RebKell's Junkie Boards

[zune69]

[toad455]

Sugar & Prince on the court together needs to happen from here on out. No double teaming.

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LET'S GO LIBERTY!!!!!!

Twitter: @TBRBWAY

[toad455]

Liberty only played well in the second half. They need to get their act together, we're falling fast.

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LET'S GO LIBERTY!!!!!!

Twitter: @TBRBWAY

[NYL_WNBA_FAN]

Plus side is with Sugar out there we are clearly faster. Her presence also opens the floor for everyone else. I'm not down with blaming the slide on the returns of Piph and Kia. In some of those wins Stokes was a dominant force. Now she's a non-factor again. To lose Sugar and Boyd, that's also a large portion of our speed. Plodding our way through these last two games was how it went till Sugar gave us life.

If we can ever get Piph, Sugar and Z out there simultaneously I think our offense is pretty potent. But now we are trending toward Stokes playing fewer minutes. While it's understandable, as Kiah is not earning minutes, it leaves our paint defense ordinary and our rebounding just decent. And you know what we are if our paint performance is ordinary? We're a .500 team in that scenario, folks, maybe 18 or 19 wins. That's it. It's not a complicated formula. We regularly struggle to rebound and we regularly struggle to defend the paint. When you struggle to do what you're built on, well then what? And even if we weren't built from the paint out, you need rim protectors. And if Stokes isn't that player this year, well let's be honest. We don't have another one.

In the meantime, we'll outscore some teams. And on paper we match up well to Indy and Chicago, neither of whom we've played yet. But I'm not optimistic from the defensive side though, overall. Disappointing because I figured Kiah had turned the corner in June. It's just so hard to explain the peaks and valleys in her performance. You gotta wonder if something else is physically not right with her or something. Or is it just recurrence of the early season stuff? Who knows?

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The poster formerly known as LibWNBAFan.

[root_thing]

Tina was ridiculously bad in the first half, throwing all kinds of dumb passes and settling for long jump shots. When Charles misses jump shots, it's almost always a one and done. When NY made their first couple of comeback attempts, Tina stopped the momentum by missing long shots. She has no sense of situational play. In her last three games, it's been two bad first halves and one entire bad game. That explains a lot of the problem.

On the bright side, NY is only one game away from skipping over the pack for 10th place. TANK!

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You can always do something else.

[Bob Lamm]

[NYL_WNBA_FAN]

Well, to add to the post by Root I thought her overall intensity just didn't amp up until Sugar gave the team a jolt. No pun intended. First play of the third quarter bounce pass from Z to where she expects Tina to be. She gets beat to the spot and reaches awkwardly with one hand. Turnover.

A short time later she lobs an inexplicable and uncatchable high-low pass up near the ceiling to Vaughn, who was surrounded by two people. Turnover.

Once Sugar got some run, Tina was passing and the offense was flowing. But 10 minutes of solid mental play out of the last 80 from our "leader" is nowhere near good enough. And I know she's asked to do a lot and I know she plays a ton of minutes. But that's the price of being the leader. And right now she isn't getting it done, from a mental/IQ standpoint. Not acceptable.

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The poster formerly known as LibWNBAFan.

[sigur3]

[LibFan25]

[NYL_WNBA_FAN]

What's very disappointing is we have the talent to be.

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The poster formerly known as LibWNBAFan.

[toad455]

Even playing poorly, I can't see us slipping below 8th and having teams like Indiana & Dallas both making the play-offs. We'll find our rhythm again. It would also be nice if Stokes showed up. Seems like once Vaughn came back, Stokes' A game went away.

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LET'S GO LIBERTY!!!!!!

Twitter: @TBRBWAY

[Shades]

[pilight]

[Shades]

Tan White has to be one of your more forgettable #2 picks.

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Nnekalonians 1:14 - Thou shalt not accept that which is not earned

[Randy]

[snlMINAJ]

is stokes hurt? is she just not getting time because her play isn't good?

i cant understand why she played 7 minutes and none in second half. furthermore, it looks like AZB is strictly tinas backup, but why not play a 3-post rotation of kia kiah and tina, regardless of which 2 start?

[LibFan25]

[Queenie]

If Tina could remember she's a post player before the fourth quarter of games that would be greaaaaaaaaaaat.

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"We all have a platform. We all have a voice & they all hold weight. Silence is a luxury."

[Ay Mate]

[NYL_WNBA_FAN]

It's pointless to talk about the lottery because the Liberty aren't going to be there unless they have more injuries. Seems like Tina becomes much more of a passer when Sugar's presence spreads the floor. It's also easier for her to score inside. Offensively we'll be fine if we can keep what he have healthy. Defense is anyone's guess.

Listening to Bill in the post game interviews of late, he seems to feel that execution solves everything. I don't agree. It solves some things but teams like Atlanta and CT (athletic teams with midrange elevators like Sykes and Williams) have confidence against us to hit tough shots because they know we don't have the defensive talent to contest them. Looking at Stokes, she missed 8 games last year where we were awful defensively. This year when she's a non-factor we tend to be bad or average at best defensively. It's not a small sample size anymore. It's 22 games going back to last year. Even worse, the rebounding isn't there consistently either.

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The poster formerly known as LibWNBAFan.

[Randy]

NY lost by 9. Dantas has been bricking 3's all season long, and before yesterday was at 16%. It made perfect sense to just leave her to brick. Except she made 3 in row. Even the best game plan can be killed by randomness. NY fans might be over thinking this.

[root_thing]

As I've been saying all along, Laimbeer is trying to figure it out. They lost three starters, and even though two were faux starters, it still changes the rotations. On top of that, I think he finally came to the realization that you can't win championships anymore playing 2000's grind-it-out basketball. So, he's trying to find some other way of playing. Then, throw in some real or self-inflicted problems with the young players, and now he really has a giant puzzle to solve. That four-game winning streak was a mirage. He was just piecing it together while Prince and Vaughn were away. Three of those games took advantage of Stokes pushing people around, but obviously opposing coaches were going to adjust. So, now Laimbeer is back to square one. The new stuff isn't working and the old stuff isn't working. The Liberty are now 7th in defensive rating and 9th in offense. That's probably not a lottery team, but it's bottom playoff with the trend going downward. I said after the 2014 season that Laimbeer should hire a lifer-type coach who knows everything about Xs and Os. I still think that's the case. He's a good leader in the sense that he communicates well and his players seem to like him. They play hard for him. I just don't think Bill is up to snuff when it comes to the Xs and Os, and it doesn't seem like Katie and Herb are helping either.

[snlMINAJ]

i think someone like stokes needs PT to flourish. 3-5 any given quarter does nothing. when she has played good, and NY has played good, she is on the floor for extended PT.

ugh i totally wish we had swords still instead of vaughn.

[Randy]

[Bob Lamm]

Made a comment here but have moved it to the New York Liberty page.

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