Disappointing Losses

With 6 minutes to go on Saturday, July 7, you had the feeling that the Sky could beat the Washington Mystics. With 5 minutes to go, you knew the Sky had lost the game. The Sky did look rather blasé as they came out to the court at the beginning of the game. Washington was an important game. The Sky’s next five games are with the conference leading Indiana Fever and Detroit Shock. The Sky just seem to lose focus as the game continued. At one point, the Sky had an 11 point lead. Our free throw percentage was up to 76.9%. Just think a few more free throws and we win the game.

In this game, we also seem to have problems with physical players. Sanford seem to be all over the Sky players on Saturday night. She didn’t score a lot or rebound a lot, but she did a lot of holding, pushing, and playing physically. I also think the refs weren’t focusing on some of the stuff that was going on there, but we could have been doing the same thing and I would have thought that we weren’t fouling.

I did not listen to the Sky Fever game on July 8. From the comments I read on the Sky message board, it was a good thing that I missed the game. The Sky scored only 9 points in the 2nd quarter. We only made 35.4 of our field goal attempts. The Sky didn’t make a field goal for the first 3:19 minutes of the game and the first 5:35 minutes of the second quarter. I expect things like that in a junior high game, not a professional game. The Sky ended up losing big time to the Fever 86-70.

Since the games were local, the online versions of the Chicago Tribune must have covered the game. The Chicago Sun-Times only has the AP articles about the games. Figures that the games we win aren’t covered, and the games we lose are. Here are the articles from the Chicago Tribune.

• For Sky player, father knows best
• Sky fail to hold late lead vs. Mystics
• Rocky start to rough stretch for Sky
• Sky's Dupree added to All-Star roster
  

Here are some other articles of interest:

• Keep the change: Order stays the same in power rankings - (Nancy Lieberman says Coach Bo might need to be considered Coach of the Year).
• Rookie Rankings: June 27, 2007 - Armintie is ranked no. 3.
• Lauren Jackson and Jia Perkins Named Western and Eastern Conference Players of the Week - Perkins is the first player to tally 30+ points and 10+ assists in a single game. 39 points mark the most points scored by a WNBA player this season.
• Sky Re-Signs Cathy Joens
• WNBA Announces Reserves For 2007 All-Star Game
• Preview: Sky (8-10) at Shock (12-5)
• In East, others are more deserving than DeForge, Braxton
• Day In The Life Of Jia Perkins
• Washington 77, Chicago 73
• Indiana 86, Chicago 70