit too negative in evaluating the Sky’s performance tonight (again, this is a young team that even on a “bad” night can go toe-to-toe with a team that has title aspirations), but one overwhelming positive was DeShields’ defensive work against Storm guard Jewell Loyd. The Lincolnwood native shot just 6/18 from the floor and 1/4 from three and struggled to get into a rhythm at any point in the game—with none of her signature bursts of several buckets in quick succession. And while I made a lot of the Sky’s options to guard the perimeter before the opener in Dallas, it appears DeShields has quickly captured the lead role with her unique combination of speed, length and determination. If you look around the W (and the NBA — where W teams often draw inspiration), players of DeShields’ physical profile are becomingly increasingly popular as point of attack defenders because of the rise of diverse multi-level scorers who often can’t be stopped by players with the average guard’s size. DeShields is also very principled in her approach to defending in the half-court, and avoids rashly chasing after steals at the risk of quickly racking up fouls (while still managing to get steals—an important balance).
Her offensive performance has been more efficient—she was just 2/8 tonight—in other games, but it still felt like she did a good job of finding her spots. A couple of looks, particularly in transition, looked just a tad rushed, but I still felt like the overall shot selection was reflective of her patience and willingness to attack the basket. Whenever Mabrey is on an “off” scoring night, the Sky will likely rely on DeShields to be that multi-level threat—though the early returns suggest she’ll do more damage in the mid-range and at the basket than from three (1/9). In total, DeShields, like this Sky team as a whole, looks way ahead of where it would be reasonable to expect her to be early in the season—meaning things should only improve as she gains more rhythm and plays her way out of her current minutes restriction.