The results of the MRI on Lauren Jackson’s right knee are in and are negative, which is a positive.
The swelling in Jackson’s knee is still a concern, but in the wake of all the discussion of injuries yesterday and today, it’s worth remembering something Donovan made sure to point out: “Everybody’s got something this time of year, Seattle and other teams.”
Plenty of news at Monday’s afternoon’s relatively light practice session.
- Lauren Jackson sat out the practice and will undergo an MRI on her troublesome right knee.
“Her knee’s been bothering her for quite a while, so it’s a concern,” said Storm Head Coach Anne Donovan. “Everybody’s got something this year, Seattle and other teams.”
Jackson has been experiencing swelling in the back of the knee. The winner of her record-tying fourth Western Conference Player of the Week award, Jackson should know the results of the MRI tomorrow.
- We got an update from Janell Burse on her condition. As we’ve been reporting, because there is no real potential for further damage, the key is how painful Burse’s left wrist becomes.
“If I can just keep my level of pain under control, hopefully I’ll be able to play with it a little bit, but every day that goes it gets a little bit more sore,” she said. “Hopefully I can get a little rest with it when I can and play with it.”
Apparently the pain isn’t quite as bad during games as it is afterwards and off the court. Burse alluded to being woken up during the night by throbbing in her wrist. It will be hard for her to deal with that for an extended period.
“I’m a basketball player, but I’m a person first,” said Burse. “I can only deal with so much as far as pain level goes and how comfortable or uncomfortable I am. Hopefully in these next few days until the end of the season, I can try to do things that make me more comfortable where I’m not in as much pain as I am right now.”
Aside from rest and playing through the pain, Burse’s other options would be putting the wrist in a hard cast to promote healing or having surgery. Surgery would require a 4-6-week recovery and certainly end her season; she wasn’t sure of the timeline with a hard cast, but it probably would be a quicker timeframe than surgery.
- As you may have seen, Doneeka Lewis has been signed for the remainder of the season after the conclusion of her second seven-day contract. WNBA teams can only sign a player to two seven-day contracts.
“She gives us flexibility,” Donovan said. “Should something happen to Sue, T or Betty, she gives us a strong, athletic guard that can step in there.”
- Betty Lennox did not practice, with Donovan opting to give her a day of rest due to fatigue.
The Storm locker room was upbeat after tonight’s win, and with good reason. Back at home, the Storm played an outstanding three quarters of basketball and coasted to a win on a night that will best be remembered for Lauren Jackson’s 4,000th career point.
Talking to Jackson after the game, she again downplayed the importance of the individual accolades but did say she was glad to hit 4,000 in front of the home fans at KeyArena. Jackson has reached 1,000, 3,000 and now 4,000 in Seattle and I’m sure a lot of fans, like me, have seen all three milestones.
If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the page we put together honoring Jackson’s accomplishment.
Janell Burse talked after the game about her wrist. Beforehand, she had said she would try to get through the game and then reevaluate whether she can play despite three torn ligaments in the wrist. I asked her whether she thought after the game she could play onwards and she still wasn’t sure, explaining that at times the pain was not as noticeable but at other times it became severe.
Anne Donovan gave Burse credit for starting the Storm off well at the defensive end with a couple of early blocks, and I have to agree – I might have given Burse short shift by not making a bigger deal of the early swats in Live From Press Row.
Did you know? With tonight’s win and L.A.’s loss, the Storm’s magic number for clinching a playoff berth is just six. More pertinent, in all likelihood, is the battle for playoff positioning. Phoenix pulled out a close game at Chicago thanks to Diana Taurasi’s game-winner, leaving the Storm two games back of the Mercury and Sacramento, tied for second place. The Silver Stars continue to lead the West entering Sunday’s game at KeyArena, up three games on the Storm.
Injuries to Tamika Catchings and Cheryl Ford have muddled the Eastern Conference picture a little. While Detroit and Indiana are still comfortably in first and second, respectively, it’s not inconceivable that the hot Connecticut Sun could sneak into second in the East if Catchings is out a couple more weeks.
It felt strange to see a Seattle Storm practice. It felt strange to see the Storm in person. The last practice I attended was July 2. The next night, the Storm beat Los Angeles at KeyArena. A day later, the team flew to Houston to start a three-game road trip. By the time the Storm was back at home – for just one game and no practices – I was in Las Vegas for the NBA Summer League. Then came the All-Star break and another four-game Storm road trip.
Add it up and it has been over three weeks since I’d seen the Storm.
The talk of the day, naturally, was Lauren Jackson – looking backwards at her 47-point effort on Tuesday in Washington and forwards to her reaching 4,000 career points, which could come as soon as tomorrow night. As long-time Storm fans are aware, Jackson doesn’t play the game for those kind of individual accolades. She noted that despite her big game, she was unhappy in Washington because the team fell short. We’ve known LJ long enough to know that isn’t something she says for the benefit of the media.
Jackson practiced for about an hour during a lengthy Storm session, then got some rest on the sidelines. She isn’t particularly concerned about her right knee, which began to trouble her with some swelling just before the All-Star break. Jackson explained that in Sunday’s game at New York, when she left the game in obvious pain after a fall, it was because she had ruptured the bursa sac in her knee, different from the swelling she has experienced.
Janell Burse practiced regularly with her left wrist wrapped to protect it. Coach Anne Donovan said Burse looked good on the floor. She’s got an MRI on the wrist scheduled for tonight and, barring some problem with the results of the MRI, is expected to play against Indiana.
In other news: If you haven’t already, check out Maurice Brooks’ most recent “Race to the MVP” column in which he all but hands the award to Jackson.
“The gap in the Race to the MVP between Seattle’s Lauren Jackson and the rest of the field was already huge,” wrote Brooks.
“After LJ’s performance on Tuesday night, the only thing left to do is make sure they spell her name correctly on the trophy.”
Then there’s also this little comment:
“Jackson is the greatest female basketball player to ever live. There, I said it. I dare you to prove me wrong. “
WNBA.com also took the Storm’s trip East as an opportunity to ask fan-generated questions of Donovan, Jackson, Sue Bird and Iziane Castro Marques. Of course, you always have the opportunity to “E-mail the Storm” via storm.wnba.com and the 1150 AM KKNW broadcasts.
If you’ve still got more time to spend on WNBA.com, Sue Bird updated her half of the Bird and Dee Blog with a special LJ guest appearance.
Jayda Evans of the Seattle Times blogged this morning that Janell Burse feared she may have broken her wrist and was headed for X-rays today. The Storm got good news when they came back negative. Pending an MRI, the preliminary diagnosis is a sprained left wrist.
The Storm took today off from practice. We’ll probably know more when they return to the court at The Furtado Center tomorrow.
The San Antonio Silver Stars and Seattle Storm, both playing on the road, both went into overtime tonight. The Silver Stars beat Indiana by eight; as you surely know, the Storm lost by one to Washington.
Tonight’s results moved San Antonio, which leads the Western Conference, four games ahead of the fourth-place Storm. The Silver Stars have outscored their opponents by 47 points in 22 games for a +2.1 differential. The Storm has outscored opponents by 68 points in 24 games, a +2.7 differential.
San Antonio is now an insane 9-1 in games decided by single-digits. The Storm is 1-5, the only win coming Sunday when Sue Bird’s three beat New York.
*sigh*
Lauren Jackson’s unbelievable effort tonight qualifies as happier news, despite the outcome. I wrote extensively about the performance in my game recap, which also includes the other top single-game scoring efforts in WNBA history. If we discounted overtimes, Jackson (who had 41 points through regulation) would presumably rank tied for third in WNBA history. Cynthia Cooper has the best two scoring efforts in league history that haven’t involved overtime.
Did you notice that virtually all of the 40-point games the WNBA has seen have been by players on the visiting team?
Because of the early start time, I listened to tonight’s game in the office with my co-workers, and there was some scrambling of plans as Jackson’s points piled up. She entered the game 61 shy of 4,000 in her WNBA career, and we were figuring that meant she would likely need three games to hit 4,000. I downplayed the possibility of Jackson getting there in two games as recently as this afternoon. By the end of the regulation, I was wondering if she might hit 4,000 by the time the game ended.
If you do the math, Jackson now has 3,986 career points, leaving her 14 away from 4,000. She stands an excellent chance of reaching 4,000, so I hope if you don’t already have tickets you’re planning to get them and join us as the Storm celebrates Women of Inspiration in the Seattle community – and one very inspiring woman wearing a No. 15 jersey.
Graham Hays has a neat story on ESPN.com about the improbable path that led former Storm guard Tully Bevilaqua to become the starting point guard for one of the favorites to win the WNBA Championship.
Perhaps Tully Bevilaqua’s globe-traversing odyssey through the world of women’s professional basketball isn’t that terminus on the axis of oddity, but the Indiana Fever point guard neatly summed up just how improbable all that was to come would have seemed if presented as prophecy to her younger self.
“I probably would have said, ‘Oh bugger off, you’re telling some porkie pies,’ ” Bevilaqua laughed.
Sometimes stranger things haven’t happened.
Hays doesn’t even touch on something those outside the Storm camp might not be familiar with – Bevilaqua was close to hanging them up after winning the championship in Seattle in 2004. One of my first questions for Bevilaqua as the Storm was conducting exit interviews two days after the win over Connecticut was whether she planned to return.
Now, Bevilaqua is in her third year as a starter with the Fever, having been named to the All-Defensive First Team each of the last two years, and she’s got another year after this on her deal.
Bevilaqua might just add another championship ring, but that task got more difficult with yesterday’s news that Tamika Catchings will miss 2-3 weeks with a partial tear of her left plantar fascia. Without Catchings, the Fever lost to Chicago last night, allowing Detroit to reclaim first place in the Eastern Conference in the all-important battle for home-court advantage in the probable East Finals matchup.
In that game, the Sky got a big boost from guard Jia Perkins, who scored 17 points off the bench in 25 minutes. Perkins has been incredible for Chicago over the last 10 games, averaging 16.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.2 assists while shooting 54.3% from the field and nearly 60% from downtown.
That makes me think of Chandi Jones. Like Perkins a scoring tweener guard taken in the 2004 Draft, Jones was the comparison I used for Perkins a couple of years ago to explain why the Sky got a steal in the Expansion Draft. While Perkins is now making good on that potential, Jones is out of the league after being cut by Minnesota in training camp. You never know the path young players will take in their development, but it saddens me that Jones’ career has fallen off a cliff since she was the centerpiece of the Lynx’s deal for Katie Smith.
A little less than a month ago, when explanations were being thrown around for why the Storm was under .500 (5-6 on June 22), I thought one reason was conspicuous in its absence from the discussion: defense.
When the Storm fell to the Minnesota Lynx on the 22nd, its Defensive Rating stood at 102.3 points allowed per 100 possessions, ranking the Storm near the bottom of the league on D. 10 games later, the Storm has gone 6-4 despite playing without All-Star Sue Bird for half of those games and the team’s Defensive Rating now stands at 96.8, good for sixth in the WNBA.
This improvement may make more sense graphically. The following chart shows the Storm’s season-to-date Defensive Rating for each game this year (the black bar is 98.2, which is league average).
Starting with the Storm’s June 24 win at L.A., the team’s Defensive Rating has been falling at a pretty consistent rate.
The difference between the Storm’s defense over the first 11 games and the last 10 becomes even more dramatic when you compare the two periods as a whole.
I looked at Defensive Rating as well as Dean Oliver’s “Four Factors of Basketball Success,” which break defense (or offense) down to its base components: shooting (measured by effective field-goal percentage, which values a three as 1.5 field goals), rebounding (measured by defensive rebound percentage), turnover (measured by percentage of possessions that end in turnovers) and free-throw (measured by free-throw attempts per field-goal attempts).
Period DRtg eFG% DR% TO% FT/FG-----------------------------------------First 11 102.3 .529 .723 .160 .228Last 10 90.8 .483 .752 .180 .207
Over the last ten games, Seattle’s defense has played as well as anyone in the WNBA (Indiana, at 90.0, leads the WNBA in Defensive Rating; 90.8 would rank second in the league). The improvement has come across the board – the Storm has cut down its shooting percentage allowed, is grabbing more rebounds, forcing more turnovers and allowing less free throws. Wow.
(Aside: I didn’t realize until looking at these numbers that the Storm is the best team in the league at keeping opponents off the free-throw line.)
Now you might immediately raise an objection: Hasn’t the Storm’s schedule been relatively easy over the last 10 games? Indeed so, and it would be hard to argue that three games against the Holdsclaw-less Sparks haven’t helped. Still, the Storm’s opponents have had an average Offensive Rating of 96.3 – not a big drop from the 98.0 the Storm’s schedule averaged over the first 11 games, and still well above what these teams have done against the Storm.
What’s really surprising is that there isn’t an obvious explanation for the change. Shyra Ely entered the rotation right about the start of the 10-game stretch, and Ely’s length has been an asset on defense. However, Ely is only playing 17.8 minutes per game over the last 10 games. The improvement is way bigger than her.
Throughout training camp and the early part of the season, Anne Donovan kept hammering home the importance of continual defensive improvement. It took a while for that to have an impact on the court, but the Storm seems to have gotten locked in defensively – and moved up the standings in the process.
Lauren Jackson is featured in a profile in this week’s Sports Illustrated by Kelli Anderson. While the general theme – How Lauren Got Her Groove Back – should be familiar to Storm fans, there are still some very interesting tidbits.
She still has two fractures in her left shin. “I don’t know if she got used to the pain or what,” says Storm trainer Kyla McDaniel, “but she hasn’t complained.”
“I still have days,” says Jackson, “but as long as the fractures aren’t getting any worse, I’m not going to let them hold me back anymore. After last season I decided I was either going to play all out in the off-season or not at all. A little practice here, a little practice there was driving me crazy. I couldn’t get in a groove.”
Go give it a read if you haven’t already.
I had hoped to do an update on league stats as of the All-Star break, but things got a little hectic the last couple of days so I’ll have to settle for one game into the second half of the season. With no further ado, the numbers (explanations):
OFFENSIVE RATING
Team ORating ------------------- Phoenix 103.4 Seattle 103.3 Indiana 101.7 Detroit 100.1 Connnecticut 99.5 Washington 98.1 San Antonio 97.6 Sacramento 96.7 Minnesota 96.7 Chicago 96.2 Houston 95.4 Los Angeles 94.3 New York 92.8
Last night’s win was just enough to sneak the Mercury ahead of the Storm’s as the league’s best offense. The Shock and Sun have both surged forward, meaning there isn’t the huge gap between third and fourth place we used to see. San Antonio has already jumped forward, though a lot of that can be credited to Erin Buescher – now lost for the season with a torn ACL.
A team going up also means a team going the opposite direction, and in this case L.A. is the team falling off a cliff. We all know why the Sparks have struggled with Lisa Leslie out and Chamique Holdsclaw having suddenly retired, but the magnitude of that drop-off is pretty incredible. Here is the trend over the various times I’ve calculated L.A.’s Offensive Rating:
June 18: 104.6 (second in the WNBA)
June 24: 101.9 (rank N/A)
July 3: 97.9 (fourth)
July 10: 96.9 (N/A)
July 17: 94.3 (12th)
Updating it about weekly, that’s a precipitous decline of 10 spots and 10 points per 100 possessions.
DEFENSIVE RATING
Team DRating ------------------- Indiana 90.0 Sacramento 91.8 Detroit 93.0 New York 95.5 San Antonio 95.6 Seattle 96.7 Connecticut 99.2 Phoenix 100.5 Washington 100.7 Los Angeles 100.9 Chicago 101.4 Houston 103.7 Minnesota 105.8
Not a lot of big moves in the defensive rankings. The only team to change more than a spot was Chicago, which has dipped to 11th in Defensive Rating. The Sky’s offense isn’t good enough to make the playoffs without improved D.
POINT DIFFERENTIAL
Again, the standings based on expected wins (as calculated from point differential):
WEST ExpW EAST ExpW ------------------ ------------------ Seattle 21.5 Indiana 26.4 Sacramento 21.0 Detroit 23.4 Phoenix 18.9 Connecticut 17.1 San Antonio 18.8 Washington 14.8 Los Angeles 11.7 New York 14.2 Minnesota 11.1 Chicago 12.7 Houston 10.3
On the strength of a few recent blowout wins, the Storm actually has the best point differential in the Western Conference. That’s not always a guarantee of anything – the Storm also had the best differential in the West in 2003, but finished out of the playoffs – but still a good sign. Even if the Silver Stars were healthy, I might predict a fall. Given Buescher’s injury, I’m not sure they can hang on to first place in the West.
The East standings look very different after Indiana and Detroit when differential is used instead of actual record. New York is really third, a full two games up on Washington, but the Mystics have been surging and have the superior point differential. This is one to watch down the stretch.
You are currently browsing the StormTracker blog archives for July, 2007.
StormTracker, the official blog of the Seattle Storm, features daily updates from Storm practices and games as well as overseas updates on players competing during the WNBA offseason.
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