Sparks shoot lights out ... And lose again

[MilfordHusky]

94-80 to San Antonio.

No defense. Minnesota is opening their lead.

http://scores.espn.go.com/wnba/boxscore?gameId=320628017

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

94-80 to San Antonio.

No defense. Minnesota is opening their lead.

http://scores.espn.go.com/wnba/boxscore?gameId=320628017

San Antonio is on a nice run. A very well coached team.

Almost no defense on LA. Look at the +/-. April Sykes +16, Coleman +8, everyone else sort of revoltingly on the minus side. RU alums do know how to play defense, Coleman not so sure.

 

[EricLA]

What's wrong with LA? they had a big start but are on a bit of a losing streak. parker seems to be 100% now so what gives?

 

[MilfordHusky]

Eric, lack of defense is one obvious problem. Tolliver can score, but she and Beard were unable to even slow down Ivory Latta and Riquana Williams the other night. Nneka and Candace are good defenders, I think, but S.A. put up 94!

 

[Scotter]

It's still a poorly constructed team. They had a soft early schedule, which artificially inflated some people's perception of the Sparks. Basically the inverse of how people reacted to the Storm's early season struggles.

After several years of struggling because of it even taking into account injuries they are still running out three power forwards in the starting lineup in conjunction with undisciplined guard play. You can play 3 power forwards together, but you better have great guard from your two guards play like UConn did when they played that way.

They lost their backup point guard to an ACL, but even before that they were clueless about guard play. They began the season starting Alana Beard as the point guard with a non-ballhandler in Marisa Coleman playing out of position at shooting guard. All those players playing out of position contributes to poor defense as well. Eventually the ridiculousness of that gave way, rather quickly to Tolliver starting at the point. That's far from a winning solution for the long term though. Classic example of a team that's just collected talent over the last few years with no regard to how the pieces fit.

 

[speedoo]

San Antonio is on a nice run. A very well coached team.

Almost no defense on LA. Look at the +/-. April Sykes +16, Coleman +8, everyone else sort of revoltingly on the minus side. RU alums do know how to play defense, Coleman not so sure.

Coleman is not a good defender, similar to her former team mate Langhorne, and her former and current team mate Tolliver.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Coleman is not a good defender, similar to her former team mate Langhorne, and her former and current team mate Tolliver.

Brenda gets defensive when you point out Maryland's lack of defense.

 

[speedoo]

Brenda gets defensive when you point out Maryland's lack of defense.

Sorry, but "Brenda" and "defensive" in the same sentence constitutes an oxymoron. Or something like that.

 

[Icebear]

Nice to see others saying what I have said about MD for years. No defensive fundamentals seem to be taught there and it shows.

 

[VAUConnFan]

It is very easy to cite lack of defense, but these are professional basketball players. Last year's championship series between Minnesota and Atlanta was very high scoring on both sides; And no one can accuse either team of not playing defense. It would seem much easier and much more feasible to cite highly skilled offensive players as the reason why San Antonio was able to post such gaudy numbers on LA. It can be cited as the reason for any professional basketball team for that much. These guys are good.

As for defense. How is Coach Frese still responsible for the lack of defensive abilities of her former players when they have been professionals for a number of years under the tutelage of professional coaches? One would think that if these players had weaknesses due to a lack of coaching at the college level, these weaknesses should be correctable at the next level. Since, allegedly, the players mentioned are still defensive liabilities, it would indicate that these ballplayers lack the requisite skills such as quickness and anticipation to become better defenders.
It was a long time into Coach Auriemma's tenure at UConn before his teams became defensive stalwarts. Was it because he did not know how to coach defense or was it because better players came into the program? Even some of Coach Auriemma's better teams found themselves incapable of stopping very gifted teams.

 

[Icebear]

Cuz they never learned the fundamentals or bought into it being important.

 

[TheTruthBelow]

No one will ever accuse Sue Bird or Diana Taurasi of being defensive standouts. In fact, Agler tries to hide Bird on defense as much as possible game in and game out.

 

[TheTruthBelow]

As for the Sparks, they're a good but not great team. Clearly they need a better alternative than Milton-Jones at small forward, but the rest of the starting five is very good. Toliver, though probably best suited as a 2-guard who does a lot of playmaking (a la Becky Hammon), is better than most starting point guards; Beard, physically, looks fine; and Ogwumike and Parker make up the best post duo in the league.