by James Bowman, AtlantaDream.net

The WNBA season in Atlanta has finally started!  Here is this week’s review, where I look at the performances of the Atlanta Dream over the past week (well, since Friday, anyway), take a look at the other high points of WNBA play and end with a WNBA power ranking.  Let’s get things started by turning the clock back to opening weekend on Friday.

New York Liberty 82, Atlanta Dream 73

New York’s season opener at Madison Square Garden was not a place of celebration for Atlanta Dream fans as the Liberty won 82-73 on Friday night.  The Liberty has now won the last four regular season games against Atlanta extending back into the 2014 season.

Kiah Stokes, one of two Liberty first round draft picks, got the start for the Liberty but as everyone knew from the start of the season New York is Tina Charles’s team now.  She scored 17 points and 12 rebounds in the Liberty victory.  The other highlight of the night for Liberty fans was the other first-rounder, Brittany Boyd who had a big debut with 14 points.

Atlanta started the game shooting well but Boyd – a “push guard” – put a lot of pressure on Dream point guard Shoni Schimmel.  Schimmel filled the box score – 10 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists – and can still fire a pass like no one’s business.  But Boyd put high pressure on Schimmel and played a very aggressive game, and it paid off for New York.

The Liberty led by nine, 30-21 at the end of the first quarter and extended their lead to 16 at one point in the second quarter.  Atlanta played a passive game and turnovers didn’t help.  The Dream turned the ball over 12 times in the first half compared to just five turnovers from New York.  Furthermore, three Atlanta starters – Tiffany Hayes, Erika de Souza, and Schimmel – labored under the burden of three first-half fouls.

After finishing the first half 51-38, Atlanta came out a lot stronger.  They managed to chop the Liberty lead down to four points (57-53) but there was just too much New York.  Angel McCoughtry tried to put the team on her back in the fourth quarter with eight of her 27 points coming in the final 10 minutes, but the Liberty held a double-digit lead for most of the fourth.

It was a bad game for the Dream post players.  De Souza finished with just 5 points/4 rebounds and Sancho Lyttle only had 4 points/3 rebounds.  Despite winning the offensive rebounding battle and holding New York to just four offensive rebounds, the Liberty scored 40 of its 82 points in the paint compared to just 24 by Atlanta.

McCoughtry led both teams with scoring 27 points and hitting 10 out of 10 free throws.  Tiffany Hayes scored 17 points followed by Shoni Schimmel with 10.  The bench only provided 10 of Atlanta’s points.

As for New York, the Liberty got big contributions from its bench.  Swin Cash shot 6-for-8 to score 15 points and Brittany Boyd had 14 points.  Tanisha Wright also scored 14 points for New York.

Tidbits

* McCoughtry picked up the game’s only technical foul, complaining to referee Tiara Cruse about a call in the fourth quarter.

* New York hit 21 out of 26 free throws, with Atlanta hitting 18 out of 22.

* When was the last time that Sancho Lyttle and Erika de Souza combined for less than 10 points?  No one keeps combination stats like that, but I looked through all of the 2014 box scores and didn’t find both players combined scoring that few points.

Quotes

Bill Laimbeer:  “At training camp I told you all that I didn’t know what we have. I still don’t know. But I know how we are going to play. I know that we are going to be intense and how hard we are going to play. I know the chemistry of our ball club. All of these were on display tonight… I’d love to win, but if we lost we wanted to put on a good show for the fans because that is who they are in the locker room… I like this basketball team. They play hard. Now we’ll see how it transfers into wins and losses.”

Angel McCoughry:  “It is just defense. Defense comes first and we didn’t play defensively. We let them do whatever they want. We played weak and let the Liberty push us around. We didn’t follow the game plan.”

Connecticut Sun 75, Atlanta Dream 70

On Sunday, the Dream hoped to extend their three-game streak of home opening wins, but it was not to be as Atlanta was held to 28 percent shooting in the second half against a Connecticut Sun team that set a franchise record for steals with 18 on the way to a 75-70 victory.

Atlanta held the lead for most of the game.  Sancho Lyttle struggled early on picking up three first-half fouls, but the Dream went on a 14-2 run between the first and second quarters to build up a 12-point lead, 30-18.  Connecticut started to speed things up with ex-Dream players Jasmine Thomas and Alex Bentley helping the Sun go on a 12-2 run to close to 32-30.

The Dream held a decisive rebounding advantage through the game.  They had outrebounded the Sun 27-10 in the first half, and Schimmel had as many rebounds (5) as all five Sun starters.

Unfortunately, Atlanta’s power on the boards was negated with poor ball protection.  Atlanta had 13 first-half turnovers and it seemed that whenever Atlanta would pick up steam, the team was just as quick to lose their advantage.  A 52-44 lead in the third was whittled away by a 10-0 Sun run as the Sun took the lead at 54-52 for the first time since the first quarter.  Defense was a nightmare, as eight of Connecticut’s 17 points were scored on fast break points.

Connecticut took a one-point lead into the fourth and Sun point guard Chelsea Gray – playing her first season in the WNBA after recovering from a broken kneecap in her senior year in college – scored eight points in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter, with six of those points on a pair of 3-point shots to put the Sun up by 62-55.  Connecticut built their lead up to 11 with 3:42 to go.  Angel McCoughtry was subbed out for Matee Ajavon with 3:38 left, but Connecticut failed to score for the next two minutes and Atlanta closed to 70-68 with 1:15 left.

Down 71-68 with 13.9 seconds left, the Dream had the ball and had a chance to tie.  However, Ajavon’s attempt to in-bound the ball from mid-court was stolen by Jasmine Thomas and Atlanta was forced to foul.  Connecticut’s next four points would come on free throws, and that would be enough to steal a win against the Dream.

For Atlanta, three players scored in double figures.  Sancho Lyttle had a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds.  Tiffany Hayes went 6-for-6 from the free throw line to score 12 points and Angel McCoughtry had 10 points.

As a team, the Dream had 51 rebounds – but 25 turnovers.

Four players for Connecticut scored in double digits:  Alex Bentley had 17 points against her former team, Chelsea Gray had 14, ex-Dream player Jasmine Thomas had 13 and Kelsey Bone had 11.

Tidbits

* The all-time record against Connecticut now shifts in Connecticut’s favor, 15-14.  The Dream also lost against Connecticut in their 2008 home opener.

* Atlanta tied a franchise record in rebounds with 51, the fifth game in Atlanta history with 51 rebounds.

* First round draft pick Samantha Logic scored her first WNBA points for Atlanta with a 3-pointer.

* Angel McCoughtry picked up her second technical foul in as many games.

Quotes

Alex Bentley on her performance:  “It was alright. I kind of don’t think about my performance until later when I watch film. I think, my team as a whole, we played well together. I’m really proud of them for battling and playing hard and we got the win. Coach Donovan told me, during halftime, to stay in the game. I wasn’t making the shots that I usually make early on so she was just making sure my head was straight and on.”

Michael Cooper on why the Dream lost:  “Defense. I think our pick and roll coverage definitively needs help on that. Again, with a core group I’m trying to implement some of the new people on the team — Roneeka (Hodges), Sam (Logic), getting them onto the flow of things. We didn’t get a lot of chance to work.”

Cooper on substituting McCoughtry for Ajavon:  “It’s coach’s decision. The team that we had out there I thought did a good job and they actually did a very good job for us, to get us within striking range. Had we not missed layups and thrown the ball away we probably would have won this game.”

Elsewhere in the W

* Elena Delle Donne scored 31 points as the Chicago Sky beat the Indiana Fever in a 95-72 home win on Friday night.  “I’m 100 percent right now,” Delle Donne says.   The 8,123 attendance was the largest opening day attendance in Chicago Sky history.

* The following night, the Sky went on the road and lost to the Tulsa Shock 101-93, but Delle Donne dropped 40 points on the unsuspecting Shock.

* The Indiana Fever lost their home opener 78-69 to the visiting Minnesota Lynx, but before tip-off Fever fans lit 3,712 glowsticks at the same time, setting a Guinness world record.

Power Rankings:

1. Storm: Enjoy your stay up here; it might be the only time you’re ranked #1.
2. Lynx: It looks like the Lynx have climbed on the steamroller again, but that Tulsa game was a scare.
3. Mystics: They wanted a good start this year; is 2-0 good enough?
4. Sky: Delle Donne is a female Atlas, with the Sky on her back.
5. Stars: It took home field advantage by Phoenix to hold off San Antonio.
6. Shock: Their showings against Minnesota and Chicago are real signs of improvement over previous seasons.
7. Liberty: Can it be fun to be a Liberty fan again?  Brittany Boyd might just make it so.
8. Sun: Connecticut hasn’t been as easy to beat as teams thought they would be.
9. Mercury: Phoenix needs Griner back, drama or no drama.
10. Dream: For a team that has won three conference titles, an 0-2 start is a disappointment.  But the last time we started 0-2, we ended up in the Finals.
11. Fever: Everyone in Indianapolis is praying that Catchings gets better.
12. Sparks: Sparks came out flat in Storm home opener, not the homecoming that new Sparks head coach Brian Agler wanted.