Post#7 » by ellobo » Sat May 4, 2024 5:52 pm
Fever-Wings as a really good game. It felt more like a regular season game than preseason. Dallas players celebrated Arike Ogunbowale's game winner like the game meant something, and that's how the whole game was played.
Among the rookies, Caitlin Clark played well, and did a lot of things she did in college: On the positive side, deep threes and some great passes. On the negative side, careless turnovers (5 in 28 minutes), and lack of intermediate game (she got blocked driving the ball into a big on a key late game possession, where she could have taken an 8 foot pullup or floater.
When she played off the ball, Erica Wheeler in particular seemed to be really looking to set her up and get her the ball. Dallas often had a defender hugging her off the ball 10 feet behind the three point line. But Indiana didn't seem to have prepared any actions to get Clark free, and seemed very tentative about just attacking 4 on 4.
When Clark played on the ball, she didn't seem in good synch with her teammates. Players didn't roll hard after setting or slipping ball screens (no one really looked to slip a screen and roll at all), no one was really cutting to the basket or moving to an open spot. They treated her like they were just expecting her to shoot every time. And when she did set teammates up, there were several missed layups. The anticipated chemistry with Aliyah Boston (who looked very lethargic) wasn't there.
For the Wings, Jacy Sheldon was efficient shooting and played good defense, but had 3 turnovers in limited minutes. Jaelyn Brown, who is on a training camp contract after being undrafted out of Cal in 2020, and played the last few years overseas, started, played 30 minutes and had a really nice game.
It was a tight, competitive game throughout, and then Arike Ogunbowale did her thing in the fourth quarter, including the game winning three.
Just because it happened to you, doesn't make it interesting.
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