Kathy Goodman: Defense is not enough | The Fabulous Forum | Los Angeles Times

I walked into Key Arena on Wednesday night thinking aboutthe Sparks’ game against the Seattle Storm last Saturday night. The Sparks had given the Storm a scare— forcinga last-minute shot to fall to keep their perfect home record alive, and nowthere was a part of me that wished we hadn’t played that game. Because then they wouldn’t have known that wewere a different team from earlier in the season — they would not have beenprepared for the team we had become. Butwe did play that game, and they were prepared, and the playoffs were startingWednesday night and there was no undoing what had happened.

Key Arena was jammed with Seattle Storm fans, but I couldn’thelp but notice those wearing Sparks jerseys in the crowd. It’s playoff time in the WNBA, and everyone isshowing their colors.  Everyone countedout the Sparks when we opened the season 3-7 and even more so whenCandaceParkerwent down with her shoulder injury and then whenBetty Lennoxhad kneesurgery. And yet, here we are in the postseasonfor the 11 time in 14 seasons. It was not time to start doubtingnow.

There is an old saw in basketball that defense winschampionships, but we all know that, at the end of the day, offense wins games. Keeping the other team from scoring pointsdoesn’t help you unless you score some. At the end of Wednesday night’s game, ourdefense was not enough. We needed someoffense to go with it. As a result, theStorm came away with the win in the first game of the three-game series, 79-66.

In the first round of both 2008 and 2009, we met Seattle inthe playoffs as the lower-seeded team. In each of 2008 and 2009, we succeeded in eliminating them from playoffcontention and moving on. In the sameway that we were not the same team as we were in June, we knew Seattle thisyear was not the team of the past. Theywere undefeated at home, and we knew it would be tough to steal one in Key forGame 1 of the Conference Semi-Finals. Wewere right.

We did a lot of things right in the game. We had eight steals (to Seattle’s four) and limitedour turnovers to 13 (same as Seattle.) Wedid not foul often, so none of our players were in foul trouble, and we limitedSeattle to 12 free throws for the game (of which they made eight). We got almost twice as many offensiverebounds as the Storm (7-4), but at the end of the day, we couldn’t score.

In order to win a WNBA game, you pretty much need threeplayers in double figures, and to add to the burden, in order to win a playoffWNBA game, you almost always need four players in double figures. We could play all the defense we wanted toduring the game, but we only had three Sparks players scoring in double figures(Tina Thompsonwith 16,Marie Ferdinand-Harriswith 18 andKristi Toliverwith 16.) Otherwise, our shot just wasn’t falling. The Storm had four players in double figures:Lauren Jackson(who shot of 6 of 14 for 17 points),Swin Cash(who scoredalmost all of her 20 points in a steal or break, or in the paint), Camille Little(scoring 11 points on 5 of 8shooting) andJana Vesela, who shot a perfect 4 of 4, including three from beyondthe arc.

The Sparks played some great defense in this game forstretches, but once the Storm got out to an early lead, it seemed like we couldnever quite catch up. The 10-pointdeficit we ended the first quarter with was the 10 points we carried throughto the second and third quarter and, although we got it down to six or sevenpoints at various times during the game, we could never quite dig all the way out ofthat first-quarter 10-point ditch. 

We shot just shy of 41% from the field, while the Storm shotclose to 58%. We had more shot attemptsthan Seattle, but we just couldn’t convert. Theirs seemed to go in; ours rolled off the rim. We had more free throws and made a largerpercentage of them (88.6% versus 66/7%), but the only stat that really mattered wasthe final score, and on that we weren’t even close — 79-66.

The good news is that the Sparks are packing up and ready tohead home for the second game in the three-game series at Staples Center atnoon Saturday. If we can get theStorm away from home, we may have a chance. And if we could make a few more baskets along the way, even better!

-- Kathy Goodman, co-owner of the Sparks

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